Lean Construction Seen In Practice
A few days ago, I visited Fira's apartment building site in Kivist?, a district in Helsinki metropolitan area.
A site visit is a good reminder of how jobs are done in practice, not in theory or PowerPoint slides.
The Kivist? site looked very clean and orderly. But it was not the only thing that made it stand out. The project uses Takt, a form of lean construction.
Takt in a nutshell
Takt production in construction involves dividing the total project time into equal intervals (takt time) and assigning each task or work sequence within these intervals. The fundamental principle is to synchronize all activities to ensure every task starts and finishes within its allotted takt time. This creates a continuous, smooth, and predictable workflow.
Takt production happens in designated Takt areas. An area can be, for example, an apartment.
The Fira site's interior finishing phase?has a four-hour Takt. In other words, an installer or team completes their work package every four hours.
A package can be, for example, spreading a floor smoothing compound, a laminate floor installation, a door installation, trim-fitting, installation of kitchen fixtures, and final cleaning. They make up a "train" in which these "wagons" are in the same order throughout the project.
What's the difference?
Takt offers a way to reduce waste in construction because it eliminates traditional process buffers. That, of course, requires collaborative planning, commitment to the plan, and precision in execution.
The following diagrams visualize the difference between conventional and Takt production. Figure 2 illustrates how large locations have been replaced with smaller Takt areas and tasks broken down into smaller batches.
Measurable benefits
Some of the benefits of Takt production include:
As far as I can tell from the site visit, Takt worked there as planned and delivered the expected results.
The future
Finnish contractors have welcomed Takt. Over the last few years, over 500 projects have used the model to some degree.
Everyone admits that it's still a learning process, and some worry about focusing too much on lead time reduction.
In any case, Takt is here to stay and takes construction one step further toward industrialized production.
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Author / Senior Lecturer-Western Sydney University / Fellow AIB / Senior Lecturer-IATC
1 年I hope this adds to the conversation - our 5-page book analysis of Mike Rother's Toyota Kata - applying it to construction contracting and touching on Takt Time - just posted on Linkedin: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/matt-stevens-phd-faib-4867b45_toyota-kata-book-analysis-activity-7129421875079770112-bep0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop