Construction and planning

Lessons from cycle 3 were applied in this cycle, including that the introduction of too many LPs, unfamiliar with planning concepts, quickly destabilises the WWP meetings. In addition, it was demonstrated that issues with the CPM schedule presents a barrier to the successful implementation of the WWP. The construction phase, as always was informed by discussion with previously engaged and new stakeholders. The planning cycle was less involved than on the other works. Practically the same supervision and same crews undertook this cycle as cycle 3, with some additional scaffolding supervisors and scaffolding crews as discussed.

5.4.2 Taking Action

5.4.2.1 The Daily Huddle (DH)

This DH took some time to become re-established. This was in part due to the introduction of some new supervisory staff on this scope of work with no previous exposure to the tool. The slow response and the eventual reestablishment of the tool is described below. As noted the continued engagement of EPCM management facilitated understanding and a relatively fast embedment of the DH.

Wednesday: 7:55- 8:05 am; Temp; 28º C and Sunshine

DH on LNG 1. This was very disjointed and it took a good while to get everyone together.

People were unsure of the expectations. EPCM 01 was present and then explained what

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the expectations were. This was IC 05’s first time to lead and he was also a bit unsure, but did a good job under the circumstances. EPCM 01 waylaid an EPCM #4 superintendent who gave a quick description of their work to the group. EPCM #2 (another EPCM contractor) leading hands and supervisors, their interest piqued, also came across to see what was going on. Following late start last crew at workface at 8:50 (DH 5: evolution of practice).

The DH carried on as part of the daily routine. It had become the “way we do things”.

Date: Friday 7:45- 7:50am; temp; 31º C and sunshine Meeting DH

This was a good DH. Led by IC 05. Stood in the middle of the group. EPCM #4 (not part of the research) were involved in this. Crews got to work relatively quickly with last crew on workface by 8:20. (DH 6: engagement, synchronisation).

After some initial inertia, the DH became embedded relatively quickly, particularly in comparison with the previous cycles. The DH ran in parallel with the WWP, with implementation outcomes described below.

5.4.2.2 Weekly Work Plan (WWP)

This was the first time that two WWP meetings for two different projects ran simultaneously. As in previous cycles, there was positive input from the EPCM site management, who attended the WWP meetings, outlining expectations and how the process could assist in workflow organisation. The use of language was striking, with the WWP co-ordinator now beginning to use the term “commitment “for work last planners (LPs) promised to complete in the upcoming week.

Tuesday 1:30-2:00pm Meeting: WWP meeting

Attendance: Mark, EPCM 09, IC 01, IC 05, IC 09, EPCM 01

EPCM 01 gave a talk on what was involved in the WWP and IC 01 added to this description.

The teams were split into DG2 and LNG1, who went to separate rooms. IC 01 is beginning to understand the concept of constraints and conveyed this to the group. Good interaction between the LPs. The WWP meeting the researcher attended was producing production

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planning for LNG 1. IC 01 was asking people if they could commit to the activities IC 05 (DG2) came back and checked that the plan was OK, there was still a bit of confusion about the concept of constraints.

The Scaffolding LP IC 09, committed to an ambitious amount of work on LNG 1 and before he could fully commit, said he would have to get the commitment from his leading hands. I have never seen this practice before and there is no evidence in industry literature of this happening. This is an interesting development. (WWP 12; use of language, evolution, synchronisation).

This was the first time the researcher had witnessed a LP explain that he needed commitments from his leading hands before he could commit to the activities proposed at the WWP meeting. He was operationalising the maxim that you cannot make commitments for someone else and he also noted that this would make life a lot easier for him as this process ensured early involvement of the leading hands on planning layouts and materials organisation requirements. The WWP meetings continued with the following as an example:

Sun 1:00 pm-1:30pm; Temp; 27º C and Sunshine Meeting; WWP

Present: IC 01, IC 09, IC 06, IC 05, IC 07

This went well for LNG 1, IC 09 reported on last week’s work. He said that his PPC was 50% but a check later showed that it was 75%; He wasn’t included for jobs that were completed late in the period. (WWP 13: engagement).

This was one of the first times that the PPC were being consistently recorded in this range. Previously all the PPC’s tended to be around the 100% level, indicating that the LP’s were under-committing on expectations. It was apparent that both the scaffolding supervisors on LNG 1 who were acting as the LPs had grasped the concepts very early on and were comfortable with the process. Following some conversations, it transpired that they had worked in the UK construction industry where they noted that there was an expectation that supervisors should plan work on a weekly look ahead basis. As discussed in cycle 3, very few of the supervisory staff possessed this knowledge, an issue reflected on as follows.

136 Reflection on the level of planning abilities

I had reflected on the reasons why there seemed to be such difficulty in getting the WWP embedded as part of the way of doing things. I had taken it for granted that all supervisor staff would be familiar with short term planning and can read a simple bar chart. This did not appear to be case with a large proportion of the supervision who found it a stressful and intimidating process trying to understand the primavera CPM scheduling being used on the refurbishment scope of works. (MEMO 9; lack of training)

Care was taken that the LPs understood the mechanics of planning in general and the WWP. The researcher also continued to use boundary objects such as WWP advice for implementation (figure 5:10). The WWP meetings then started to gain embedment.

5.4.2.3 Pull Planning

Pull planning completes the LPS suite of tools where a pull approach is used to develop longer term planning, typically in a three to four month look ahead in a project. This approach utilises the knowledge, experience and insights of the decision makers involved in upcoming work scope. People involved in this planning exercise may include the project management team, project engineers, superintendents and supervisors. This is the most time consuming and difficult tool to implement and it took a considerable amount of work and effort to get to this point.

The researcher organised a meeting with EPCM and SC management staff to describe the mechanics of pull planning and potential outcomes. People were generally keen on the idea in principle, but found the concept of the reverse pass scheduling a difficult one to grasp. They also felt that the process would be too time consuming. Following this feedback, the researcher organised a workshop to demonstrate the concepts.

Sat 1:00 pm Temp; 27º C and Sunshine Meeting: Pull planning session

Present, EPCM 02, EPCM 05, EPCM 07, IC 01, and IC 08 (IC 01 planner) EPCM 03 (planner).

This went quite well. I rolled the sheet of A1 paper out and showed everyone how the planning worked, there were some questions from EPCM 05 as to what level from the

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schedule the pull planning would use. He was very keen on the pull planning, saying that it would give him insight as to what was required to happen out on the field. I started the planning and people were getting involved in it and quite keen. The consensus was that it couldn’t be used on the DG 2 shut now or the LNG 1 but it would be useful to use on some of the upcoming smaller scope (WS 1.1: engagement).

However, despite the enthusiasm, attempts to follow up and organise some actual pull planning workshops proving futile. Time availability was the main reason given for failure to continue.

5.4.2.4 Team work design (TWD) implementation

Figure 5:15- rope access (DOC 12: evolution of practice) Figure 5:16 scaffolding access (DOC 13: evolution of practice) There were further attempts to implement the TWD tool in this cycle. In one instance 6 inspectors attended a workshop, using the boards above to develop ideas for standard work development. Two work types were addressed which was inspections off scaffolding and inspections from rope access.

Several ideas were proposed which included improved collaboration with scaffolders to ensure locations were correct and use maximised, increased use of models, improved bags to carry tools and drawings. The use of the white boards (figures 5:15, 5:16) aided better interaction than witnessed in previous cycles. Again, the participants engaged, with innovative ideas discussed. However, there was no opportunity to test the proposals in PDCA cycles to develop standard work.

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