If you were a project manager for an upcoming project and you wanted to implemen

Question

If you were a project manager for an upcoming project and you wanted to implement lean theory through the Last Planner system, list the 5 phases of the Last Planner System and indicate what specific action you would take (or would require of your team) to ensure that you are gaining the value from this approach. For each actionable step you list, also explain why this action would achieve the aim of each Last Planner phase and how it would contribute to the overall reduction of waste during the project.

Explanation / Answer

The principles of LPS are:
1) Plan in more detail as you proceed closer to doing the work
2) Prepare the plans in collaboration with those who will execute the work
3) Identify and remove the constraints/bottlenecks on the planned activities in coordination with team
4) Reliable promises to be made and kept
5) Measure the task completed to learn from disruptions
6) Continuous improvement, removal of waste in order to optimize process flows

The 5 phases of LPS ans their explanation are:
I. Master planning: In this phase the milestones will be identified that will help compare the progress of the project with the plan. Milestones are the completion dates of each of the major phases of the project. "Last planner" refers to the team member(project manager in the design phase, foreman/superintendents in the construction phase) responsible for assigning the work to production staff and ensuring that all the resources are available for completing the task

II. Phase planning: It is done 2-3 prior to the beginning of each phase. Phase is a part of project that can be considered as a unit depending upon the complexity and size of the work whose duration is identified during the master planning. In phase planning, the last planners agree on how the work will be completed between the milestones. It follows a lean practice of creating flows by initiating with the final condition needed to complete the phase of the project and formulating the flow of work through customer work statements also known as VOC(Voice of customer).

III. Make-ready planning:In this phase the last planner(As explained in point I above), ensures that the work can be done by identifying the constraints on the project. Post identification of the constraint, the mitigation action is determined and promise of elimination by a certain date is made. During this phase, the tasks identified during phase planning, are refined to more details

IV. weekly work planning: In this phase the focus is on the actions that will be taken to keep the promises made in the phase planning by the last planner. This is done via planning the work for each day of the next week

V. Learning: In this phase the focus is on leaning from production. The learning is achieved through daily stand up meetings where it is confirmed that the task planned for the day has been completed, if not what are the roadblocks and how that can be removed to stay aligned with the plan for the rest of the week and through the analysis of performance metrics.

If the activities are not complete as planned the root cause analysis/5 Why process can be used to find out the reason of delay or early delivery. In order to make the last planner system successful, the management need to be aligned with the lean principal of respect fo people" and act as coach and planning facilitators

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse I
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.