Lean Integrated Delivery is not just a “new and improved” project delivery method. It is a valuable process for maximizing Value to all participants on the Program while simultaneously eliminating Waste, Risk, and Uncertainty. Given the unprecedented global scale of the Meta Project and the disarray in current global coordination, it is a process that is necessary, timely, and well-suited to task at hand.
A purpose of this Guide is to instruct IPD Teams, on-site workers and trade partners in how the Program is to be delivered. Because lean design-build principles and Integrated Delivery processes are relatively New, it is important to understand that there is deep Wisdom in this tradition, and more than mere contractual reasons for implementing these principles. When the future of life on earth hangs in the balance, operating in the wisest and most effective Way we possibly can is of utmost importance. It is for this very reason this Lionsberg Integrated Delivery System is being progressively Realized.
Traditionally, projects have been delivered by separate groups of companies held together by a series of contracts. The interest of each company was in fulfilling its distinct contractual obligations and earning as much money as it could within the confines of its discrete contract.
This same logic can be found in competing non-profit organizations, government institutions, nation-states, and ideological or religious denominations of various types. The emphasis has been on the self-interested completion of siloed activities without an eye towards overall quality, cost or safety across the Whole. Waste, cost overruns, and injury on such projects is relatively predictable. It is easy to see how this applies to Worksite Earth as a whole.
The Integrated Delivery model changes the focus of the discrete teams. It creates a single team from the earliest planning stages that carries on through design, implementation, and activation. It provides for three connected opportunities on projects. First, it allows all members of the project team the opportunity for impeccable coordination of the work between them. Second, it views projects not as discrete tasks to be accomplished, but rather as a large production system that can be as efficient and predictable as a manufacturing assembly line. Finally, it gives the parties the opportunity to view the project as a collective enterprise, one in which they all have a stake. There is only one vision. One intention. One planet. One goal. One highest intention and greatest good for the best and highest future of life aboard Worksite: Earth.
IPD makes projects more predictable and hence safer. It uses cost up-front as design criterion rather than as support for a back-end claim. It drives efficiency into the process, thus increasing value to the owner and driving out wasteful redundancy (rework, trade damage, etc.). It improves quality by making each trade responsible for assuring that the work of the trade that came before it meets the project’s quality standards. All project participants have a joint financial interest in assuring that the project is delivered on time, on or under budget and without claims. Those are the promises of lean and IPD, but how do these principles work to make that happen?
Lean construction seeks to eliminate non value-adding activities, promote “Flow” and makes Conversion Activities more efficient.
Flow of Work refers to the movement of information and resources through networks of autonomous specialists.
Conversion Activities are the many different transformations that that occur on projects, for instance transforming or converting framing to drywall.
Lean Integrated Delivery concentrates on the Flow of Work through subsequent transformations, to prevent Actors from waiting on Work, and to prevent Work from waiting on Actors.
Continuous Improvement continuously improves Throughput of these fFlows.
Concurrent design of the Program, Project, and Process levels means that the design of “what” is to be built reflects deep consideration and optimization of “how” it will be built and operated. Integrated Delivery recognizes that the Quality and Success of the “end” Goal is already inherent in the “means” used to get there.
Thus, lean design incorporates work structuring, strategic sourcing, materials procurement and flow, built-in quality and safety as design elements.
Finally, production control through something like the Last Planner System and Continuous Improvement will continually inform goal delivery so no “conversion” is lost or missing but so that every failure in “conversion” is immediately fixed by adjusting the Flow on the project.
The planning and promising of what Work will be completed is done every day, on the front lines where the work will be done, by those who will do it, through the Last Planner System.
The Milestones created through Pull Planning processes, and the corresponding promises made through the Last Planners, form the basis of the logical Network of Commitments that produce Throughput of the Goal.
Commitments that cannot be met mean that the team meets to adjust the Plan and the subsequent Handoff Points of the Work so that critical Milestones do not slip.
The master schedule is not adjusted in the traditional way of adding six days to the end date when six days are lost in any one “conversion.” Rather, schedule items are de-coupled and the work re-planned in ways to maximize Flow across the Program and prevent key Milestone dates from slipping.
Program participants must understand how and why these processes work and be skilled in making them happen. Mentoring and Education of new Actors is addressed at each local work site, as well as on the level of the Whole.
But the essential responsibility to participate in these processes—to make the Program a success and thereby ensure the success of all Participants—lies with each individual on every Project.
The Network of Commitments starts and ends with the performance of individuals against the thousands of every day promises made by people on the Project, and their commitment to accomplish those promises in accordance with the IPD Behaviors and Cultural Code.