Lean Integrated is working with Bayley Construction at the Macy’s retail store in downtown Seattle. The project includes a full seismic retrofit of this 8-story facility located on the largest single block in the city. The top three floors will be completely cleared, ready for tenant improvements. A covered clerestory addition to the roof will include a central public area. The seismic upgrade includes seven concrete shear walls spanning the full height of the building, sitting on footings placed three levels below the ground floor. Each of these shear walls are connected by thousands of feet of 1” thick 18”x20’ steel tube. Much of this tube is running through the ceilings of the remaining four floors of the Macys retail store. These spaces are operating retail facilities during the day and heavy construction zones during the night.
Access to the Macys store presents a challenging work environment for this unique, complex project. All four streets surrounding the building are main thoroughfares with two “mail truck” sized loading docks located on the west side. Installing a tower crane presented its own challenge, eventually placed through an airshaft near the center of the building. Thousands of tons of construction debris and concrete were removed through small airshafts in two yard buckets hoisted by the tower crane or removed manually through the freight elevator. Thousands of yards of soil were also removed from the sub-sub basement in preparation for the shear wall footings, using the same methods.
The Bayley team is applying the Lean Construction process to this project. Beginning with the Last Planner Schedule, using the pull planning method, the Bayley team in collaboration with the trades, constructed the weekly plan for the duration of the project. The complexity of the job quickly became evident as they constructed the 6 week look ahead in support of the last planner schedule. The twelve panels in this photo are each 10ft. tall. The six panels to the right are simply a vertical continuation of the 6 panels to the left. In other words, this 6 week look ahead is 20ft. tall.
On any given day, approximately 40 tasks, assigned to any number of 22 trades, are scheduled for completion. The smooth continuity of this project relies on accurate planning and execution. Bayley construction holds daily meetings with all trade management present from both day and night shifts. These are three part meetings 1) post-it by post-it, did we execute the previous day’s plan, 2) post-it by post-it, what is the plan for today and do we see any issues that threaten this plan, 3) looking further out, what areas do we need to address, and who specifically (what trades) will need to be part of addressing them? These issues are addressed through a Lean process called “Genchi-Genbutsu” or go to the
actual location of the issue and Look with your own eyes. Each stakeholder, all upstream and downstream trades, along with the architects and engineers if required, collaborate to find the optimal path forward.
Daily walk throughs by all management teams, ensure issues are addressed on the spot, the moment they arise. Accurate descriptions of the work to be accomplished each day, (on the post-it notes) supports the recognition of whether that task is on
schedule. Tasks that are falling behind early in the shift, can be addressed in time to meet the planned completion when the teams employ a Lean method called “visual management”. Multiple daily walk throughs ensure management is continually aware of planned progress. When an issue arises, the teams employ another Lean process called “stop the line”. Similar to the stop the line process developed by Toyota, the appropriate management team immediately stops to converge on the area of concern. Issues are addressed and adjustments are made, giving this team the best chance of putting the task back on track.
Through this process, Bayley Construction, along with all their supporting trades, have achieved better than 90% planned complete. Percent Planned Complete is simply a measure of overall project capability. This calculation, the number of tasks completed divided by the number of tasks planned, assists the team with daily improvement by providing the opportunity to address the root cause of missed targets. The issues log collects this information allowing for organization through Pareto analysis. Pareto analysis allows the team to focus their improvement efforts on the issues with the greatest opportunity for overall project performance.
Bayley breaks the mold by traveling to the manufacturing facility of one of its trades to apply the Lean process.
The project engineers bring the electronic drawings on their iPad. The RFI is either pulled up from a saved file or written on the spot in real time. The team collaborates to solve the issue and the architect/engineer sign the RFI on the spot. The team called this a confirming RFI. Confirming RFI’s are often created, analyzed and signed in less than 30 minutes.
Bayley construction teams with Apex steel to significantly shorten seismic steel upgrades and shear wall rebar installation.
The value stream map you see here, demonstrates the application of Lean at the trades off-site location. This trade, responsible for the removal, re-manufacturing, and re-installation of the vintage windows, discovered 23 steps to accomplish this task. He also discovered that the Lead time from removal to remanufacturing to reinstallation required just over 82 hours. Approximately 31/2 hours were required to perform the value-added work throughout those 82 hours. This analysis revealed a total requirement of 3.85 full time employees to meet the target completion date. The value for the project, effective completion of 908 individual glass panes. The value for the trade, the confidence of knowing the correct amount of labor required for on time completion.
In an effort to reduce the amount of time required for RFI’s, the Bayley team partnered with the architect and the engineer to create the confirming RFI.
This value stream map demonstrates the result of that effort. While many RFI’s take days or even weeks to complete, the confirming RFI often takes minutes. The team discovered that most issues requiring an RFI are best completed through collaborative events on the jobsite, at the location of the issue in question. Genchi-Genbutsu is applied, by gathering all stakeholders and walking to the location on site
