Contractors on slim fast plan

Contractors have been able to shave as much as a third off work phase time and report a 40% increase in work done per day after signing up to the Construction Best Practice Programme's (CBPP) Construction Lean Improvement Programme.

Six contractors - Thomas Vale; Cruden; Stepnell; NG Bailey; Simpson; and Keepmoat - were monitored on their own projects over a three-month period with the aim of seeing how much waste could be reduced.

The system works by employing a 'lean expert' on site to advise and provide help to the workforce on how to avoid waste such as motion, waiting, defects, transport, overproduction, unnecessary inventory and inappropriate work or processing.

Data in so far has shown that for bricklaying there was between a 17% and 33% saving in work phase time through tooling and layout changes, resequencing of trades and project management.

M&E contractors saw a 40% increase in work done per team per day by changing workplace configuration, tooling, methods and resourcing balancing.

The CBPP's Martin Watson, who helped co-ordinate the initiative, said: "Construction is finally starting to realise that other industries are seeing productivity improvements in excess of 20%.

"Just by applying commonsense, we have seen significant results with at least a 3% improvement across all projects."