Conversations with lean constructors™

Study Tour to Northern California

The Lean Construction Institute UK study tour to Northern California 12-16 October 2009 is limited to 10 individuals.  The tour will be based in San Francisco.

Partners are welcome to join in the social bits in the evenings.

The purpose of the tour is to:

1. • meet with owners/clients, designers, constructors and their trade partners,
   

2. • discuss their lean project and enterprise transformation process and how it is changing their design, construction and civils work,
   

3. • explore the relationship between lean and green,
   

4. • visit a range of projects at different stages of design and construction.
    
   

Proposed itinerary (this will continue to emerge between now and the tour):

Sun 11 • dinner for all those willing and able

Mon 12 • initial briefing & agreement of key areas of interest • ? • meet with Romano Nickerson, Boulder Associates in San Francisco - transforming an architectural practice.

Tue 13 • 0830 CPMC observe all team Target Value Design Meeting & cluster meetings / lunch & discussion with Paul Reiser, Boldt, David Long, Sutter Health and others • 10-15 minute cab ride • meet with Herrero Contractors’ Senior Management.

Wed 14 • Meet with George Zettel, Turner Construction and with trade foremen preparing for weekly work planning • meet with Will Lichtig to discuss IFoA • (optional) 6pm LCI Northern California Lean Coordinators meeting in Fairfield CA with Dinner - Presentation of and lessons learned from an IPD School project - cost $50 member guest rate – Details & registration at: http://lci-norcal-10-2009.eventbrite.com/

Thur 15 • 0800 DPR Construction: UCSF Medical Center, Mission Bay • DPR Construction & Sutter Health: Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley • dinner with our hosts

Fri 16 • ? • meet with Philip Sun AIA • closing discussion •

Sat 17 • optional sailing/systems-thinking seminar/discussion in Santa Cruz

What’s in store for us? more details of the offers we have had:

Boulder Associates.  Romano Nickerson AIA has agreed to talk with us about the continuing lean transformation of this architectural practice.

Boldt Construction - Sutter Health asked Boldt to set up in California to work with them.  Boldt began its lean journey in 1999 in Wisconsin.  We have a personal invitation to talk from Executive VP and lean leader Paul Reiser.

DPR Construction Dean Reed, DPR’s lean coordinator and a pioneer in lean construction, will host us.  DPR are working on several lean projects and Dean recommends we visit:

1. •a replacement hospital for Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley (SMCCV) — see below — Dean says this is the most advanced project in lean terms
   

2. •The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center — the IPD team for this public sector project is almost fully co-located in it's own "Integrated Construction Design Center" at the site. The physical work is quite challenging because the site is on a steep hill in back of a very busy existing medical center. Construction will not begin for another 2 years.
   

Herrero Contractors - I’m not sure how long Herrero have been on their lean journey but it has been a while and has been firmly led from the top. For a little more background read this article.  Herrero have a JV with Boldt on Sutter’s CPMC project and on other projects.  This meeting will be a great opportunity to explore how companies can truly collaborate within a relational contract.  We will be meeting with CEO, Mark Herrero and Paulo Napolitano, Director of Learning.

Jacobs Carter Burgess – Philip Patrick Sun AlA is Institutional Consulting Practice Leader at the Architectural Practice of Jacobs Engineering.  Philip, who worked with BDP in UK after graduating, has offered to talk to us about managing design in a lean way even when the client isn’t interested.  Born in Taiwan, Philip is lead on the Chinese Hospital project in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Sutter Health - Sutter are a Northern California Healthcare provider that decided to procure all its construction on a lean basis in 2004.  We will meet with David Long at California Pacific Medical Centre (CPMC or Cathedral Hill Hospital) and with Digby Christian at Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley (SMCCV).

1. •Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley (SMCCV) – Digby, a Brit, is in effect the client’s Design Manager for the project responsible for business plan validation and initial concept through design, entitlements, permitting, construction, move-in and initial operation.  Construction has just started while design is on-going. The Integrated Project Design team of 10 companies (including DPR Construction) are linked by a contract developed by Sutter (IFoA) and use planning tools and concepts Digby brought to the project via his contacts with Ghafari and Strategic Project Solutions.  They meet every other week for 2, 3 or even 4 days, depending on the intensity of the work (many are working together on another project that meets in the intervening weeks).  October 15 should be day 3 of a three day meeting to ensure the team are ready to submit the last major interior architectural interiors plan package to the state agency on Nov 2.  The specific forward thinking expertise that DPR has brought to the project is it's ability to price concrete, framing and drywall from a 3D model - which is a significant one.
   

2. •California Pacific Medical Centre (CPMC or Cathedral Hill Hospital) - David Long leads this project for Sutter.  It uses IFoA, Target Value Design, Set based design, Big Room co-location and much more. The Herrero/Boldt JV is the lead constructor on this $911m project that looks set to come in below target cost (which was set 14% below market) and ahead of time.
   

Turner Construction is a subsidiary of the German company HOCHTIEF.  George Zettel is their lean leader based in California.  George has offered to describe Turner’s lean journey and show us either:

1. •hospital project 1 - fitout stage by October, Lean Learning Lab, VSM of commissioning process, Last Planner, IPD hybrid form + a tenant improvement with the pure new IFoA OR
   

2. •hospital project 2 – lump sum bid, publicly funded, schedule recovery etc with Last Planner® learning lab
   

Will Lichtig, author of the Integrated form of Agreement (IFoA), is an attorney and legal counsel to Sutter Health.  Lichtig was listed as one of the top 25 news makers by Engineering News Record in 2007 for his work on IFoA & continues to make news through his distinctive leadership on the innovative California Prison Receivership project.

sailing/systems-thinking seminar/discussion • optional • Marc Hersch, an experienced merchant mariner and sailor as well as MD of Three Sigma Systems Consultancy in Santa Cruz (a delightful port >90 minutes south of SF on Route 1) is offering this.  Alan knows Marc through the Deming Electronic Network, systems-thinking is at the heart of any lean transformation.  Marc writes: “I can accommodate about 12 for a few hours on the water. I would like to facilitate a discussion of system’s concepts in the context of sailing. I am currently working on a book that uses sailing as a model activity for systems thinking in enterprise. The venue is usually rather spectacular and if the conditions are typical for October, it should be real highlight.”  Mark is not asking a fee for this but would very much appreciate a contribution to the care and upkeep of his sailboat.

Leader: Alan Mossman

Costs: Participants will be responsible for their own travel arrangements to San Francisco and for their own hotel and restaurant bills (the Bay area offers great food at reasonable prices).  There will be a charge of £750 (UKP) per participant payable in advance to cover local transport, other than public transport, required for the tour and Alan Mossman’s costs as tour leader.  Any surplus will go to the Lean Construction Institute UK.

Accommodation: Alan is negotiating a deal with a centrally located hotel in San Francisco.  He will mail details to those who have signed up as soon as they are available.

Flights: British Airways will do an open jaw package—in to SFO and return from DEN—for the same price as an SFO return.

There is an optional extension:

LCI one-day Introduction to Lean Construction in Boulder, CO, 20 Oct with Greg Howell and Glenn Ballard

LCI 11th Annual Congress at the Millennium Hotel in Boulder, CO, 21-23 Oct

read Alan Mossman’s notes from the Congress LCI_Congress_2009_note.pdf

Conversations with lean constructors™ is a trademark of The Change Business Ltd

Lean Project Delivery
is a different way of designing and delivering safer, faster, greener, better & cheaper projects.

Use this study tour to
find out what’s involved in a lean transformation at the level of the organisation
& at the project level.

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Preparation ideas

Follow the green links
on the left

Read about design
& construction processes
in Northern California:

Castro Valley Medical Center

Shawano Clinic

in this article on integrated Lean Construction from the Comstock Business Report 

Lean Construction in
California Healthcare

Set-based design at CPMC

DPR: Transcending the BIM Hype: How to Make Sense and Dollars from Building Information Modeling

Listen to:

CPMC/Cathedral Hill .mp3

    .pdf

Cardiovascular Research Building UCSF .mp3

.pdf

Lean at Turner .mp3

    .pdf

David Long, Paul Riser & Philip Sun