Waste not, want not: Why Lean and BIM are needed in construction By Cindy Chan
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says. According to Lewis, the eight wastes in manufacturing are overproduction, over-processing, excess inventory, defects, transportation, wasted motion, waiting time and unused employee genius. However, the two that occur most in construction are wasted motion and waiting time. “When you look at a construction job site, you would find the average construction worker is doing the work they’re supposed to be accomplishing 37 per cent of the time,” Lewis says. “The rest of the time is not necessarily purposely wasting time, but they are spending that time looking for the things they need to do their job — the power tool, the key to the job box, etc. There’s a lot of walking and wandering and trying to assemble all those things needed for a construction worker to
hen in the middle of a project, nothing is more frustrating than unexpected bumps in the road. However, Lean and Building Information Modeling (BIM) are principles and ideas that aim to reduce the amount of wasted time and energy in the construction industry. According to leanipd.com, Lean Integrated Project Delivery “combines lean management principles with a collaborative aligned team and contract structure to improve the outcome of construction projects.” Lean itself is the process of eliminating waste from the manufacturing process. “Lean first came into play as a method from the manufacturing industry to increase efficiency and decrease waste,” Keir Lewis, owner of Lewis Sheet Metal,
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40 Vancouver Island Construction Association 2019
just do their job. Our focus is to try to get rid of that so the productive work can flow.” “The construction industry is an incredibly wasteful one in general,” Gavin Chamberlain, owner and operator of Heritage Masonry Limited, says. “Lean, to me, is all about efficiency.” For Chamberlain, he and his team often employ the pull planning method, one of the principles of Lean, in their work. Pull planning involves working from a target completion date backwards. This way, tasks are already predetermined, defined and sequenced. “We would find out when the project would need to be completed by, then figure out how many weeks it will take to be completed, where the materials will come from and so on,” Chamberlain explains. Heritage Masonry also uses Lean by keeping an organized yard. Every piece of equipment is assigned a proper place, so when someone needs to use a tool, they need to sign it out by recording their name, date and the job site to which they are taking the tool. Afterwards, the tool needs to be returned in its original location as recorded. “We also have an ordering system that requires all materials that are required for the whole project need to be delivered and on site before the project starts,” Chamberlain adds. Chamberlain attended the Vancouver Island Construction Association (VICA) Lean Bootcamp workshop in the late fall of 2018. Chamberlain recalls one exercise in which he and the other participants built a house out of building blocks.
