Last Planner

collaborative conversations for

predictable design & construction delivery
Alan Mossman1
March 2012

Why use Last Planner?

The Last Planner2 System (LPS) manages the relationships, conversations and promises that
together enable program & production planning decisions to be made collaboratively at the
lowest possible level in a whole range of one-off production settings — software development,
ship-building, yacht fit-out, construction and other examples of one-off production. With
adaptations, LPS works in new product development and design. Some elements have been
used to plan the delivery of tenders and to plan the work to be done in phases of PFI/PPP.
In construction, for example, by promoting conversations between trade foremen and site-
management at appropriate levels of detail and before issues become critical, LPS is creating
significant improvements in program predictability, productivity, speed of delivery, profit, safety
and feelings of wellbeing among project staff.
There are many reasons why organisations and projects adopt lean thinking and Last Planner3:
§ To deliver projects more safely, faster or at reduced cost
§ To create a more predictable production program
§ To reduce stress on project management staff
§ To help improve the overall production process
§ To reduce the risk of catastrophic loss
§ To make projects a reliable customer for just-in-time deliveries
§ To become the customer of choice in a tight market
§ To complete projects on schedule
§ To reduce the cost of public projects
Many contractors in a number of countries now use some or all of LPS as part of their standard
operating procedures for project delivery, recognising the benefits of:
§ more reliable programs and greater involvement of the whole team

1
Isla Pearson contributed to the development of this and the previous (Jan 2012) version.
2
Last Planner is a registered trademark of the Lean Construction Institute www.leanconstruction.org
3
This list is based on an Industry Day presentation by Prof Glenn Ballard to the 2011 International Group for Lean Construction
conference in Lima, Peru

Printed: 21/03/2012 13:39 Last-Planner-2012.docx

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§ issues being identified and resolved before getting to site rather than emerging part
way through the build
§ increasing the chances that work will flow and projects will be completed on time.
Some of these and other benefits are discussed below followed by a brief outline of the Last
Planner System (LPS) and the five key conversations within it. The note continues with a brief
discussion of Last Planner in design, learning Last Planner and concludes with a summary.
One of the few tools to be mentioned explicitly in the UK Rethinking Construction (Egan)
report in 1998, LPS became required practice for all BAA projects from 1999 and subsequently
by other clients such as Waitrose in UK, Sutter Health, UHS and others in the US.

Any company with schedule slip as a standard part of their business is a candidate for LPS.
All our senior and then our middle management were schooled and subsequently coached by a
[lean manufacturing] group from Detroit MI. We were in shipbuilding which is not a widget game
and so I had a prolonged and distracting struggle getting "Toyota" out of my thoughts. When we
were introduced to the Last Planner (by John Meecham, one of our managers) the lights came
on and we started finding our way past the blockage.
Owen H Howell, formerly Vice President Operations, Burger Boat Company, USA.

Last Planner is safer

Danish research on like-for-like project comparisons within a single company showed 65%
fewer accidents and up to 70% less sickness absence on Last Planner managed
construction sites. A similar and more recent Chilean like-for-like study showed 75% fewer
accidents where LPS was used compared to projects where it wasn’t in the same company.

Last Planner helps stabilise project-based production systems

S tabilising your systems is the first step to making a lean transformation. In project-based
systems and organisations The Last Planner System (LPS) is a great way to do that.
Developed specifically to improve the planning and predictability of increasingly rapid, complex
and uncertain project delivery.

Last Planner reduces waiting

Waiting for access, design information, materials, plant, waiting for the previous trade or design
team to complete work is major source of uncertainty, frustration and waste in projects. When
one team is late delivering, follow-on teams are prevented from starting when they planned to
and work ceases to flow.

Last planner supports effective relationships

Construction is a social process. Last Planner manages construction flow by building
relationships, creating conversations and securing promises to action at the right level at the
right time throughout the process. Work is managed through a network of production
relationships and promises that enable delivery of quality projects on-time. Whatever the plan

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says, work is generally done, and value created after individuals and teams make a promise to
do it. Last Planner is a production and a commitment management system.

Last Planner works on small and large projects

LPS is a simple tool suited to smaller projects that is also used on larger projects such as the
£4.2bn (€5bn, $6.5bn) London Heathrow Terminal 5 and £400m (€480m, $600m) N Staffs
Hospital PFI. All that is required for smaller projects is post-it notes, paper, pencil, eraser and
photocopier. As projects grow, generic software such as MS Excel and then bespoke software
such as SPS Production Manager (ProjectFlow) can be helpful. The system only works
effectively in the context of whole system thinking and a learning culture. Command and
Control thinking or a blame culture will quickly destroy any benefits.

"MT Højgaard - the largest construction company in Denmark - has applied the Last Planner
System on more than 25 building projects during the last two years. No matter what the size or
type of project, the Last Planner System improves the building process and hence the overall
result — reduction in costs, projects that are on or ahead of schedule, and a shorter
[defects] li st. The most significant improvement is the lower accident frequency & severity."
Mikkel Thomassen, Project Manager, MT Højgaard, Denm a rk

And be aware:
§ The only companies that need to be concerned about using Last Planner are those
that work with no regard to the program.
§ If Last Planner is not carried out in a systematic manner, it will fail. Complete the
documents in full and discuss them weekly.
§ Project managers must police the Last Planner System effectively. There is still a need
for sanctions against badly performing companies.
§ Last Planner will highlight teams that don’t perform well. If project managers don’t use
the data to manage performance, Last Planner will be discredited and the benefits lost.
§ Last Planner can show up poor project managers.

Last Planner helps create value in construction

V alue is what the customer/client/end-user system wants. It is defined by the client system
and often involves the end-user in some way – in the case of a hospital or school for
example this could be through research which shows what building attributes are associated
with faster patient recovery or improved student behaviour and results. Rarely if ever does the
client system speak with one voice and, even if it did today, it would probably say something
different tomorrow. Thus value is an emergent concept that requires continual updating and
adjustment on the part of the production team.
In production, value is reinterpreted down the line so that each trade knows what they have
to do to create whatever succeeding trades need to deliver a quality job. LPS supports this
process.

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Last Planner supports transformation, value and flow

Creation of value in construction, as in manufacturing, requires the transformation of
materials. Unlike manufacturing, there are seven flows required to come together at the
workface to enable construction transformations to flow. If any one of the seven is interrupted
or out of sequence value cannot be created4. The seven flows are summarised in Figure 1.

Figure 1: the seven construction flows (graphic: Alan Mossman)

This still applies on projects where sub-assemblies are manufactured off-site. Value is only
created when the sub-assemblies are added to the structure on-site.

Last Planner helps manage conflicting objectives

Within projects there are conflicting objectives. For each trade contractor (and often each
design team member too) there is a clear desire to optimise the use of personnel across a
number of projects. The same is true for the lead constructor and, in addition, the lead
constructor’s project team are seeking to optimise their project’s delivery process.
Managing this level of complexity requires a high level of collaboration, communication and
commitment. CPM based project management tools on their own are inadequate to the task
as they only focus on one of the flows – prior work5.
Location based planning methods such as Line of balance see safe space as the major
constraint – and base planning on that.
Ignoring trade contractors’ legitimate objectives doesn’t help as that makes it difficult to have
conversations about the issues that inevitably arise.

Last Planner is part of a powerful new paradigm in construction

L ast Planner is part of a new production management system for one-off project-based
production such as that in construction and design. This system allows project managers to
significantly improve productivity and client/end-user satisfaction when compared to the equally
consistent old paradigm.
With a collaborative way of organising and relational commercial terms it creates a powerful
new paradigm is central to the Lean Project Delivery System6 and to Integrated Project
Delivery (IPD)7, two related collaborative approaches that:
§ align people, systems, business processes & practices to

4 The flow, transformation, value theory and the identification is of the seven flows is due to Prof Lauri Koskela of the University of
Salford, UK.
5 Lauri Koskela and Greg Howell wrote the critique of CPM based project management methods referred to here.
http://galbarello.googlepages.com/ObsoleteTheory.pdf
6
For more information see http://www.leanconstruction.org/lpds.htm
7 For more information see http://www.thechangebusiness.co.uk and click on Integrated Project Delivery.

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§ harness the talents & insights of all participants so that they can
§ optimise value for the client (while creating an appropriate return for all stakeholders),
§ reduce waste & maximise effectiveness
§ through all phases of design, fabrication & construction.

The Lean Way The old way

Using LPS to plan & manage Critical Path (CPM) push planning
production promises Command & control organisation
collaborative organisation adversarial & transactional
relational commercial terms commercial terms

Figure 2: The new paradigm (left) for project-based production (after Lean Construction
Institute)

Integrated projects are led by a highly effective collaboration between client, lead designer &
lead constructor from early in design through to project handover. This teamwork is often
defined within a multi-party collaborative agreement and uses lean thinking throughout the
process. Both LPDS and IPD are different from both Design & Build and from historic Design-
Bid-Build.

Last Planner delivers bad news early

A t a meeting in 2003 Gerry Chick, then Supply Chain Manager at BAA, dramatically
underlined one of the benefits of LPS. Bad news, he said, provides good information.
Bad news early is even better. Last Planner enables bad news to surface quickly before it
becomes a major issue. It can also provide signals of immanent bad news that may enable the
team to head it off.

"Results show a 30% improvement in the rebuilding times for runways since Last Planner
was introduced and predictability is greatly improved."
Gerry Chick, formerly Supply Chain Development Manager, BAA, UK
"LPS is an effective set of tools for leveraging the shared knowledge of all members of the project
team. Without LPS a project manager is guessing at what can be accomplished versus knowing
how the job will get done."
Tom Richert, Programme Mgr, Linbeck Construction, US A

Last Planner cuts fire-fighting on projects

Much of construction management is fire-fighting — dealing with things that have gone wrong
in effort to get back on track. Continuing that metaphor, the Last Planner System is an
integrated fire prevention system.
Collaborative programming (see below) anticipates problems and helps the team develop
countermeasures; MakeReady (see below) identifies problems before they impact on

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production; collaborative production planning reduces potential problems still further and
continual improvement helps the team learn how to avoid the problems that do emerge.

Last Planner helps move from push to pull

T he historic planning system is a push system — it pushes work into production based on
pre-determined start and completion dates in the Critical Path (CPM) schedule. It does this
without regard to whether the work is ready to be done, the progress made by prior trades —
or the readiness of the producers. If this system worked, there would be a high coincidence
between should do and done.
This traditional push approach leads to nonsenses such as ceiling contractors installing
ceilings before the M&E contractor has finished working above them. In software engineering it
can lead one programmer to make assumptions about what another is or will do, resulting in
rework; in design, one designer will make an educated guess about what will be required and
proceed on that basis — sometimes they’ll be spot on, but more often, they’ll have to do a load
of rework too. When building luxury yachts installing fitted furniture in the wrong sequence can
lead to problems for the plumbing, electrical or mechanical teams.
LPS changes the way the program is arrived at and adds a critical step designed to ensure
that only work that can be done is scheduled for production.

Last Planner reduces sub-contractor costs

Image Decorations Ltd, a Sheffield UK based decorating company, found that using LPS
improved the managerial skills of their foremen on site and led to a freeing up of senior
management time. MD Nick Wain told a Construction Productivity Network meeting8:
"The Last Planner System [enables] our site supervisors to plan their workload on a
weekly basis and assess their team's performance on a daily basis [and] to make an
accurate prediction of the labour required on a weekly/daily basis. This plan is based on
facts, not a site manager's wish list… Once supervisors understand … Last Planner,
and are confident in using the documentation, it can reduce the frequency of senior
management visits to site. The foremen are capable of handling situations as they arise as
their decisions are based on facts that are documented weekly."

The origins of Last Planner have nothing to do with Toyota

Last Planner was developed by construction people for construction people and the research
on which it is based began well before “lean” let alone lean construction became part of the
management vocabulary. LPS was developed by Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell on the
basis of research they did in the 1980s. Their first experiements were conducted in 1981 and
the first report of those experiements was given in 1993. They subsequently gave LPS to the
Lean Construction Institute (LCI) which is why it is a registered Trade Mark of LCI.
As the second quote from Owen Howell on page 2 makes clear, LPS will help you make
sense of lean ideas from automotive and elsewhere.

8 17 September 2003 in London. For a copy of the meeting report see: http://tinyurl.com/3eh9an for other CPN Last Planner
reports see: http://tinyurl.com/4kc9s3

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What is Last Planner?

LPS can be used
§ on its own in a conventional Design-Bid-Build setting – and it will make a difference.
§ as part of a wider lean project transformation at site level
§ In the conntext of Integrated Project Delivery to help manage both design and
construction production.

5 crucial conversations at the right level, at the right time with the
right people
LPS creates conversations at the right level and at the right time to build trust between key
project performers — the last planners [i.e. trade foremen on site, design team leaders] and
overall project managers. These conversations increase the chances that work flows and
recognises that personal relationships and peer pressure are critical to that process.
There are five key conversations that together make up the Last Planner System (see Figures
3 & 16). Each brings its own benefits. When all are working together they reinforce each other
and the overall benefits are greater. The conversations are:
1. Collaborative pull-based Planning (or scheduling) —creating and agreeing the
production sequence (and compressing it if required)
2. MakeReady — Making tasks in the LookAhead period ready so that they can be done
when we want to do them.
3. Collaborative Production Evaluation and Planning (PEP) meeting — collaboratively
agreeing production tasks for the next day or week
4. Production Management — monitoring production to help keep all activities on track
5. Measurement, learning and continual improvement — learning about and
improving the project, planning and production processes.
Last planners and project management collaboratively plan the sequence of the work for each
phase of the project so they understand the overall process before work begins. Last planners
systematically and rigorously ensure that tasks are ready to be done when planned and then
collaboratively plan and manage production of those
Bad news is good information. activities that can be done week by week. They learn so
Bad news early is really useful. that they can continually improve both planning and
production.
A mature implementation of Last Planner will probably begin with a phase programming
workshop for the first phase, but if this is your first implementation it could well start part way
through a project. Just the implementation of daily or weekly work planning can help to
stabilise a project so that other elements can be progressively introduced. This is particularly
useful where an existing project is running behind schedule.
A school extension project in Scotland was running 4 weeks late. Collaboratively planning
the remaining 42 weeks of the contract and then managing activity on site with a weekly
Production evaluation and planning meeting enabled project delivery 13 weeks early.
Figure 3 shows the Last Planner System as a flowchart – start bottom left. Moving bottom
to top we go from plans that set out what should happen through the MakeReady process that
establishes what can be done to production planning when the last planners agree what will be

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done – this is where promises are made. At the same time moving left to right and closer to the
point of production, we progressively break tasks down from big chunks to small details.

Figure 3: the Last Planner System as a flowchart. (Alan Mossman)

1. Collaborative programming or phase planning

Traditionally programs are prepared by professional planners and project managers – first
planners. To do this they make many assumptions – and build slack into the program to
compensate for these uncertainties. First planners may consult members of the delivery team if
the packages have been let, but delivery team members will not easily give up buffer when they
are uncertain about whom they will be working with and what the project involves. The first
planner program is generally imposed on the project. Projects are then managed in terms of
what the program says should happen. It often requires work to be done that cannot be
completed at the time set in the program because one or more of the flows is broken.
LPS is a program coordination and production control system designed to ensure the
achievement of agreed goals. Those goals are set in a collaborative programming process so
that all the main suppliers and specialist contractors are
engaged right from the start in developing and signing If you are not part of the solution
up to the master program and to the program for each you are part of the problem.
phase.
In UK and in other parts of the world, a number of constructors only use collaborative
programming. They get significant benefits from doing so but miss out on many others by
failing to support their collaborative programming with collaborative production planning,
management and systematic learning from experience quite apart from systematic MakeReady.
Systematic risk analysis is integral to collaborative programming. Float is included to
protect program integrity and predictability.
When all major players meet early in the process it’s possible to discuss critical
interdependencies, test assumptions and agree on good practice.

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Figure 4: Review of construction sequence (front) while others continue to create the program
for a student housing scheme on the wall behind. (photo Alan Mossman)

Sven Bertelsen, a Danish Engineer and consultant, has listed the range of uses of a
collaboratively produced program:
§ a workplan of what should be done
§ an organisation chart - who does what?
§ an agreement between trades (or design teams) about when to start and finish
§ a logistics plan defining when we need materials, trade teams, drawings etc
§ a tool for workflow control - when we want to do which tasks
§ a basis for monitoring progress
Benefits of collaborative programming9:
• prepares team members for action together
• team members discuss details much sooner
• sorts out sequencing & other issues that would be difficult to change later; issues
sorted on paper rather than at the workface
• enables team to test options to improve work flow, buildability and program reduction
• identifies unclear design details
• builds commitment to program and reduces overall program period.

Construction logistics
LPS will support a Logistics Planning System. Logistics involves more than just materials*.
MakeReady ensures that all seven flows — information, plant, equipment, materials, people
etc — are flowing to the workface so that tasks can be done when required.
Collaborative programming is an opportunity to confirm a detailed logistics plan and
secure agreements to key logistics decisions.
Production Planning (PEP) is a signal to the logistics team about when it will happen and
PPC (see below) is a measure of both logistics team and project overall effectiveness.
* For more on this see “More than materials: managing what’s needed to create value in
construction” – downloadable from http://www.thechangebusiness.co.uk

9 The benefits in blue are from a variety of LPS users in the UK and US, both managers and operatives.

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Programme compression

Figure 5: intense concentration & discussion during a compression workshop.

(photos Alan Mossman)

W
ith an agreed programme it is possible to explore ways to compress the programme if
this is desired or required. With a supply team that had worked together on a number of
similar projects previously, one UK constructor took 6 weeks out of a 20-week
programme using this approach. This clearly has enormous benefits for their client — their
building is earning significantly earlier. It also has benefits for the main contractor and their
suppliers — they are more competitive — reducing the programme itself reduces cost — and
they all stand to make a larger margin.
Some claim that it is generally possible to reduce programmes by about 20% using
collaborative programming and I have certainly seen that done on supermarket fit out
programmes (twice) in addition to the examples cited here.
One constructor showed an airport upgrade project could be delivered in 16 weeks instead
of the 22 weeks that first planners thought it would take. In a subsequent workshop they
managed to get that down to 12 weeks.
For another constructor collaborative programming and compression rescued a 70-week
programme that was running about six weeks late after 30 weeks. From the time of that
workshop, involving all the major suppliers on the project, Last Planner was used to help keep
the project on the agreed new track so that it came in on time.

2. MakeReady
Earlier I referred to seven flows – all of which are essential to creating value in construction.
There is no point in putting a task into production if any one of the flows is broken. Using a
simple tick sheet like that in Figure 6, the MakeReady process systematically checks that
everything is in place for each of the tasks in the LookAhead10 window. At least a weekly
activity, it continues throughout the project.
Benefits of the MakeReady process:
• tasks are ready for production when required
• safer working — planning involves hazard analysis and method statements
• greater certainly of time, materials and equipment — less waste

10 The size of the LookAhead period varies – usually between four and eight weeks. Any flow with a longer leadtime than the
chosen LookAhead period becomes an item in the program so that it is not forgotten.

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Figure 6: MakeReady form for guiding and documenting the process of making tasks ready (part)
note: MakeReady for design is simpler – generally only four flows (source: Alan Mossman)

Information (e.g. drawings, method statements, standard work) enables tradespeople to

recognise whether they are doing a quality job in a safe way à self-inspection. Pre-requisite
work is necessary prior work done by other trades and resources covers the remaining flows
that are required to complete the task.
Together the PEP meeting (next section) and MakeReady go a long way to improve the way
that work works in a project. They are even more effective within the framework of an agreed,
collaboratively produced project program (or schedule) – see previous section 1. Collaborative
Programming above.

3. Production evaluation & planning

T hroughout the project there is a regular production evaluation & planning (PEP) meeting
involving all last planners. It generally lasts less than an hour. In very tight projects and in
design shorter daily work planning may be necessary, but generally the PEP meeting is weekly.
The purpose of the PEP meeting is to review the work done in the previous and current periods
(we will discuss this aspect later) and plan the work that will be done in the next period bearing
in mind the work that is being done now and in the knowledge of work that can be done.
Each last planner/team leader proposes a production program for her or his team (Figure 7).
In the PEP meeting, team leaders explore any inter-dependencies between proposals —
conflicts of space, resources, access or equipment for example.
With every pair of hands As team, leaders get used to the discipline of Last Planner they
comes a free brain. will do a lot of negotiating immediately prior to the meeting. Even
then, nothing is finally agreed until everything is agreeable within
the context of the PEP meeting. One cause of late delivery at this stage is team leaders who
over-commit. It is in every team member’s interest to prevent this happening.

Figure 7: part of a Production Plan form used by trade foremen & design team leaders to
propose the work they and their team will do next week at a PEP meeting.
(source: Alan Mossman)

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There are two rules for collaborative production planning:

§ If you promise to do it, get it done
§ If it cannot be done, don’t promise to do it

Figure 8: Production & Evaluation Planning Meetings weekly left, daily stand-up right – if no
digital projector you can use photocopied proposals (fig 7) or stickies on the wall (right).
(Photos: Boldt Construction, Alan Mossman)

In the next section we will look at how you might know that a task cannot be done. First let us
look at some of the benefits of systematic and collaborative production planning:
Benefits of PEP meeting in the context of Last Planner:
• maintains commitment to the intention of the project and current client concerns
• suppliers prepare better because they know what’s expected of them
• builds relationships with & between supplier team leaders
• focuses attention on what can really be done.
• facilitates learning from experience – together we get better every week.
The PEP meeting alone will not realise these benefits week-in week-out. Trade foremen can
only reasonably commit their teams to deliver a particular piece of work if the work can be
done. Just because a task is on the project program doesn’t mean it can be done — there
may be inadequate design information, pre-requisite tasks incomplete, resources or materials
not available or any of the other seven flows broken. LPS has a systematic MakeReady
process to ensure that when work is programmed for production it can be done.
As one of the placards on the streets of Paris in May 1978 reminded us – if you are not part
of the solution, then you are part of the problem.

Securing reliable promises, making reliable commitments

A contract is a very formal promise to the client to deliver the project by a certain date in a
specified condition. Within the project it is helpful to think about the production plan as a
record of promises made to the wider project team.
The agreed program defines when tasks should be done and acts as a request to the
supplier to do that task. Last planners only promise11 (Figure 9) once they have clarified the
conditions of satisfaction including the due date and are clear that the task can be done — i.e.
they have the capability, materials labour, information, etc. to do the work.

11
A promise is something more than a commitment. To the extent that LPS helps people make and keep promises it is a
Commitment Management System.

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Figure 9: the promise conversation cycle (after Flores)

Once the task is complete the last planner responsible declares delivery so that site
management or the team responsible for the next task can assure themselves that it is
complete to an appropriate standard.
The discipline of managing promises improves the way operatives engage in the project.
They become members of a team intent on fulfilling the overall promise to the client. They cite
the effect of peer pressure following their public promises to deliver and demonstrate initiative in
keeping promises and adjusting to the changing performance of others so that the overall
project is a success.
Collaborative programming, MakeReady and negotiation in and around the PEP meeting
all help trade foremen promise reliably. Learning and Continual Improvement — the fifth key
conversation in LPS — can further increase promise reliability and the predictability of
production plans.

We do it already
Many (most?) project managers do some or all of these things already—to a degree. Last
Planner is a formal and rigorous discipline. It consists of a system of inter-related elements and
it is only when the full set is systematically implemented over time by the whole project team that
the major benefits will be appreciated. Greatest benefit is likely when an integrated team use
Last Planner consistently over a number of projects.
Signals that you are not yet doing it include:
 work done out of sequence
 sub-contractors with no sense of ownership of the programme
 operatives with no idea of what work there is for them the day after tomorrow.
 projects dominated by fire-fighting
 work pushed into production by the programme

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4. Production Management

C onstruction is a social process. Peer pressure works so long as there is a shared sense of
responsibility for project delivery. The Collaborative Planning and PEP conversations
particularly help to develop that. A daily stand-up meeting on site or a brief morning telephone
conference of design team leaders lets everyone know what was completed yesterday, allows
early warning of any late deliveries and last minute adjustments.

5. Measurement, learning & continual improvement

T his is the evaluation process in the PEP meeting mentioned earlier – all these continual
improvement elements together contribute to more predictable and reliable work-flow. It is
only by adding continual improvement processes that we systematically learn how to work
more effectively together, to make the work program ever more predictable. They also
contribute to the quality of the finished product as the process significantly reduces hurry-and-
wait and smoothes work-flow.
Within Last Planner there is a measure of predictability of work delivery — PPC — the
Percentage of Promises Completed on time. At the PEP meeting each team leader promises to
complete one or more activities by a given day of the next week. Used to improve production
reliability, PPC measures the proportion of promises made that are delivered on time. LCI
research shows that where Last Planner isn’t used, PPC is typically 30% overall — only 1 in 3 of
the tasks promised for next Tuesday will be delivered by the end of that day!
A study for a 2004 US Construction Industry Institute report showed a statistically significant
correlation between PPC and productivity on engineering construction projects. Anecdotal
reports from both the US and the UK suggest that this may be true in building construction too
and seem to show that there are step changes in productivity and margins with a PPC around
75% and 90% – Figure 10.

Figure 10: productivity, profits increase with PPC

Tasks Made Ready (TMR), another metric, is a great predictor of the PPC and a good
measure of the quality of the MakeReady process. Measurements are only indicators of
improvement.
Part of the continual improvement of TMR & PPC scores and program predictability is a
study of the reasons why tasks promised in the production plan are delivered late and why
tasks are not made ready on time. Recording reasons in a Pareto chart (Figure 11) shows
where attention is most likely to yield the most results.

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Reason occurrence
Unclear information X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Too few operatives X X X X X X X X X X X X
No promise to deliver X X X X X X X X
Client/design change X X X X X
Overrated capacity X X X X X
Late request X X X X
Unclear requirement/CoS X X X
Pre-requisite work X X X
Failure to request X X
CoS not made clear X X
Rework X X
Other X
Absent operatives X
Unplanned work
Figure 11: example of a reasons Pareto chart – the standard reasons you use will depend on
the type of project you are working on – this was for a supermarket fit-out.

Using tools like 5 Why and cause-effect diagrams helps a team understand what needs to
be done to improve.

Its not for us … our projects are too small/big/simple/complex/low margin

I hear many reasons for not using LPS:
 we only do small projects – LPS was deigned to be relevant to projects with more
than three suppliers and more than 8 weeks long. (I know of one complex 15 minute
project where it was used!)
 our projects are too big/complex – LPS was used on the Largest project in Europe
– Heathrow Terminal 5
 the subbies will never agree – yet they do and they generally prefer this way once
they know it
 its going to cost more – while you are learning perhaps – as is often the case when
learning something new. Yet many pilot projects have realised significant savings.
 We get rewarded for firefighting and LPS reduces the number of fires to be
fought – I’ve no answer to that one, save a question: do you really want to continue
working in that way?
LPS is a rigorous planning and commitment management process – much more rigorous than
is generally used in construction. Planning reduces problems on site and in the design office
so that more of your energy goes into creating value for your customers.

Last Planner in design and pre-construction

LPS works in design – and it needs adapting. Last Planner in design uses all the
conversations:
§ Collaborative planning § Production Management
§ MakeReady § Learning and Continual improvement
§ Production Planning

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In the design process there are more uncertainties and design as a process is more iterative
than in on-site assembly so planning horizons are shorter than in construction. Before and
during conceptual design they are very short and as the design progresses they tend to extend
so that the time horizons during the production of construction drawings are much closer to
those seen in the planning and management of construction production.
LPS is helping constructors manage their tendering processes in Design-Bid-Build
procurement as well as to manage design production in PFI/PPP procurement.

Figure 12: collaboratively planning the production of detail design drawings for a factory
(photo: Albert Kahn Family of Companies)

How can my team and I learn Last Planner?

LCI, Ballard and Howell are happy for constructors to use LPS to support delivery of their
projects and would appreciate it if constructors and others who find it valuable joined LCI.
There are a number of learning pathways for those who want to implement Last Planner
including:
§ A generic introductory workshop
§ An Action Learning development program based on a live project.
Individuals have successfully implemented Last Planner after attending an introductory
workshop. It is a very challenging task.
Integrated action learning on a project supported with just-in-time instruction and coaching
gets Last Planner up and running in the project team without interrupting the workflow. If you
choose this method read http://bit.ly/rn0GKX, ask around or consult the LCI website
www.leanconstruction.org before you select your coach.
Greg Howell cautions those involved in their first implementation. LPS will provide you with
data about your project management systems that makes uncomfortable reading. Don’t
panic. Pilot LPS in your organisation carefully with project teams that welcome a more
collaborative approach. Gather data systematically and make improvements, then invite others
to inspect what the pilot project or projects have done and learn from them.
Most companies that successfully implement LPS have done so incrementally as a strategic
learning and improvement intervention.

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 Last Planner – collaborative short-term production planning

Summary
There are many reasons why organisations and projects adopt Last Planner:
§ To identify & address potential problems before they become obstacles in the project
§ To help improve the overall production process and flow on small and large projects
§ To reduce the incidence of bad news and to get what bad news there is early
§ To mobilise social pressure through managing commitments and promises
§ To create projects that are a reliable customer for just-in-time deliveries
§ To develop supervisory skills and reduce the load on management
§ To create a more predictable and reliable production program
§ To deliver projects more safely, faster and at reduced cost
§ To become the customer of choice in a tight market
§ To stabilise projects to support other lean actions
§ To improve predictions of labour required
§ To reduce the risk of catastrophic loss
§ To reduce the cost of public projects
§ To complete projects on schedule
§ To reduce fire-fighting and stress

Figure 13: the five key conversations – another view (after Lean Construction Institute)

There are five key conversations in the Last Planner System summarised in Figure 13. Greatest
benefits come from using all the elements in concert:
1. Collaborative Programming (or pull scheduling)
2. MakeReady
3. Collaborative pull-based Production Planning
4. Production Management
5. Measurement, learning and continual improvement
Last Planner enables a project team to focus on keeping all seven critical flows moving so that
they come together at the workface where materials are transformed and value is created. It

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creates a structured series of conversations that enable projects to progress and provides the
basis for relationships within the team so that when shit happens it is easier for the team to pull
together and find ways to move beyond the crisis. By making it possible for team members to
share bad news early some crises can be avoided and others mitigated.
Each element of the Last Planner System brings its own benefits. Together they help deliver
quality projects on time and within budget.

LPS was developed by Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell of the Lean Construction Institute (LCI).
Last Planner is a registered Trade Mark of LCI. LCI, Ballard and Howell are happy for
constructors to use LPS to support delivery of their projects and would appreciate it if
constructors joined LCI. For more information see “Learning Last Planner” page on the LCI
website www.leanconstruction.org. They particularly request that those trainers and
consultants outside constructors who want to teach Last Planner read the section on
copyright and trademarks on that page.

NOTE: this document is an incomplete description of LPS.

For a Last Planner discussion group on the web

join the LPS User group on Linkedin http://linkd.in/lastplanner
[note: you will also need to join the Lean Construction Network (LCN)
http://linkd.in/LCNetwork as the LPS User group is a sub-group of LCN]

Links to updates to this document will be posted in the LPS User Group.

Alan Mossman is a lean design and lean construction consultant, trainer and author. He trained as an architect
and worked for many years in management and organisation development. He only returned to construction in
around 2000 building on his knowledge and understanding of collaboration, systems thinking, quality and lean. An
accredited UK based Last Planner trainer, he has coached teams implementing Lean and Last Planner for a wide
range of clients in Europe, Africa and Australasia. From 2004 to 2010 Alan was a founding Director of The Lean
Construction Institute UK. He helped set up the Lean Construction Journal www.leanconstructionjournal.org and
was co-editor from 2003 to 2012. A member of the Lean Construction Institute, he has supported the formation of
Communities of Practice in a number of continental European countries and moderates the Lean Construction
Network http://linkd.in/LCNetwork, LCI Lean Design Forum http://linkd.in/leandesign & Last Planner User groups on
Linkedin.

alanmossman@thechangebusiness.co.uk
07968 485 627

For information about the global lean construction community go to http://db.tt/0xozjL5

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