1. Collaborative Planning on 5 London Underground Projects Mr Daniel Agutter, A2B Excellence
Good morning, my name is Daniel Agutter,
And I’m going to share my experiences over the last two years, where I implemented a Production Management system called ‘Collaborative Planning’, on 5 London Underground Construction projects.

2. Agenda Set the Scene Collaborative Planning Summary
Questions and Answers
Today Im going to talk you through the following topics:
I will set the scene of where we were in 2013 and why we had to change.
I will explain the Collaborative Planning System we implemented.
Provide a summary of the Costs and Benefits
AND finally a session on Questions and Answers - so its probably easiest to save any questions until then.

3. How often do we complete the things we plan to do?
Before I start, can I see who has had any experience or heard of Collaborative Planning / Lean Construction / Production Management please?
Ok, that’s about half of you, fantastic thanks.
Ok, so another question: How often do traditional construction methods complete the activities they planned to do the day before?

4. 100% of the time? 90% of the time? 75% of the time? 50% of the time?
Hands up the optimists who think this is 100% of the time?
90% of the time?
75% of the time?
Who thinks its close to 50% of the time?
I love a KPI and I found this quite shocking – but Highways England found it to be between %!
I don’t need to tell you that this obviously results in:
A large number of aborted shifts, poor or lazy planning, wasted time and effort producing back-up plans, ‘just-get-it-done’ attitudes.
Cultural behaviours = suppression of bad news and mis-reporting of progress, silo behaviours and blame cultures.
Which costs everyone time and money!
I am going to share with you, why and how a Programme in TfL changed their Delivery model and completed an average of 85% of planned activities the next day.

5. 1. Set the Scene In Feb 2013, achieved Authority for: £350m
7 year Programme
Upgrade 72 Underground stations
Savings Target of 12% to 20%
I'm going to take you waaaaay back to 2013 and the Stations Stabilisation Programme in LU, managed the unthinkable.
During the economic backdrop of the austerity measures and Government spending cuts, we secured Programme Authority of £350m for a 7 year programme of works, to upgrade 72 Underground stations.
…but then…12% of our authority was immediately handed back to TfL as achieved ‘savings’.
Not only that but we were then given a stretch target to achieve 20% savings while delivering the original scope… so what did we do?

6. So, what did we do?

7. Developed a new delivery strategy: ‘STAKE’
Went down supply chain
Supply chain - Continuity of work
Capable workforce – Quality & Productivity
Simplified non-adversarial contracts
We knew we needed to change! So we developed a new Delivery Strategy:
We recognised the larger contractors we typically engaged with simply subcontracted the works. Usually multiple times.
Which went we were paying for layers of management that werent adding value for the work. There were so many layers between us and the work site, that messages werent being communicated properly or efficiently.
Therefore, we went down the supply chain and targeted the contractors who would actually be doing the work and manage them directly as the Principle Contractor.
We then asked them what was most important to their company and their workers, and ‘continuity of work’ was top of their list.
To provide this LU allocated all the successful contractors a portion of the 7 year workbank depending on their size, capacity and capability.
Our Collaborative Planning system (as you will see later) provided key data to measure contractor performance.
High performing contractors would keep and potentially gain more work, while poor performing contractors would lose their allocated work eventually be rested.
Weren't we all playing nicely so far? However, what did LU want in return?
In return LU wanted a commitment that the workers on site would be consistent, competent and productive.
To achieve our savings targets we wanted to build long term relationships, create a one-team approach.

8. STAKE Delivery Model
1st time LU to perform Client and Principal Contractor role
Collaborative working and relationships
…Collaborative Planning
This was the first time London Underground were acting as both the client and Principal Contractor.
So we needed a system to collaborative work with our Contractors to plan and deliver programme.
What we didn't know was what that really was or how to do it…
We struggled to find what was the current industry best practice…but luckily someone we knew, happened to walk their dog, with someone who had lunch with someone’s brother, who had heard of a system that fit what we needed.
Thus, we were introduced to a system they called ‘Collaborative Planning’.

9. 2. Collaborative Planning
STAGE 1 - Planning in Design
We implemented the 3 STAGE Collaborative Planning system on our flagship project, the £12m Embankment refurbishment.
For the PMs, this was a TIME critical project as we had to be finished by the end of the closure. If anyone travels through the station, you will no doubt have seen the improvements.
STAGE 1
We broke the project down into physical areas.
This is Embankment station and the purple level at the top is the Ticket Hall area and the platforms are at the bottom.
For us working on an operational railway, we had constricted access and only a 4 hour working window every night.
Planning was so important to us to deliver this project successfully.

10. STAGE 1 - Planning in Design
Project Planning has traditionally been done by a single planner, in a dark corner, frantically modifying a standard template in Primavera.
Then during the project, simply inputting data and reporting back to the business.
Not only that but our Contractors then used this ‘plan’ to produce their programmes and costs etc. Which, surprise, surprise were completely unachievable after the first week on site.
This was all very reactive and we realised needed to change.
Who better to plan the project than the contractors who will be building it?
So that’s what we did. Using post it notes. We got the whole project team in a room, with the key contractors and held a 2 day workshop.
Basically, we produced a huge process map to agree the logic sequence for each trade in each area.
The small photo shows the ticket hall and the yellow post-its are the electrical contractor.
Benefits:
This started to build relationships and the one-team approach we had talked about.
It gave everyone a sense of ownership and accountability.
This wasn’t just an exercise into talking collaboratively but translated to working collaboratively on site.
One night a contractor forgot a ladder. Rather than the usual blame game and attempts at trying to claim for the knock on effects, the other contractors actually tried to help and managed to get a ladder that night to keep us on plan. Which blew away our Construction Manager.

11. STAGE 1 – Planning in Design
The second part of the workshop was dedicated to adding durations to each activity and to hold a final sanity and logic check.
This is the final output of the workshop. The timeline of the project and the swimlanes separate the physical areas ie the Ticket Hall.
As before, each trade is represented by a colour so the yellow post-it notes for Electrical are now yellow bars.
Its not rocket science but this proved to be a real step change for us.
It is a really visual way to produce a programme and its easy to update it as well compared to a 26+ page Primavera version. Which most seem to struggle with…especially some senior managers…
We put it up on the wall of the site office and could be viewed on iPads during shifts.
Another benefit we found was that our smaller Contractors used it to produce much more accurate cost forcasts.
Which our Commercial Managers loved. Especially around financial year end when most of their sanity and marriages seemed to hit a rough patch!
This is vital for a London Underground programme, where year end spend and certainty are so important for the next years budget. It gave us an edge as a programme.
However, as LU are now the Principle Contractor we needed a way to manage and control our sites at an activity level.

12. STAGE 2 – Production Management
To tackle this issue we introduced 3 week lookahead ‘kan-ban’ type board on site.
The first, left hand side column is colour coordinated with the project areas from STAGE 1. The columns then represent shifts and weeks.
I then designed bespoke cards for each contractors to write down and record their activities for the first 3 weeks on site.
Each card was again colour coded to match the programme.
Theses cards then populated the 3 week lookahead boards.
Before we started on site we could easily see clashes where multiple contractors were planning to work in the same area.
We also identified opportunities to bring work forward.
At the end of every shift, the Construction Manager reviews progress during the shift and confirms whether the activity was completed or not.
If it was completed, the Construction Manager ‘turned over’ that activities card which revealing the green back of the card.
If the activity was not completed. The activity card stayed as it was and allowed the project team on the days to follow up and re-plan etc.
This really helped our handover process from the Contruction Manager directing work on nights, to the project team on days.
Once the first week was complete and all unachieved activities were re-planned, the boards were then shuffled down and Week 1 became Week 3.

13. STAGE 2 – Production Management
The blue card is an example of the Contractors Activity cards.
Which includes information like the Working Area, Date, Activity, Man power and the duration.
If an activity such as installing cable management systems took 10 shifts. The cards would read 1/10, 2/10, 3/10 and if the activity overran 11/10, 12/10.
We had a few other cards for the contractors to use, such as, ‘ready for inspection’ card and the ‘Issue Card’ shown here.
In the first 3 weeks the board was pretty much covered in the issue cards, which is what we wanted. Then as the project progressed, so did the behaviours.
Contractors were being forced to plan ahead and the cards were used as early warnings, and after a month new “Issue cards’ were only appearing in Week 3.
This maximised the time the LU project had to solve the issue.
After two months, the Contractors were asking where we got the cards from. They had brought into the process and the change when they could see the benefits.
They wanted to populate their cards ahead of time and have a store of their own.

14. STAGE 2 – Production Management
Daily Pre and Post-Shift Meetings
Weekly Progress Review
Periodically Review Stage 1
- Divergence
We were now up and running on site and as PC had a clear understanding and control of who was working where and when.
We implemeted this with a series of meetings:
The pre-meeting was run by the Construction Manager when each card for the shift was discussed for last minute changes.
The post-shift meetings were where the Construction Manager updated the boards for the progress on the shift and discussed issues with the contractors for any additional information.
There was a weekly progress meeting. This was where the boards were re-populated with activity cards at the end of every week.
The planner (no longer the data inputter in a dark corner) would run this meeting and run through the boards.
In particular re-planning work site clashes and trying to exploit opportunities. Issue cards would also be logged with agreed actions and owners to resolve.
This very visable process created a very open and collaborative approach. The project team and contractors were all in attendance and no one wanted to let the team down.
Lastly, every month, the STAGE 1 output was reviewed for progress and changes in the logic or upcoming closures etc.

15. STAGE 3 – Process Improvement
Unachieved activities
Issue cards recorded
Contractor Performance - PPC
Lessons Learned
The last STAGE, STAGE 3 - Process Improvement.
By that I mean capturing and using the data that could be derived from the system to learn and get better.
We were very good at re-planning unachieved activities but the challenged proved to be capturing why they didn’t happen.
This information was captured after each shift and was really useful to identify and remove the root causes.
We tracked all the ‘Issue Cards’ in action logs. This meant we could review on a project and programme level for reoccuring themes.
Again this, were great in making sure the actions were closed out and as information sources our lessons learned reviews.
For each contractor we introduced a very simple graph on the site office wall:
The number of achieved activities vs the number of planned activities.
We stated with a  if the contractor achieved over 70% and a sad face if they were less than 70%.
During the year these targets were contunially improved and met.
This is how from May 2014 to January 2015 we achieved our 85% average as a programme.

16. 3. Summary – Costs Early Contractor Involvement
Contractor’s time to complete cards
Planning cards, boards, frames
Daily, weekly, periodical meeting attendance
Obviously there are costs associated with such a system:
You have to pay for the Contractors time to complete their activity cards.
There are the costs for the planning boards, frames and all the cards themselves.
And when the system is up and running, there are the appropriate daily, weekly and monthly progress meetings.

17. 3. Summary – Benefits One Team Approach Early Contractor Involvement
Standardised site management
PPC increases from 55-60% to 80-90%
The system helped create the one-team approach we wanted.
Our programme stability improved dramatically when the contractors were involved in planning the work.
They challenged why we were doing certain things and helped us streamline our processes.
Our management could walk onto any of our projects and quickly see any issues, poor performing Contractors and where everyone was.
All basic stuff but much more difficult when you have 150 ops on site during a 4 hour working window.
Most importantly, our Planned % Complete improved to 85%, more than covered the cost of the system and ensured Embankment finished on time.

18. 3. Summary – Benefits
Highways England: 10-40% improvements in Time and Cost
Work-site clashes mitigated & maximise opportunities
Issues identified early
Transparency of progress, process and interfaces
Highways England, when operating a similar model, found from 10 to 40% improvements in Time and Cost.
We mitigated a lot of work site clashes and learned a lot of lessons as an organisation including our contractors.
Using the boards and issue cards, we identified issues on site earlier and so gave ourselves more time to respond and mitigate.
Lastly, progress on site was easy to visualise due to the giant 1-page programme and we shared that with everyone at all stages so there was total transparancy.
Having all contractors at the weekly meeting meant that any issues were solved there and then.

19. CPTP & ICE A bit of additional information for you.
I have been working with the Collaborative Project Team Programme, which is sponsored by the Infrastructure Client Group and supported by Infrastructure UK and the Institution of Civil Engineers.
While I was at LU, I worked with Highways England and Anglian Water in particular, to share our experiences and progress. So an event like today is fantastic.
My experience has shown me that the Collaborative Planning system – whether you use STAGEs 1, 2, 3 or all of them as we did, really benefitted our projects, especially those with:
Multiple Contractors
Project Constraints – for example limited access
Or those who want a visual, stable and mutually agreed programme
Thanks very much for listening, does anyone have any questions?

20. 4. Questions and Answers Daniel Agutter
Consultant | A2B Excellence Ltd
For the five projects on site:
LU Planned an average of activities per shift.
Completed an average of activities per shift.