5 Questions With Chris Flynn, Vice President of Healthcare at Benchmark Construction Company
This week on 5 Questions With…, we checked in with Chris Flynn, the Vice President of Healthcare at Benchmark Construction Company. Read on for unique insights on how Chris and Benchmark began implementing a Lean culture into every facet of their organization, and the early successes they’re seeing from this evolution.
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1. What hurdles did you hit when implementing Lean — on a project or in your company — and how did you push through them? Looking back, what do you wish you’d known at the start?
We started with implementing the Last Planner System® and we started small. We started on three projects.
I think the first hurdle is the traditional mindset in the industry both with some of our own people and our trade partners as well. Some people are more passionate and have more energy behind the change and others are a little bit more reserved or skeptical about what it could offer us. We were asked questions like, “Why are we changing? We already schedule and plan well,” and we do have a history of delivering projects on time so it’s natural I guess for people to question some of those changes.
One of the things that we learned is that vision casting is really important. Letting people know the why, explaining to them, and then taking the time to train them on the process. So, not just explaining why, but equipping them for success.
Looking back, probably one of the best lessons learned in this early stage for us is that Lean implementation is really more about people, is more about relationships than it is any specific tool or theory. So focusing on those relationships and taking the time to invest in people’s understanding and equipping them to be successful is essential to success.
2. Share a Lean success story you were part of. What made it work, and what role did your team — or the support around you — play in getting there?
Truthfully, we’re really early in our journey. We started I would say in earnest probably about 7 months ago with the implementation of Last Planner on a select few projects. Now, they are some of our more notable significant projects with some of our larger teams but at this stage, I’d be lying if I said that we had a lot of success stories. There aren’t many that come immediately to mind, but we are truly resilient and committed to the process and that goes back to the importance of the vision casting and explaining the why to so many of our people and that continual messaging of why this is important.
One of the success stories is that we have implemented a Lean task force that is about 12 people within our organization that have a lot of energy and a lot of passion around this topic. We meet every other week first thing on Monday mornings, and really the reason why we’re calling it a “task force” instead of a committee of sorts is we’re really action-oriented. We make up a cross-section of the company that represents both pre-construction and operations (heavy operations influence) and we have some personalities that really are comfortable bringing forth some difficult questions and sharing the experience that our teams are having out in the field with this some of those implementation challenges, and then it
allows us as a task force to talk about what the best solution looks like or kick around two or three other solutions and then take those to the field and work on the implementation.
I think the establishing of that task force and it really being more about action than about theory is an early success story, and that our teams that are struggling or having resistance from the trade partner community or even within some of our own organization, they have the support of about a dozen leaders within Benchmark that are committed to meeting them where they’re at and helping them be successful.
3. What do you see as the biggest benefits of applying Lean, and how have they shown up in your work, your team, or your Organization? Were there resources that helped you get there or go deeper?
In theory, one of the reasons why we’re really pushing this Last Planner initiative is because of some of the capacity limitations that are starting to show up in our operations teams. Any project will have some problems that are typical to every project and other problems or challenges that are unique to the project. Challenges that are typical to almost every project are material delivery issues, manpower, planning, communication. I think everybody in our industry can relate to those types of problems. Then the unique problems would be things like differing sight condition or something that a unique geology or maybe working in an urban environment produces logistical challenges that are significant and unique to that job.
What our hope is, and we have yet to see this fully become our reality, is that we can use Last Planner to help our teams address the problems that are common to most every job — material delivery issues, manpower, planning, those types of things — then it’ll allow our teams more energy, more capacity, and more time to focus on the problems that are unique to their job. We have yet to see that fully materialize. But again, we’re in the beginning stages of our journey and we believe that it’s a very likely outcome if we’re consistent, if we’re committed, and if we train and take the time to prepare our teams to deliver in this fashion, that they’ll be able to deliver more and in a streamlined approach that allows them to really elevate the experience our clients are having on the delivery side, and to focus on the problems that are unique to their jobs.
4. How do you know your Lean practice is on solid ground? Are there metrics or techniques you rely on to gauge where you are — and where you’re headed?
To be truthful, within the first year, we’re trying to develop that solid ground or get a solid base of experience that we can build on. I would say even in this early stage, one of the tools that we’re using is a Last Planner maturity assessment which one of our Lean coaches, senior leaders, or a member of our task force can use with the project team to assess where that project stands in regard to implementation of Last Planner. We want to focus on three, maybe four projects at a time and if and when a project has graduated or developed a level of maturity within the team where it is delivering those weekly work plans and hitting the target plan percent complete percentage on planned activities, as that project progresses, as that team starts to gel, we can then graduate that project and allow that team to continue on their own and shift our more focused efforts to take on another project. That maturity assessment is a tool in helping us assess whether or not a project is ready for that.
Also, just gauging the awareness at every level in our organization from senior leaders to carpenters, laborers. Are they familiar with Last Planner? Are they familiar with Lean
concepts? Is there a mutual respect for people and a spirit of continuous improvement at every level of our organization? That does not exist today, but our goal is that it will, and the awareness level of everyone from accounting to business development to field operations and what Last Planner is, what the Lean concepts are, those core tenants, that is a reflection of how we’re progressing in our Lean journey trying to be consistent with that messaging and make sure that there is a lot of passion and energy and unified commitment behind it.
5. For someone just dipping their toes into Lean, what’s the one thing you’d want them to hear? And along the way, were there people or resources that made the difference for you?
The one thing that I would say that we’ve learned very early in this process is that Lean is so much more about the people than it is the process. It’s about trying to cultivate a mindset of respect and continuous improvement. You must be able to understand a person’s experience and be willing to invite them in and empower them to address the things that bother them or that are holding them back. That involves meeting them where they’re at, having that respect for them, and then taking their comments and experiences and making that improvement a reality for them. This will then encourage them to contribute more ideas. That’s really at the heart of not just Last Planner, but Lean thinking and implementation so much more than any individual tool.
Also, I would say that it’s a journey. We’re in our early stages, but when I went to LCI Congress last fall with a couple of my colleagues, it was clear that many people that have been on this path for several years have encouraged us that there are continual challenges and it’s important to be patient, persistent, committed and to celebrate those small wins. Make sure that whenever a team has something that’s worth acknowledging that we take the time to acknowledge it and encourage it and message it appropriately.
There have been many people and resources that have really helped us in our journey. I would specifically like to point out and thank Midion, Jason Klous and Phil Zittel in particular, who we have engaged as a Lean coach and consultant and they’ve been incredibly helpful in our journey. And then also the Penn Medicine Health System. Penn Medicine is a long-standing client of ours and they recently invited us into our first Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) contract. That contract and the importance of that client to our organization really helped us elevate our approach to Lean and drive it forward and it has just been such a collaborative, rewarding, and humbling experience to learn alongside them and their team as we’ve started this journey.