Couldn’t make the 2021 AWP Lean Conference? Check out the below highlights from some of the sessions.
AWP Essentials
AWP SMEs discussed what Advanced Work Packaging is and the essentials to implement it.
Culture is essential to the success of Advanced Work Packaging. The entire team and organization must “buy in” to the concept of AWP in order for it to work. AWP organizational culture “demonstrates care for the field workforce through timely interactive planning…PoC, managing CWPs and EWPs, and issuing constraint-free IWPs that support safe, productive, and rewarding workface execution.”
AWP can only be successful if you take the time to plan in “advanced”. This is through five key points:
Construction defines the PoC
Align all stakeholders before the funding estimate
Structured process to ensure consistent execution
Dedicated planners to keep the foreman with the crew
Prepare constraint-free work packages to the craft
The big takeaway is that you can start doing AWP and immediately see gains.
Lean Essentials
The biggest concept with Lean Construction is to emphasize people and safety over processes and to eliminate waste.
It’s like AWP in that you must bring in teams early and start with the big picture in mind to effectively work together.
Some key Lean facts: A lean project is two times more likely to be completed under budget than non-lean project.
Some of the big benefits to lean include:
Safer working environment
Fewer incidents and injuries
More efficient projects
Increased productivity
Satisfied stakeholders
SWOT Analysis of AWP and Lean
Lean and AWP can complement each other nicely where Lean is a focus on people and tools and AWP is focused on process and digital tools. The important commonality is that Owners must drive Lean and AWP because General Contractors don’t want to do either on their own.
Lean and AWP both focus on the team collaborating to achieve success.
STRENGTHS: Culture, People, Structured Process
WEAKNESS: Lean is not a holistic project delivery process and is unstructured. AWP has a lack of industry experts.
OPPORTUNITIES: the ability to collaborate and work together
THREATS: there were not any threats explicitly covered in the presentation
Industrialized Construction – Transformation through DATA for Manufacture and Assembly
This session was all about the importance of prefabrication and how it affects industrialized construction.
One of the key takeaways was that we’re no longer in an “industry” but an entire “ecosystem of industries” thanks to the convergence of technology. A great example of this would be your cell phone and how you no longer only use your phone to call people but to use apps, email, and the internet all from your phone.
The other big takeaway was that we need to stop paying people for waste or rather “cash for chaos”. The way to change is through the stakeholders that have the most to gain, they need to influence the need for change.
Another big key point was that the “future is product-led and informed design”
The Spectrum of Approaches to Contract Strategy
Collaborative contracting works
Relational contracting approaches can reduce risk and improve outcomes
Predictability provides early certainty
Competition and collaboration are not mutually exclusive
Design-bid-build is almost certainly not getting you the best price
Traditional contracting strategies can benefit from implementing some of the elements of collaborative contracting and become collaborative-ish
AWP and Lean Moderated Panel: How Projects Are Planned / Executed
Early involvement of all designers/builders using multi-party contract
Set-based design with target value delivery
Last planner system
Respect for people
Understand CSU priorities and business objectives
Get construction rep ASAP to optimize plot plan, define CWAs, CWPs, PoC
Secure alignment with interactive planning sessions
Procurement strategy, detailed plan, secure client/team agreement on procurement approval steps and durations prior to Interactive planning session
