Contractors today are faced with a number of industry
issues that are making profitability more elusive than
ever. Nearly all contractors describe their challenges in
the context of manpower shortages, pricing pressure,
schedule compression and increasing demands of the
owners and general contractors. Historically contractors
have employed a “work harder” approach to solve these
challenges. However, with the broad-based retirement
of many of the most talented trades people the industry
has ever seen, contractors are faced with the reality
that addressing these challenges may require a different
approach to solve. Enter the Lean Transformation. What
follows in this paper is a detailed discussion of what this
new approach might look like. There are a number of
large contractors pursuing this strategy and the small
to mid-size firms need not feel left out. The goal of the
Lean Transformation is to change the way contractors
do work. Said simply, it’s about eliminating waste.
There are many studies that support the construction
industry has a tremendous amount of waste. The
findings vary from 33% to upwards of 70%. Regardless
of which findings a particular person may believe are
accurate, very few would argue that efficiency and
productivity in construction are optimized. The goal
of a lean transformation is to optimize efficiency and
productivity by eliminating waste.
The end game of a lean transformation is to move
toward what is called a “100% Kitting Strategy”.
What that means is that every piece of material, every
tool and every drawing flows through a centralized
fabrication and logistics facility. Gone are the days of
tradesmen looking through gang boxes for tools. Gone
are the days of tradesmen walking around jobsites
looking for materials. Gone are the days of tradesmen
walking around looking for information. The object
is to have tradesmen doing what they love to do –
INSTALLING WORK. The more time in a day a man
is installing work, the more profitable a contractor will
be. Tradesmen have been conditioned that “looking for
stuff” is part of their job. The question is, should it be?
Can that work be repurposed further upstream to allow
tradesmen to install work as much as humanely possible.
A few examples might help contextualize what this
might look like for the typical HVAC contractor:
I. Example 1 is the installation of a roof top unit
including curbs, accessories, supply and return
duct, duct drops, dampers, diffusers, thermostat
and wiring. In this case the entire work package
would be placed in a single kit, shipped to the
jobsite and placed in the appropriate location
for installation.
II. Example 2 is the installation of risers with
reinforcements for vertical rise with taps and
fire dampers. The kits contain any necessary
reinforcing steel, the ductwork, supply and
return takeoffs, fire smoke dampers and any
other necessary equipment to complete the
installation of the risers.
III. Example 3 is the installation of a VAV System
with a low-pressure duct system including
register takeoffs and flexible duct to the diffusers.
The kits are designed, detailed, manufactured
and shipped in three distinct passes. The first
pass is for the installation of the VAV equipment,
the second pass is the duct install including both
high-pressure and low-pressure duct. The third
pass would include trim out of the registers,
diffusers and grills. Each pass would include all
materials, tools and an installation drawing to
complete the work.
By packaging the materials, tools and installation
drawings into a kit, the tradesmen will be far more
productive. No backorders. No run arounds. Just
installing work.
The concept of kitting is not new and has been used
in ship building, automobile manufacturing, train
systems and many other industries. While it flies in
the face of conventional wisdom, a hard look at why
kitting will reveal that it is a true, long term, strategic
solution to manpower shortages, pricing pressure and
schedule compression