groundbreakinga JE Dunn Construction newsletter

inside volume 36

Fostering a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Pull Planning at Parkland

Pull Planning from a Superintendent’s Perspective

NREL Team Adopts Pull Planning for Final Stages of Construction

Generation Y and Pull Planning

Survey Says...

JE Dunn Construction Company News

Construction Commentary

JE Dunn Goes Social

Top Projects

JE Dunn has recently instituted a team to determine best practices for process improvement for the purpose of

improving our quality, reducing variability, increasing our productivity, and delivering better value to our clients. The team is known as the Transformation Committee and the group’s mission is to integrate people and process, leveraging collaboration and technology to build better. Our goal is clear, to propel JE Dunn

forward, creating a culture of continuous improvement and ensuring we remain a leading edge construction company.

Part of that initiative includes the implementation of lean construction practices. We are convinced that lean principles, which focus on maximizing value and eliminating waste, are

essential and yield higher efficiency on deployment of all resources. Equally important is facilitating a higher level of collaboration

amongst all project stakeholders. JE Dunn has invested heavily in the development of a suite of technology tools to enable new levels of collaboration. One example of this is the Dunn Dashboard – project-specific websites and set of web tools that provide digital and mobile access to project documents, calendar, plans, submittals, and more.

Success occurs when we plan for it. Lean construction management is a key tool for the successful planning and execution of the construction process. Currently JE Dunn Construction has several projects employing lean construction management practices, including Parkland Hospital Central Utility Plant in Dallas, Texas; Trimble Corporate Office

Building in Broomfield, Colorado; UHS Anchor Hospital and North Atlanta High School both in Atlanta, Georgia; and HCA Eastside Medical Center in Snellville, Georgia. For HCA Eastside, JE Dunn is also utilizing multi-trade prefabrication as a method to reduce waste, lower costs, improve quality, and expedite the project schedule.

There are many benefits to employing lean construction principles and improving collaboration on our projects. Through these principles, all work is intentionally planned to increase productivity and reduce wasted time, manpower, and materials. Leadership and management practices are directed at improving the total project performance for all stakeholders. Lean practices shift focus from monitoring results to leading for the purpose of “making things happen”.

Pull Planning at ParklandThe project team at Parkland Hospital Central Utility Plant has successfully been using the lean construction pull planning technique for scheduling and coordinating work. With this technique, the team starts at the end of the project, or with

milestones, and works backwards to establish the work flow plan. Supervisors and foremen break down their tasks into activities on sticky notes and the team then plots the schedule for the next six weeks on a wall in the jobsite trailer. continued inside

Rodd Merchant

Fostering a Culture of Continuous Improvement by Rodd Merchant, Senior Vice President

Progress is updated daily and then reviewed every Tuesday morning to summarize performance from the previous week and to update the next six-week plan. On the central utility plant project, TD Industries brought on a facilitator to utilize the lean construction pull planning technique, and we have begun to observe the following nine benefits:

Pull Planning from a Superintendent’s Perspectiveby Tom Arrington, Superintendent

We asked several JE Dunn employees what they thought about using the pull planning integrated project delivery method at their JE Dunn projects. Tom Arrington, a JE Dunn field superintendent, weighs in on what pull planning means to his projects.

Survey Says…One of the first actions taken by Transformation Committee was to create and distribute a survey to JE Dunn employees. Our goal was to get employees’ candid feedback on a number of subjects. It would be an understatement to say that the responses were both enlightening and informative.

The survey addressed four primary topics: project planning & scheduling, productivity, communication, and building information modeling (BIM). The results indicated a very clear need to increase our focus on project planning as well as clear training gaps on the subjects of construction sequencing.

To address this, the working group has identified several projects from each region that will implement the lean construction pull planning methodology of project planning and scheduling.

We also heard overwhelmingly on a very strong desire by those involved directly in project delivery (preconstruction, operations, and field) to have more functional, hands-on access to BIM. We are addressing the knowledge gap through the development of training programs, as well as making sure that project teams have access to BIM software applications. To facilitate this, the Transformation Committee will be working with our internal BIM leaders and specialists to develop the right training material. We have already learned that BIM increases efficiency on our projects, but now we

will be spreading the knowledge and use of BIM beyond our BIM specialists to many other job functions at JE Dunn.

And finally, it’s also worth highlighting that not only did employees respond to the survey, many took the time to submit ideas for improving our operations. We received over 1,450 write-in comments and suggestions. The Transformation Committee is incorporating these suggestions to help guide its efforts and is confident that

many of these ideas will lead to real process improvements and make us build better. It’s only fitting that the best ideas would come from our greatest asset at JE Dunn: our employees!

JE Dunn Construction COMPANY NEWS

JE Dunn is pleased to announce important changes in the JE Dunn Midwest Region executive leadership team. Dirk Schafer, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer with JE Dunn Construction, will succeed Dan Euston as President of JE Dunn Construction Company’s Midwest Region, effective immediately.

Dirk Schafer has worked at JE Dunn for over 25 years and led the business operations of the Midwest Division, which

produces over $1 billion in annual construction revenue. The JE Dunn Midwest region spans beyond the Kansas City metro area with offices in Des Moines, Omaha, Minneapolis, Springfield and Topeka. At JE Dunn, Dirk has been the project executive on many landmark projects including the National Nuclear Security Administration

Campus, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Dan Euston will become President of Innovations 10.01, L.L.C., a JE Dunn start-up subsidiary. Innovations 10.01 develops and implements leading edge technology to improve the construction process and building life cycles. Innovations 10.01 utilizes proprietary products such as Site 10.01, a facility management solution that captures and combines pertinent construction data with building

information modeling graphics generated during the building process. Site 10.01 is already successfully improving facility operations, reducing operating costs, and

improving building efficiencies in Kansas City at Saint Luke’s Health System.

Dan has been with JE Dunn for 38 years and has been in charge of some of the company’s largest projects including the Sprint World Headquarters Campus, H&R Block’s Headquarters, Kansas City Power and Light District, and the Nelson Atkins Museum’s Bloch Building.

Pull Planning at Parkland continued

#1Communications are improved from craft supervisors / foremen toward schedule commitments with JE Dunn superintendents. The teams uses daily check-ins to update percent complete progress and communicate constraints or issues measures and identify progress or failures with the goal setting.

#2Weekly updates help to identify low crew productivity or potential problem areas in the building, and this leads to immediate action and problem-solving.

#3 Trades are accountable to one another. This establishes open and honest communication between supervisors describing work plan(s) for crews for the next 4-6 weeks in collaboration with other trades. The general contractor superintendent empowers trades to discuss constraints and ways to mitigate them.

#4More efficient planning and sequencing reduces many extra parts and pieces. This reduces overall waste and the need for on-site storage of extra materials.

#5 Team morale is improved by working together to develop work plans and foster closer communications and collaboration between all parties. Visual aids (sticky notes and drawings) are used to communicate work flow, sequence, and location(s) in the building.

#6With all trades involved in the BIM process, this helps with the shop fabrications, cutting down on the stored items in the field. This allows for better quality, an improved schedule, and a safer jobsite.

#7Trades have a clearer understanding of the scheduling efforts. This type of scheduling is easier to follow than a bar chart. With each contractor giving descriptions of weekly activities, others understand what their roles are to assist in achieving tasks.

#8By identifying the critical contractor and time constraints of each scope, the team can collaborate to figure out solutions.

#9On-site equipment sharing opportunities are created. If forklifts or booms are already on-site and one contractor only needs the equipment for a day or so, others can assist with their equipment in lieu of getting another piece out, or clogging up the site area.

four days to complete but tells everyone his duration is five days. Pull planning eliminates this because there is no time scale. It also makes you think more about prerequisite work or constraints, which can often be overlooked in a conventional approach, because we are thinking differently and approaching the work from the opposite direction. Depending on the size and complexity of the project, the schedule can be built in one or several pull planning sessions. Once the pull planning session is complete, the information is entered into scheduling software to produce the schedule.

The use of the subcontractor Weekly Work Plan (WWP) is an excellent tool to use for the near term (weekly) schedule. Using the WWP builds trust between the trades. Because planning is transparent, each trade sees exactly what the other trades are doing. They can see if they are making their dates or missing dates, and because it is transparent, no one wants to be the person to miss a date. Subcontractors also see that work is being completed when promised

which allows them to better plan their work and, more importantly, work efficiently.

Weekly Plan Percent Calculations (PPC) is a tool used to track performance on a project. It helps to identify potential problems such as lack of manpower or material shortages on a project sooner than would normally be recognized, allowing everyone to take corrective measures earlier in the project.

Generation Y + Pull Planningby Terry Dunn, President & CEO

Generation Y, sometimes also called the Millennials, is the nickname given to the newest generation of college graduates; essentially those who were born after 1982. As the economy rebounds and more jobs are created, many of these Generation Y

college graduates are moving into the workforce in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries. A force as many as 70 million is now embarking on their careers, and gaining employment in an increasingly multigenerational workplace. At JE Dunn, for example, we have three generations of the Dunn family working in our headquarters building in Kansas City, Missouri!

This up and coming generation is a group of multitaskers. They text, chat, email, and Facebook – all at the same time. They don’t like to stay too long on one assignment, they have a close relationship with their parents, and they have financial savvy, even at a young age. And although they put a high priority on having a career, they also believe in work-life balance.

One of the most interesting characteristics of this generation, however, is one that fits perfectly with our recent adaptation of the pull planning technique in our integrated project delivery method. This generation is one that wants to see the end-goal. They want to look ahead to the final product or outcome and then work their way backwards to see how to get there. This is, in fact, the fundamental underlying principle of pull planning. The end goal is defined and given a completion date; then all other actions to reach that goal are placed in that timeline, starting at the end and working toward the beginning. Although this seems counterintuitive to conventional planning, it is a way to eliminate wasted time and increase productivity for everyone involved in the project.

As we strive to create a culture of continuous improvement at JE Dunn, we have to consider the demands and trends of the future generations who are undoubtedly our future company leaders. At JE Dunn, we think lean and pull planning principles will be the next generation of efficient, innovative construction management.

NREL Team Adopts Pull Planning for Final Stages of Constructionby Dave Schroeder, P.E. LEED AP, DBIA, Quality Assurance Manager

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) team decided to engage the pull planning process at approximately 65 percent completion of the project with five months left to substantial completion. At this time the daily manpower on site had peaked at approximately 270 people spread across more than 20 subcontractors. The overall square footage of the building is approximately 185,000 square feet, which is split into four distinct areas. The team was starting to establish a punchlist

schedule for the laboratory spaces. One of the major benefits of pull planning is an increased level of communication between trades and a higher level of understanding of the constraints of each subcontractor. Considering the large number of subcontractors and the fact that work was required in several areas at once, we thought that this was the optimal time to engage pull planning and take advantage of its benefits.

We are a little over a month into the pull planning effort and the results have been very positive. The burden placed on superintendents to resolve conflicts between subcontractors has been significantly reduced because those conflicts are

addressed and resolved during the pull planning meetings. This has enabled our superintendents to spend their time more productively on a day-to-day basis. In addition, our project managers are better able to understand and address the constraints related to RFI responses, submittals, owner input, and more. We are looking forward to a smooth final few months of construction at NREL using the pull planning system.

Dave Schroeder

I think that using pull planning is the way we should build all of our projects. Projects can be built faster and with better quality when subcontractors are accountable. All of this combined make our projects more profitable. Using pull planning takes a radical approach to putting together a project schedule. Usually we take the start and finish dates then make everything fit within the predefined amount of time. With pull planning, you start from completion then work your way backwards. This is counterintuitive to the way we have all been trained to think in construction. It eliminates waste in durations and makes a more accurate schedule. “Waste” is that extra time that is subconsciously built in the schedule. For example, a subcontractor in a conventional approach is looking at the time scale and sees his work starts on a Monday. He knows it will take

Tom Arrington

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF)

Golden, Colorado

Dirk SchaferDan Euston

Groundbreaking is published by JE Dunn Construction 1001 Locust Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

www.jedunn.com

Emily Fors, EditorSusan McCullick, Senior Graphic Designer

© 2012 JE Dunn Construction Group, Inc.

JE DUNN CONSTRUCTION GROUP

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JE Dunn Construction Group | 1001 Locust Street, Kansas City, MO 64106

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Terry Dunn and Steve Dunn

commentaryCONSTRUCTION EAST At Bradwell Institute in Hinesville, Georgia, JE Dunn completed a

14,000 square-foot renovation, including a replacement of the existing mechanical system, classroom renovations, new IT/AV infrastructure, all new electrical panels and devices, and office space renovations. Once the project started, an additional scope was added of renovating the existing restrooms, including all new plumbing and sanitary sewer lines. Despite over 600 man hours being added to the plumbing scope alone, no additional time could be added to the schedule because school had to start on time. Teachers began moving into the renovated space on August 1 and the facility was ready for students on the first day of class on August 4. The Liberty County Board of Education was so impressed by our performance last summer that it has awarded us another phase of work at Bradwell, which we are currently completing with a similar schedule. Architect: BRPH Companies Inc.

MIDWEST JE Dunn Construction recently completed the Johnson County Youth and Family Services Center in west Olathe, Kansas. The 55,000 square-foot facility has been awarded LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. This is the first building in the entire Kansas City metro area and Johnson County to achieve this prestigious rating, and the first secured correctional facility in the entire country to receive LEED Platinum. Green features at the 33-bed Youth & Family Services Center include a geo-thermal heating and cooling system, use of daylighting throughout the building for reduced energy consumption, and outdoor features such as native plants, bio-swales, water conservation system, and highly reflective paving and roof surfaces. Additionally, recycled materials were used through the interior and exterior, and there is an electric car charging station on site. Architect: Treanor Architects

WEST The $27 million Providence Office Park III (POP III) Laboratory and Parking Garage project in Portland, Oregon was recently completed ahead of schedule and delivered well under budget. This 66,750 square-foot, three-story regional medical laboratory with a 22,893 square-foot open parking area on the ground level was constructed within an occupied office complex. Complicating construction and logistics was a two-story vertical expansion of the Providence Office Park II Parking Garage, nestled between the new laboratory building and the recently completed POP II office building. The POP III Laboratory is a full-service clinical laboratory for Providence’s Oregon Region. The lab contains a Bio-Safety Level 3 suite, one of only a few in Oregon. JE Dunn’s commitment to safety resulted in no recordable injuries over a 14-month period. In May, the POP III project earned second place in the Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce’s Top Projects for 2012. Architects: Zimmer Gunsel Frasca Architects and Jon R. Jurgens & Associates

SOUTH CENTRAL JE Dunn recently completed the sixth floor renovation of the Cancer Center and Blood Disorders at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas. The hospital requires all completed work go through a terminal clean and culture period before occupying the space with patients. JE Dunn’s infection control process was so stringent that the project passed all tests the first time. At this same facility, JE Dunn recently started work on the initial phases of the Heart Center Expansion. The 92,500 square-foot project will be completed in six phases and includes build-out of space to provide CICU patient rooms, catheterization labs, four operating rooms, an interventional suite, clinic space, classrooms, staff offices, and staff locker rooms. The entire project will be completed in two years and will take place in a fully functional, occupied children’s hospital. Architect: KMD Architects and Planners

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At the beginning of 2012, our executive leadership group met to discuss a number of issues that affect our company. One issue in particular stood out as being of great importance to the success and the continued growth of our company: we need to cultivate and celebrate innovation and foster a culture of continuous improvement at JE Dunn.

As we all know, the recent recession produced a very difficult landscape for the construction industry. JE Dunn has weathered the storm and remains a very

strong company. We have seen a number of indicators that the industry is on the road to recovery. As demand for construction services increases, we find ourselves with a unique opportunity to leverage the talents of our greatest asset,

our people, to improve our processes. To do this, we have formed a working group to critically examine and improve our business procedures.

Ultimately, we are confident that by leveraging our people, expertise, culture, and innovative ideas, JE Dunn will continue to be on the leading edge of lean construction, collaboration, and integrated project delivery in our ongoing pursuit of building perfection.

Terry Dunn Steve DunnPresident & CEO ChairmanJE Dunn Construction Group JE Dunn Construction Group

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