ESSAY 8 2014 What could be done to simplify construction? Angelica Salas 1325065 ESSAY 8 STATEMENT OF OWN WORK I certify that this essay is my own work, based on my personal study and research and that I have acknowledged all material and sources used in its preparation, whether they be books, articles, reports, lecture notes, and any other kind of document, electronic or personal communication. I also certify that I have not copied in part or whole or otherwise plagiarised the work of other students and/or persons. Angelica Salas 18/03/14 1325065/7CN005 APPLYING LEAN THINKING AND BIM IN CONSTRUCTION 1 ESSAY 8 WHA T CO ULD BE DO NE TO SI MPLI FY CO NSTR UC TI O N? Applying Lean thinking and BIM in construction As in other industries, in construction, design plays an important role in the life of a project since inefficiencies in this stage could led to delays and over budget. In this phase is that the idea of the client begin taking shape, his thoughts and requirements are needed to be taken into account on drawings and technical specifications. Therefore, the most usual issue faced in this stage is lack of communication which eventually causes that the client is not satisfied with the design and demands for a change. Previous research has led to the conclusion that planning and control are substituted by chaos and improvising in design, which causes poor communication, lack of adequate documentation, lack of coordination between disciplines, and erratic decision making (Freire and Alarcon , 2000). Solutions to these either approach the implementation of Lean Construction (LC) or the application of Building Information Modelling (BIM), but what about a strategy that embraces both concepts. Through research and practice, it has been appreciated that LC and BIM have significant synergies, and by implementing it together it can bring more benefits (Dave, Boddy and Koskela, 2013). This essay will critically examine both methodologies, and then it will discuss how by implementing both could successfully simplify these construction stages. Lean Construction originated as an adaptation of the principles of Lean Production, not only embracing the concept of flow and value generation but also changing the traditional view of the project (Aziz and Hafez, 2013). When people hear of LC, they only think in the construction stage, but the truth is that the major goal of LC is to make value added activities flow, which will only be 1325065/7CN005 APPLYING LEAN THINKING AND BIM IN CONSTRUCTION 2 ESSAY 8 accomplished if lean concepts are applied from the beginning of the design process. The successful implementation of LC in the construction stage, using the principles largely developed by Toyota, has opened up the possibility of using lean design management, thus helping to establish a systematic approach to the creative design phase (El Reifi and Emmitt, 2013). Lean design encourages design teams to include contractors, subcontractors, and material suppliers, because communication among all parties means that everyone can cooperate on a design instead of isolated from each other. According to El Reifi and Emmitt (2013) these are the procedures to achieve lean design management: • Ensuring the early engagement of al critical parties, designer, contractors and suppliers. • Reviewing collaboratively to agree about critical stages to generate an action plan to monitor jointly buffer usage to achieve certainty of delivery • Making services as efficient as possible through the use of innovative technologies and management techniques. Above procedures can help for a more communicated design stage, but what about planning? LC also provides a very successful tool that begins in the planning stage and extents until the end of the project: Last Planner System. The Last Planner System (LPS) was described by Kalsaas (2012) as “A practical approach in which construction managers and team leaders collaborate to prepare work plans that can be implemented with a high degree of reliability, thus improving work stability and predictability”. He explains how it differs from traditional planning by the uncertainty of making predictions until all constraints are out of the way and can only be removed in the final instance by the team leader, who is called “Last Planner”. LPS can manage a project even if it is complex and uncertain, because of the planning and control tools that 1325065/7CN005 APPLYING LEAN THINKING AND BIM IN CONSTRUCTION 3 ESSAY 8 provides. Nieto-Morote and Ruz-Vila (2011) describe the three different schedules that are used in LPS: 1. The master schedule is the entire project schedule and includes only the major milestone. 2. The look-ahead schedule contains the activities that need to be completed in order to successful execute the milestone at the times set in the master schedule. These activities are reviewed to find the constraints and make sure that it ends before the scheduled start date. The duration of the look-ahead depends on the time to eliminate all constraints. 3. The short term schedule has duration of one week. Includes all activities that need to begin in that week, in order to comply with the completion dates of the look-ahead schedule. With this schedules, LPS is able to reduce uncertainty, integrate all projects participants and improve planning and controlling. When you implement a new philosophy as LC or its tool LPS, it is inevitable to have challenges as lack of integration, lack of commitment to the program, staff without appropriate learning and resistance to change. Nevertheless, when the success of this tools is experienced, these challenges become opportunities, as everyone become more committed to the program. The other approach that will help to simplify construction in all its stages is BIM. Some people mistakenly think of BIM as just a new variety of software, but is actually a process that relies on information rich models that helps to more efficiently plan, design, construct, and manage building and infrastructure projects (Autodesk, 2011). The truth is that with BIM, miscommunication, design errors, and, in turn risk are mitigated, while decision making is improved with the ability to use the model to simulate nearly all aspects of the project (Autodesk, 2012). The overall advantage of implementing BIM is that even though the 1325065/7CN005 APPLYING LEAN THINKING AND BIM IN CONSTRUCTION 4 ESSAY 8 algorithms that define the objects created by the users are no less complex than those developed for CAD applications, with BIM the software design and computation effort creates a much closer to reality user experience that understands that these objects represent real world components (Smith and Tardif, 2009). As stated by the BIM handbook (2008), these are some of the advantages of implementing BIM in the design stage: • Earlier and more accurate visualizations of a design: With the 3D model generated by the BIM software it can be visualize the design at any stage of the process. • React quickly to design problems: The impact of a suggested design change can be entered into the building model and changes to the other objects in the design will automatically update. • Generate accurate and consistent 2D drawings at any stage of the design: This significantly reduces the amount of time and number of errors associated with generating construction drawings for all design disciplines • Extract cost estimates during design stage: At any stage of the design, BIM technology can extract an accurate bill of quantities and spaces that can be used for cost estimation. It also points out the challenges that can be encounter: • Determining the methods that will be used to allow adequate sharing of model information by members of the project team. • Using a shared building model as the basis of all work processes and for collaboration, will require time and education. • Replacing a 2D or 3D CAD environment with a BIM system involves far more than acquiring software, training, and upgrading hardware. The challenges of implementing BIM can be overcome very fast, because of the fact that you only have to make an investment in training and time. Therefore, 1325065/7CN005 APPLYING LEAN THINKING AND BIM IN CONSTRUCTION 5 ESSAY 8 after making that investment, the only thing that will be perceived it’s going to be benefits. These two different methodologies complement each other. The first one, aims to attack communication and variation, while the second one helps to have an accurate interactive model. With BIM, the implementation of LC could be more approachable because the LPS get access to the most complete and up to date information about the project in all its stages. Therefore, by applying both methodologies, there will be a simultaneous visualization of the product planning process, visualization of the BIM model, and a mapping of the tasks to the corresponding BIM element. Problems faced before with any change that the client will need, will be easily applied with BIM, which means it will also be effortless change in the planning with LPS. In fact, it is important to mention that there is a new research software called VisiLean, which provides integration between lean workflow and the BIM model. It aims to bring the simultaneous visualization of process and product to production management through a single interface (Dave, Boddy and Koskela, 2013). Imagine having the best of LC and BIM in one place, being able to have a visual representation of the project through BIM with planning. Returning to the question posed at the beginning of this essay, applying either LC or BIM will definitely simplify construction, but nothing as strong as implementing both. BIM can be used effectively to address the conceptual design of the LC principles and rapidly do any type of change that the client will need. LC will achieve a more cooperative working environment, where the designers will be able to work with the entire team and this will enhance the communication. LPS as a tool of LC will help for a more predictable construction, where variance will not be an issue anymore. Furthermore, applying all this together will attack most of the problems faced during planning and design, which will eventually lead to a more stable and in-budget construction. The 1325065/7CN005 APPLYING LEAN THINKING AND BIM IN CONSTRUCTION 6 ESSAY 8 biggest challenge with the implementation of this tools its resistance to change, but research has shown that eventually when they experienced success, people get more cooperative. Hence, the tools are there, it’s not what could be done to simplify construction, but when we will start simplifying construction? References Autodesk (2011) Realizing the benefits of BIM. [online]. Available at: <www.autodesk.com/bim> Autodesk (2011) BIM for infrastructure: A vehicle for business transformation [online]. Available at: <www.autodesk.com/bim> Aziz, R.F. and Hafez, S.M. (2013) Applying lean thinking in construction and performance improvement. Alexandria Engineering Journal [online], 52(4), pp. 679-695 Available at: <http://www.sciencedirect.com>. Dave,B., Boddy,S. and Koskela,L. (2013) Challenges and opportunities in implementing lean and BIM on an infrastructure project. Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction. , 2013. Eastman, C.M. (2008) BIM handbook: a guide to building information modelling for owners, manager’s designers, engineers, and contractors. [online] Chichester: Wiley. El Reifi, M.H. and Emmitt, S. (2013) Perceptions of lean design management. Architectural Engineering and Design Management [online], 9(3), pp. 195 Freire,J. and Alarcon,L. (2000) Achieving a lean design process. Proceedings of the 8th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction. , 2000. 1325065/7CN005 APPLYING LEAN THINKING AND BIM IN CONSTRUCTION 7 ESSAY 8 Kalsaas, B.T. (2012) The last planner system style of planning: its basis in learning theory. Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management [online], 2(2), pp. 88-100 [Accessed 2/11/13]. Available at: <http://www.ppml.url.tw/EPPM_Journal/>. Nieto-Morote, A. and Ruz-Vila, F. (2011) Last Planner Control System Applied to a Chemical Plant Construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management [online], 138(2), pp. 287-293 [Accessed 29/10/13]. Available at: <http://ascelibrary.org/>. Smith, D.K. and Tardif, M. (2009) Building information modelling: a strategic implementation guide for architects, engineers constructors, and real estate asset managers. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. 1325065/7CN005 APPLYING LEAN THINKING AND BIM IN CONSTRUCTION 8