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“When people hear the words Lean Construction, they think of pull-planning, but that’s just one component,” says Chris Floyd. “The fundamental values include continuous improvement through investing in our people to provide more value for our customers.” 

The concepts can be adapted to work well with C.E. Floyd’s mission and culture. Floyd sees Lean as a framework that can help C.E. Floyd achieve better performance, while making the company a better place to work.

He elaborates, “Investing in our people, developing a strong team environment and focusing on what is best for the project have always been key goals for us. This makes the Lean concepts a natural cultural fit.”

Empowering our people

C.E. Floyd has always challenged employees to ask, “How am I creating more value for the client?” This question naturally leads to a focus on continuous improvement. The company is open to trying ideas that come from all areas of the organization. We do the things we do because they work, and they are effective, not because they were dictated from the top. Some examples where employee’s ideas have become the norm include our closeout process, digital punchlist and software changes. 

Getting started with Lean 

We’re currently working with a consultant to pilot Lean on one project in Massachusetts and one in Connecticut. We’ve also recently completed an in-house Lean training program with our consultant for many employees throughout different departments of C.E. Floyd. We established three goals for our Lean training, which we’ll discuss in a later post:  

1. Begin using a six-week work plan
2. Develop and manage constraint logs
3. Begin to work with A3 problem-solving 

Lean delivers results 

The operational excellence focus for Lean is based on a strong, collaborative planning process, disciplined focus on meeting commitments or adjusting the plan if needed and creating very strong consistency and reliability in delivery. The reality is that many of the concepts we have learned so far are similar to how some of our superintendents were already running their projects. However, with Lean there is a more systematic and team-oriented approach. Truly achieving excellent results through adopting Lean concepts will take time and focus, but, with the right people, we can realize substantial improvements in our work starting with our first projects, then building on the successes from there.

Contact us to see how we can help you with your next construction project.

This is the first post in a series where we will be chronicling our Lean Construction journey.