Location-based management is being implemented in many US projects, especially in hospital construction. Because the management system is new in this market, many contractors have a hard time figuring out what is the best way to get started. By starting, I do not mean training with Control software, because that is the easiest part of implementation.

Getting the real value out of location-based management requires a lean approach to production - a decision to fight waste in all its forms and increase productivity of all stakeholders in the project. Successful implementation requires certain transparency and open discussions about production problems. Subcontractors need to share information about their production rates and productivity. General Contractors need to accept the coordination role of subcontractors, instead of working just as a contract broker with a hands-off approach. General Contractors should not hide or accept production problems, but take ownership and push for early resolution. Because of this transparency, location-based management works best with new contract forms, such as IPD. However, almost all projects completed with LBMS (location-based management system)have used traditional contract forms and still received a lot of benefits from greater transparency.

Because implementing location-based management means that the management philosophy of the project will change, all participants in the project should understand it and be able to contribute to its success. Especially drywall and MEP subcontractor buy-in is critical. To gain acceptance, the best way in my experience, had been to organize a series of workshops where subcontractors and other team members learn LBMS, and are able to contribute to critical decisions about the production system.

The goal of the first workshop is to demonstrate the planning and control functions of LBMS and discuss how each party will be effected by the implementation: what are the information requirements and benefits for each subcontractor?

The goal of the second workshop is to decide the location breakdown structure of the project which works for most subcontractors. Typically, each project has at least three different location breakdown structures: structure, exterior, and interior. Structural and exterior breakdowns typically effect fewer subcontractors, so most of the time is typically spent planning the interior location breakdown. The best way to run the workshop is to use drawings and have each subcontractor describe how they see the project – which areas they can complete before moving to the next area. There are always some tasks which do not follow other breakdowns (such as wiring of electrical systems) but it is typically possible to find a breakdown which is a good fit for most subcontractors. The result of the workshop is a marked-up set of drawings which will be distributed to participants to form a common understanding of locations used in the project.

The susequent workshops concentrate on a given construction phase or locations – such as Foundations or Rough-in and finishes in corridors. These are logic workshops where the task list of the project is finalized and dependencies between tasks are decided. Subcontractors typically say that GCs try to enforce sub-optimal logic on them based on their previous template projects. When I have run such logic workshops, I typically see that different teams of subcontractors and the General Contractor will decide on different sequences. Often innovations emerge: things can be done in a different sequence if design is changed. The goal is to find and commit to an optimal sequence of tasks in each main location type (for example, corridors, lobbies, office rooms, operating rooms, etc.).

Once list of tasks and locations is known and quantities are available from the 3D model, it is then easy to build the schedule. Subcontractor productivity rates (manhours / unit) and resource constraints are needed at this point. My approach has been that the General Contractor puts together the first draft which meets all the contractual milestone dates and then the schedule is iterated and optimized in workshops by using Flowline visualization and resource graphs as communication tools. Typically, resources required to achieve the deadline based on productivity rates are different than what subcontractors anticipated. This will often lead to more innovation – how to increase productivity or to change sequence so that resource constraints are achieved.

Planning should not be left to the scheduler or superintendent alone. To get maximized benefits, the knowledge of the whole team should be utilized.

Read more about lean concepts for construction in other blog posts:

Scheduling with Lean Principles (Part 1)

Scheduling AND Controlling with Lean Principles (Part 2)

With these insights, are you ready to take the Vico Scheduling Challenge?  How do you organize the project team for optimal performance on-site?  Share your best practices in the Comments section.