posted on May 27th, 2010 by Tim Hall
Construction clients including repeat customers frequently see procurement of new facilities as a “distress purchase” [1], buying reluctantly as a last resort because of the difficulty in achieving the desired result with good value.
Clients wish that construction could be like other advanced industries: easy to buy from; full of ideas to meet their special needs; integrated to need no customer leadership. In more than three years spent in construction Total Flow have found no examples where this aspiration is met.
Tags: BAA Construction, Construction, Construction Client, Construction Value, Lean Construction, Total Flow Construction
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posted on May 16th, 2010 by Chris Ellins
Hi all, I have been watching and reading a string on Linkedin Lean Construction Group with great interest.
One question that keeps nagging away at me is what is the objective in construction we are seeking to solve with lean or sigma approaches and frameworks?. Safety? Quality? On time delivery? Read More
Tags: Construction, Continuous Improvement, Lean Construction, Operational Excellence
Filed under Construction, Continuous Improvement, Operational Excellence, Total Flow | 1 Comment »
posted on April 26th, 2010 by Cindi Wilson
Excerpt: Quality through the decades has been an adventurous evolution. This articles looks at the changes in philosophy, requirements and customer expectations from the 1980’s to the 2010’s – and summarizes where you need to be NOW to be competitive in the global marketplace.
Quality through the decades has been an adventurous evolution for those who’ve lived through it … not for the faint of heart, the action adverse or those afraid of culture and business change. These changes have affected what we expect, what we buy, and even what we tell our friends, family and extended social networks.
Today’s global economy and technology explosion create even more challenges to be addressed: increased expectations, increasingly complex products, shorter timescales, while making the consequences of failure much more severe. In addition, there are new challenges Read More
Tags: Continuous Improvement, Customer Satisfaction, Design for Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Six Sigma, Operational Excellence, Quality, Quality Control, Quality Evolution, Quality Improvement, Quality Management, Quality System, Quality Transformation, Six Sigma
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posted on April 18th, 2010 by Chris Ellins
The 7 Deadly Improvement Sins: How Many Do you Commit?
Sin #1: Process improvement is not tied to the Strategic issues the business faces.
Sin #2: The process improvement effort does not involve the right people, especially top management.
Sin #3: Process improvement teams are not given a clear & appropriate charter, and are not held accountable for fulfilling that charter. Read More
Tags: 7 Deadly Improvement Sins
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posted on March 29th, 2010 by Paul Cook
I’ve just Googled “end to end” to see how other perceive what this means.
For some it is a lands end to John O’ Groats bike marathon, to thers it meand looking at products from manufacture through to reatailer / point of sale.
True “end to end” for manufacturing companies is in my view much more than this. It has the same marathon elements mentioned above and means “getting visibility into supply, manufacture, distribution, retail and consumption”. Read More
Tags: end t end, end to end, Food & Drink, right to left, supply chain, whole system
Filed under Customer Satisfaction and Quality Transformation, End to End Value Chains | No Comments »
posted on March 4th, 2010 by Ashish Deo
The current economic crisis has brought things to a head in several industries, especially in developed economies.
Factors like market saturation, ageing and static populations, threat of low cost competition from emerging economies etc. are not completely new and their march has continued for the past several years. However, the crisis has brutally demolished any hopes of a gradual change and time to adjust to the new landscape.
Consumer and Govt spending is likely to remain under pressure for the foreseeable future and therefore demand for better value will be widespread and remain intense. Read More
Tags: Disruptive, Food & Drink, New business models, Sustainability
Filed under Consumer Products and Services, Remarkable Customer Propositions, Strategic innovation, World wide | No Comments »
posted on June 30th, 2009 by Lizzie Clarke
How many of us on a daily basis tolerate less than perfect, or even less than acceptable standards that, if we chose to, we would be well within our rights to challenge? Whether we are talking about the service we get in stores, restaurants or banks or from the people we work with – our teams, managers, suppliers – all seem to have an infinite range of reasons and excuses as to why it is impossible to deliver what we expect, whether we are talking about hard product or attitude and behaviour. Read More
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posted on June 26th, 2009 by Beverley Hamilton
The global talent war has seen organisational leaders scratching their heads to understand how they can attract and retain the very best talent that is going to directly impact their organisational worth to shareholders, stakeholders, employees and of course customers.
As the ever present headaches of…
- trying to balance focus on maximising profit and margin v investing for growth
- implementing short term high impact initiatives v long term strategic thinking and planning
- focusing on a business as a whole (“corporate think” and control) or on its constituent parts (functional, geographical, product/service streams) Read More
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posted on June 3rd, 2009 by Tim Hall
I resisted the temptation to have a really good apoplectic rant at a conference last night. Two construction industry apologists were suggesting that the nation, and the construction industry in particular, couldn’t afford to address sustainability in the current economic climate.
What a load of tosh. Read More
Tags: Construction
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posted on June 3rd, 2009 by Tim Hall
Whichever way we look at home energy consumption the numbers are scary and construction (world wide) is reacting slower than it needs to.
Taking the UK as a ‘below average’ performer there is some simple maths to emphasise the task:
- 26million existing homes (99.9% leaking heat and wasting energy)
- A shortage of 2million homes
- Current build rate of <100thousand per year.
- Maximum ever U.K. build rate of 400k in 1948
- Design life of 200 years (optimistic).
Read More
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