Here are a few things to consider to ensure that your Lean Construction journey is successful and sustainable:

Consultants

Is there a role and need for consultants?

The short answer is yes, construction organizations need consultants, but only to get started on the Lean journey. To be successful with Lean, organizations must ultimately "own" 100% of their Lean activities. Some consultants want to "feed a man a fish" rather than "teach a man to fish" and make the organization entirely independent of them. So choose wisely. Choosing wisely means that, when a consultant is engaged, their exit strategy is also immediately developed. Ultimately, when properly selected, Lean consultants provide a lot of value and will ensure the organization starts the Lean journey headed in the right direction. Here are some guidelines for the role of Lean consultants: 

• They have "fresh" objective eyes to tell the organization what is really going on in contrast to the Leadership Team's perceptions.
• They will do the initial Lean training, including Policy Deployment.
• They provide guidance on selecting your Lean Facilitator (see below).
• They will train, coach, and mentor the Lean Facilitator. Their goal is to transfer all their knowledge to the facilitator.
• They will make available all training materials that they use at the company to the facilitator for their use.
• They will train the Lean Facilitator and other selected team members on how to do Kaizen Events.
• They will schedule one-day return visits every 6 months after their exit. 

Beware of consultants who: 

• Want to postpone the development of an exit strategy
• Tell you Lean Construction is only about the 5S's and Last Planner™/Project Schedule and Lean's principal use is only at the jobsite
• Do not insist that you need a Lean Facilitator
• Want only to do Kaizen Events
• Do not mention Lean as a Business Operating System for your organization
• Do not mention Policy Deployment as one of the first steps in your Lean journey

Organizational Assessments

Any improvement or transformation starts with understanding where the organization is currently in terms of a leadership, culture, and operational standpoint-the baseline. Very few companies have a good understanding of their baseline. Unless an organization has annual associate surveys conducted by a company outside the organization, the Leadership's Team perceptions and organizational reality are rarely close. Therefore, annual organizational surveys and assessments are valuable tools for associate feedback as a double check on leadership, culture, and operations activities.

Additionally, organizational assessments are extremely valuable to your Lean consultant. They provide an education about the entire organization that allows the consultant to hit the ground running for Lean training and Policy Deployment activities.

An organizational assessment begins with an on-line survey that is completed by a cross-section of the organization. This is followed up by a 3-4 day, on-site interview activity that develops this baseline by reviewing the status of the following three critical elements of a Lean transformation: 

• The Leadership Team and management's readiness to change, support change, and participate in a Lean Implementation. The transformation starts here.
• The current level of associate empowerment and teamwork in the organization (determined by the survey and the random associate interviews). To become a World Class Organization, everyone in the organization must become involved and participate.
• A review and comparison of the organization's current goals with Lean's ability to eliminate waste and improve the organization's processes.

Lean Training and Implementation Order

There is no cookie-cutter for the Lean training and implementation order. No two organizations are alike, especially in their starting point. The following

template/guidelines are typical recommendations that may need to be revised or rearranged based on the organization's Lean exposure, Lean experience, and financial situation.

This list does not include Lean enabler activities/meetings and announcements that would be necessary if this was the organization's initial kick-off of a Lean journey.

• A passion for Lean
• Good with people, excellent communicator
• No baggage (respected by everyone in the organization)

2) Develop/reiterate organization's goals (Safety,

     Operating Income, Cash Flow, Revenue, ROIC, etc.)

3) Brainstorm opportunities to achieve goals

4) Define parameters to value opportunities

5) Establish weighting requirements, rate

     opportunities, and prioritize

6) Conduct a reality check-will the brainstormed ideas

     achieve the goals?

7) Develop Lean Implementation Plan

8) Cascade company goals into operational metrics and

     develop Bowling Chart

9) Determine countermeasures-A3 Team Based

     Problem Solving, Error Proofing, and DMAIC 10) How to conduct monthly Business Reviews

       -deployment follow up

5. Begin enabler activities, Value Stream Mapping, and other Kaizen Event activities as identified in the Deployment Plan. 

• Conduct roll-out activities for the plan that management developed, making sure all the metrics are visual. 

6. Follow-up, review, and adjust on a continuing basis.

This means doing the following: 

• Conducting monthly Business Reviews
• Adjusting your plan as markets and customer requirements change
• Making the Policy Deployment activity part of how the organization does business 

At the six-month and one-year points in the implementation, the outside consultant should conduct one-day reviews to look for gaps or problems in the completeness of the training or the Lean Implementation Plan, as well as to determine the developmental status of the Lean Facilitator.

In addition, remember that Policy Deployment is an annual process, just like the budgeting process it can usually replace. Start the PD process as early as possible, and for the best PD results, involve as many members of the organization as possible.