P²SL - PROJECT PRODUCTION SYSTEMS LABORATORY  

The Learning Lab for the Northern California Construction Industry

What does P²SL have to offer the construction industry?

• Development of tools and techniques for generating more value for money spent, increasing the reliability of performance to budgets and schedules, eliminating waste (accidents, defects, idle time), and improving profitability.
• Benchmarking to validate the benefits of new developments such as lean project delivery and new tools such as target costing (making cost a driver of design rather than an outcome). Identification of companies involved in benchmarking will be concealed and benchmarking data will be available only to contributors.
• Serve as a clearing house and forecasting center for changes in the market, including new projects, price trends, and capacity constraints.
• Education: deploying new knowledge and techniques in the industry.
• Diagnostics: evaluation of contributors’ operations and recommendation of improvements.

• Cal’s Engineering & Project Management Program, which has 4 full-time and 4 part-time faculty
• All departments and programs at the University of California, Berkeley
• Universities located within the NorCal region; e.g., Cal Poly, Cal State Chico, Hayward State, Sacramento State, San Francisco State, San Jose State, Santa Clara, Stanford, U.C. Davis, U.C. Merced, UC Santa Cruz, U. of the Pacific
• Lean Construction Institute (LCI): http://www.leanconstruction.org

How will P²SL’s NorCal initiative be funded?

Funds will come from industry contributions, from fees for educational courses, from fees for market research reports, and from fees for diagnostic services.  

Contributions may be made as unrestricted gifts to P²SL by making checks out to U.C. Regents and sending it to Professor Iris Tommelein, Dept. of Civil & Env. Engineering, 215A McLaughlin Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1712.

How will the NorCal initiative be organized and managed?

There are a number of different ways to organize and manage an organization like P²SL. For example, power over decision making could somehow be proportioned to the amount of money contributed. However, the best results are likely to be achieved by listening to those individuals and companies with the best ideas and doing research with those who are willing to try new ways of doing work. That’s why P²SL will be organized so that all contributors can have a say.  All contributors to P²SL may advise P²SL’s Directors, Professors Iris Tommelein and Glenn Ballard, how to use contributed funds, but the Directors will decide. Contributors’ power over decision making is ultimately to vote with their feet by refusing to continue making contributions. This arguably gives contributors the greatest possible power. Iris and Glenn will follow an open door policy, encouraging communication of suggestions and criticisms at any time. In addition, semiannual conferences will be held to report how contributed funds are being spent and what results have been achieved, and to solicit input from contributors. 

Educational Courses

Course topics will be added as research generates new knowledge and develops new tools. Contributing companies working together on projects can use their education credits for project-focused workshops. Topics on which courses could now be offered include:

• Introduction to Lean Construction
• Last Planner (Production Control)
• Operations Design
• Target Costing
• Value Stream Mapping
• Built-in Quality
  

Development of Tools and Techniques

P²SL is dedicated to developing and deploying knowledge and know-how regarding the management of projects understood as temporary production systems. To that end, several types of research are carried out, but the dominant form is action research.

In traditional laboratory experiments, the ideal is zero interaction between what is being observed and the researcher observing. Action research is almost the exact opposite. Suppose a group of industry practitioners were to ask the Laboratory to help them understand and develop target costing or some other management practice such as Last Planner, reducing assignment setup time, designing operations, etc. The Laboratory would scan the world to find what others have said and done on ‘target costing’, communicate that to the team of practitioners with whom they’re doing the research, then together researchers and practitioners would design and execute an experiment. For example, they might decide to try value workshops in the planning phase of a project, bringing downstream players upstream to help clients better understand the consequences of their desires and alternative ways of achieving their purposes, or they might decide to try cost modeling to provide rapid feedback to designers, as an alternative to traditional estimating. The researchers become part of the project team, performing the role of data collectors while participating in the execution of the experiment and helping make in-flight adjustments.

Theory informs practice and practice informs theory. Physicists are trying to understand what’s true about the world that we humans cannot change. We (designers, engineers, builders, ….) want to change the world. Action research is our way of learning through informed experience what works and what doesn’t work; what we humans can do in the world to realize our purposes.

Research projects will be developed with the Advisory Committee, but possible topics include:

• Target costing—customer value development and prioritizing, cost modeling and rapid feedback
• Reducing assignment setup time and labor hours; the time spent getting ready to work or cleaning up afterwards, but not directly generating value
• Applying lean concepts and techniques to the design and fabrication of engineered-to-order products such as ductwork, switchgear, curtain wall, precast concrete, and rebar
• Set based design, design work packaging, design work flow control

Benchmarking and Market Research

Benchmarking and Market Research are services provided by P²SL exclusively for its supporters. Reports will be provided free of charge or at a nominal fee, depending on the actual costs of developing the information.

Benchmarking will consist of collecting data from supporting companies and other sources and statistically testing correlations between managerial practices and the circumstances in which those practices occur, on the one hand, and performance results on the other. For example, does proper implementation of the Last Planner system of production control improve project performance, or in what circumstances does that improvement occur? Do projects employing the lean project delivery system achieve better results?

One of the primary responsibilities of supporting companies is to provide data concerning practices and outcomes, and also access to P²SL personnel so data can be verified. Without that verification, P²SL’s stamp of approval and accuracy will bear no weight.

Supporting companies will also be a primary source for data concerning future changes in the regional construction market. Owners can contribute their plans for capital projects. Labor unions can contribute their forecasts for trends in labor costs and supply relative to demand. Suppliers can contribute their forecasts for trends in material and service costs and supply relative to demand. P²SL will combine all such contributions and produce market forecasts that can be used to adjust and better balance demand and supply. For example, an owner may choose to defer some projects to avoid capacity constraints and additional costs. A contractor may choose to invest in building capacity in expectation of an increase in demand.

Diagnostic Services

Companies contributing at any level can request that P²SL perform a diagnosis on their projects, their fabrication shops, or other business units. Requests may be made in efforts to recover or in preparation for innovation and improvement. P²SL will evaluate the extent to which lean practices are or could be implemented to benefit operations. Fees for the service will range from $5,000 to $10,000; the exact amount will be negotiated based on the amount of time required for the diagnosis.

Questions you may have

Why should your company help fund P²SL?

Does P²SL offer consulting services?

Contact Us!

Please contact Glenn Ballard at (415) 710-5531 or ballard@ce.berkeley.edu for further information or to provide feedback.