Does the Construction 2025 report place unrealistic and self-motivated greedy ambitions on the construction industry?

1. MODERN CHAIRS
A Total Quality Management/Kaizen – Failure
By Jonathan Baker.

2. INTRODUCTION
 A Total Quality Management training video that a final year class
at the University of Edinburgh made in the style of Charlie
Chaplin's Modern Times. The intention was to teach teamwork,
production line processes, process optimisation, defects, quality,
and continual improvement 'Kaizen'.
Click <https://youtu.be/L--Oyw6V8gI> or google “YouTube Modern Chairs”

3. NON TQM: 30 CHAIRS STACKED IN 120 SECONDS
 Customer Specification: Create 6 Stacks of 5 Chairs per
Stack
 Simple Manufacturing Process: Chair Stacking; non-TQM
method
 6 People successfully move 30 chairs from one side of a
room to another; the chairs are stacked already in piles of
5, and chairs can only be moved one at a time.
 Each person grabs a chair and moves one across the room
to create a pile of 5; no planning; no measurement of
waste; no Total Quality Management (TQM)
 Completed Pile: Left hand Stack has 6 chairs
Top Right: Start
Lower Right: Finish

4. APPLYING TQM PRINCIPLES STAGE: 1
 Chain Gang Production Line Configuration, one
person at the end stacking chairs into piles of 5 (Top
Left)
 One can see that Work In Process is waiting to be
moved to the final stage of stacking (Top Middle)
creating a waste or resources and time.
 Completed Process (Top Right) 10 seconds faster,
but still with defects in meeting the customer’s
specification.
30 CHAIRS STACKED IN 110 SECONDS

5. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN QUALITY AND CYCLE TIME
“Apparently”, as Cycle Time increases, Quality reduces

6. APPLYING TQM PRINCIPLES STAGE: 2
 As the below formation takes place, the theme tune to ‘The
Apprentice’ kicks in to suggest a revelation in using the Toyota
Production System to eliminate waste, over processing, over
production and waiting
OPTIMISATION – LEAN MANUFACTURING
30 CHAIRS STACKED
IN 90 SECONDS!

7. IF YOU WATCHED THE ENTIRE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE; YOU WILL HAVE NOTICED THAT
THEY HAVE ALREADY ENCOUNTERED DEFECTS AND IMPLEMENTED QUALITY
CONTROL. DO YOU REMEMBER THE CUSTOMER SPECIFICATION?
CREATE 6 STACKS OF “5” CHAIRS PER STACK

8. CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT

9. BUT COULD WE REDUCE A PROJECT BY 90% OR HIGHER?
Well there we have it!! From 120 seconds down to 65 seconds with the magic of TPS utilising TQM
and the philosophies of Continual Improvement. An improvement of 45.83%
Is this enough to meet the Governments ambitions for Construction of a 50% reduction in duration
of projects as outlined in the Construction 2025 Report?
Well; no…. But its pretty damn close right?
Watching this video though, it just doesn’t shock me, open my eyes to the power of TPS and Lean
Thinking. Lets actually analyse the customer requirement and processes properly:

10.  Simple Analysis of the figures show that if all people collecting a chair each, and then moving it to its
final location achieves 30 chairs stacked in 120 seconds, we therefore have:
𝟏𝟐𝟎
𝟑𝟎
= 𝟒 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒑𝒆𝒓 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒊𝒓
This is taken from the very first video.
A single cycle of moving a chair from point 1, and depositing at point 2 before returning to point 3
takes 4 seconds in total for 1 person.
1
2
3

11. 1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
3
We have 6 people involved in the process.
Therefore if all 6 people followed the 1,2,3
cycle at the same time – we would have successfully
moved 6 chairs in 4 seconds.
We only have to repeat this process 5 times.
𝟓 × 𝟒 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒔 = 𝟐𝟎 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒔
If each person knows and counts out 5 iterations
of this cycle and only deposits in their own area
then we also reduce the all too erroneous issues of
6 chairs in some piles.
Lean Management can really be that easy and
effective. Poor consultants and educational sources
leave many construction professionals with a foul taste
when they hear the term ‘Lean’.

12. The only goal of Lean; is to DELIVER VALUE for the customer; in this instance, 6 stacks of 5 chairs is
what the customer values, whilst eliminating waste and applying continual improvement/lean
principles. Eliminating all motion, and copying a production line which operates in a sequence of
processes as closely as possible, is not the application of Lean or the Toyota Production System
(TPS); particularly when it means poorer performance and poorer quality.
20 SECONDS = REDUCTION BY 83.3%

13.  The above improvements of 83.3% really don’t even apply any lean techniques. It is just a
simple work/motion study of the original inefficient system and applying some common
mathematical judgement.
 Managing the Supply Chain
(Where, how and what kind of chairs are originally stored, can they be changed?)
 Delivering the Chairs on a wheeled pallet would mean that a stack of 5 chairs could be moved
in 4 seconds. With 6 people the entire process could be delivered in:
 Can any quality control or standardisation be applied to the chairs before being supplied?
4 seconds = 96.67% improvement
And that’s just 2 minutes of thinking laterally and innovatively, the same processes can and does
apply in construction; even more so than manufacturing.

14. ‘quod erat demonstrandum’
Decent Homes Programme: Current Contractor Improvement of 575% on Handovers within 4
weeks (2013)
Decent Homes Programme: 195% improvement over any week in the prior contractors 15 year
contract (2013)
28 day refurbishment programme, reduced to 2 days saving £125,000 per day on critical path
costs; that’s £3.25m [92.85%] (2014)
Q.E.D; Used to convey that a fact or situation demonstrates the truth of one’s theory or claim, especially to mark the conclusion of
formal proof. www.oxforddictionaries.com

15. Thank-you