The construction industry suffers a great deal from time and cost overruns. One of the key causes for such uncertainties in projects is following traditional construction practices. This case study deals with one of URCC’s projects where the cycle time of the ‘I’ girder erection process has been reduced from 11 days to four by implementing an appropriate Lean approach, Value Stream Mapping (VSM).

Background

URCC was awarded the building of a prime facility for Verbio India Pvt Ltd in Punjab. Verbio is a German-based company that specialises in biogas production.

The project involved the construction of eight air and watertight gas fermenter silos. The silos are positioned parallel to each other, in which four silos are in Line 1, and four are in Line 2.

The biogas fermenter silos are generally larger in dimension; hence, erecting the precast structures gets tedious. The main issue the team faced in this case was the generation of ‘time waste’ while erecting and placing the I girder and planks on top of the eight RCC silos, which are about 20 m in height with a 26-m radius. However, the team tackled this challenge by implementing an effective Lean tool: VSM.

Need for study

To improve planning and proper allocation of resources

To reduce equipment idle time and increase productivity

Objective

The main objective of this study is to reduce the cycle time of the erection process by implementing a Lean approach, VSM.

Method

After an in-depth study of the problem statement, the team selected an appropriate Lean tool, VSM. As it is a visualisation tool, it helped them to understand their current state at the initial stage of implementation. Post the implementation they managed to improve the overall process by developing future state maps.

Methodology

Step 1: The existing critical path activity (erection of I girder) of the project was studied

Step 2: Preparation of the current state map of silos 1.1 and 1.2

Step 3: Analysis of current state map and identification of waste

Step 4: After eliminating the waste, a future state map was prepared for silos 3.1, 4.1, 1.2, 2.2, 3.2 & 4.2

Step 5: Implementation of the developed future state map

Step 6: Improvement in productivity was measured.

Result

Implementing this effective Lean tool, VSM has helped the project team reduce the cycle time from 11 days to four; i.e. around 64 per cent of the project timeline has been reduced. This eventually resulted in the reduction of the total cost of the erection process from INR 694,200 to INR 222,800.

About the author: Ragavi Prabaharan is Lean Coordinator at URC Construction.