Lean and agile

Bob Owen, Senior Research Fellow, Salford Centre for Research & Innovation, Salford University, reviews an important project management event.

The newly appointed pro-vice chancellor for research and innovation at Salford University, Professor Ghassan Aouad, opened the Lean & Agile project management forum conference in Manchester and welcomed nearly 200 delegates who would attend over the next seven days from all over the world, from many different sectors and backgrounds, both academic and industrial.

Graham Woodward, deputy chairman of APM, also welcomed all and discussed the successful continuing relationship between the APM and the Salford Centre for Research & Innovation (SCRI).

The event was co-chaired by Greg Howell, co-founder and managing director of the Lean Construction Institute and Bob Owen, senior research fellow in SCRI and organiser of the event on behalf of SCRI and APM.

Bob provided a foundation for the following speakers by recapping on the differences between lean and agile, and between product development and production.

The aims of the day were to address potential improvements in the longitudinal (process), vertical (supply chain) and tangential (regulatory) domains.

The initial round table discussions were designed to gain understanding as to the starting knowledge and practices of the attendees. Key points emerging from our extremely enthusiastic and informative attendees included that involving the right people early was vital and that agile methods can really add value.

Traditional gateway and Prince 2 processes and methods were more suited to large and safety critical projects but were nevertheless sub-optimal, Bob said. Greater stakeholder integration was seen as vital.

Chris Biggins, senior procurement manager at Laing ORourke, discussed supply chain rationalisation and specialist procurement management. The value of supply chain integration lies in true cost acknowledgement and in exploring simple ways of cutting out waste through better communication, he said.

(Above: Supply similarity - The Supply Chain 21 initiative is similar to the production by projects methodology in the aerospace industry)

Karl Smith, senior advisor of the Society of Motor Manufacturers Industry Forum, discussed its Supply Chain 21 initiative - change management for supply chains (see left). Supply Chain 21 has adopted the Kawasaki lean production process as it more accurately approximates to production by projects in the aerospace and defence industries. This is already resulting in efficiency improvements and waste reduction.

Sir Howard Bernstein, chief executive of Manchester City Council, reflected upon the recent successes of Manchester in regeneration and the Commonwealth Games. Manchester City is still the third most deprived area of the country; however, the Council has executed plans to connect wealth and mixed communities and programmes of work integrating schemes and developing framework agreements.

(Above: Economic benefits - Sir Howard Bernstein revealed that the massive infrastructure investment in Manchester will be hugely beneficial to the city.)

The Council ensures that its supply chains work seamlessly to ensure better quality through good management. It is at the leading edge of good project management practice within UK Local Government.

In response to some enthusiastic questioning, Sir Howard revealed that the recently announced massive transport infrastructure investment will be too big for the existing Council frameworks and supply chains, but that it will yield a three to fourfold economic benefit to the city, compared to the headline investment figure.

Neil Nickolaisen, CIO and director of Strategic Planning Headwaters Inc, considered how organisations can benefit in the market place using his purpose alignment model to define how good it is. He explained that defining decision filters to align with strategy produces benefits, and the enhancement of sustainable competitive advantage. This is a common sense approach to project planning and design.

Greg Howell explored the development of project management. He said that the critical path method (CPM) allows project managers to manage time but not cost. Project management was initially used to maximise accountancy controls by ensuring that each task had a cost allocated to it.

Separate functions considered how people could use their time better, or health and safety, or value. Integration of these considerations, together with good planning helped improve the predictability of work flow. However, people still concentrate on different elements of the project and budget.

Building information modelling can be used as a facilitating technology in improving the efficiency of construction project management.

Will Lichtig, shareholder and special counsel at McDonough Holland & Allen, spoke of collaboration and what it means in terms of trust and keeping promises.

A systems view is required, considering the interests of those concerned, and a sustainable solution developed. By fully integrating the project team, the level of common understanding is greatly enhanced and brought forward during a project. Relational contract terms for a collective enterprise involve sharing profit and managing risk.

Follow-up workshops on lessons learned during each of the days included:

• Team-working/collaboration is essential
• Constant learning/introduce feedback cycles
• Promoting lean working
• Concentrate on value
• Think of the bigger picture/whole process
• Drop traditional tendering
• Shared pain (risk) and gain
• Framework agreements
• Early stakeholder involvement
• Learn from other industries
• Identification of wasteful processes

The attendees then went on to develop how to implement these lessons in their own environments and how to understand when success would be achieved.

Final presenter was Peter Warner, UK sales manager for Yorkon Ltd, who discussed advanced lean construction manufacturing. He explained the changes that have occurred in off-site manufacturing in terms of design and aesthetics.

Off-site can now produce concrete able to withstand a great weight and be finished with, for example, terrazo finishes to match adjacent, earlier buildings. Also buildings can be built off-site with curves, dips and valleys, and even cantilevers. There are no labour or material waste problems; it is not the old methods that point to the future.