Public works agencies in U.S. look to Japan for best practices in delivering more projects within budget Brian MacClaren Chief Operating Officer NOVACES, LLC New Orleans, Louisiana or a country that only takes up 0.25% of the world’s land surface, it is amazing that Japan suffers about 25% of the total impact from the world’s natural disasters. It can be understood why Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) is responsible for 80% of all the construction projects in the country. That’s between 20,000 and 30,000 newly commissioned projects each year. With the same budget crisis that has affected the U.S. public agencies since
the economic downturn in 2008, it is a wonder that they were able to cut construction timelines by over 20% and costs by 30%, yet deliver more projects.
National Highway Office for MLIT, decided, “As our office had been wanting to make drastic business improvements, we implemented Critical Chain Project Management.”
As a result of the high demand for projects to quickly develop, maintain, or repair public infrastructure, workers there were operating at very high stress levels. After long periods of excessive amounts of overtime, productivity was poor and costs were quickly adding up. Leaders like Yoshichika Takai, director of Meishi
Critical chain, a project management strategy and philosophy invented in the late 1990s, represents the next major step in how projects are managed by organizations. This strategy includes many aspects of the traditional project management approach as well as various new capabilities. Most organizations that
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124 APWA Reporter
August 2012
