Ep.800 - Elevating Construction Foremen - Recording Part 24

For episode 800, Jason continues his reading of Elevating Construction Foremen with the section on managing production, five strategies a crew leader can use to keep a train of trades moving. He covers optimizing bottlenecks, shortening cycle times, using Little's Law to choose the right number of zones, raising labor productivity through training, and reducing variation. A worked example shows how the same ten-wagon train drops from 44 days with two zones to 16 days with nine. The refrain throughout is that you can be the best in your field and still not go faster than the system allows. What you'll learn in this episode: How to spot and help the slowest trade or hardest zone, a bottleneck that is a limit to improve, not a problem to blame How Kingman's formula applies to cycle times: planned duration plus the time lost to variation and low productivity How Little's Law changes the math: the same work with the same crews drops from 44 days to 16 days as zones go from two to nine Why training, the right tools, and the right working environment raise labor productivity How to prevent the variation you can and react to the variation you can't Looking at your own project, what is the slowest trade or hardest zone, and how could your crew help it? If you like the Elevate Construction podcast, please subscribe for free, and you'll never miss an episode. And if you really like the Elevate Construction podcast, I'd appreciate you telling a friend (Maybe even two 😊). Also, here are links to our YouTube Channels: · Jason Schroeder YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4xpRYvrW5Op5Ckxs4vDGDg · LeanTakt YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/leanTakt · LeanSuper YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzQDevqQP19L4LePuqma3Fg/featured · LeanSurvey YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Ztn3okFhyB_3p5nmMKnsw