Background to CLIP

The Egan report ‘Rethinking Construction’ recommended a national knowledge centre for the industry. Construction Best Practice, under the Department of Trade and Industry (now known as BERR), fulfilled this role and instigated the formation of the Construction Lean Improvement Programme, or CLIP for short, alongside the Building Research Establishment (BRE). During the last 6 years, CLIP has been adapting lean tools and techniques for use predominantly in the construction industry. This approach aims to boost performance by targeting inefficiencies in site operations and other related activities.

CLIP is based on the theory of ‘lean’. It works by focusing companies on achieving high levels of customer satisfaction by improving the quality, cost, efficiency and delivery of a product or service. CLIP allows companies to take the highly theoretical topic of lean and turn it into a practical tool that they can effectively implement across their business.

However, lean is not about trimming everything to the bone and squeezing more out of what’s left. It’s about working smarter, not harder. Lean is about achieving a balanced use of people, materials and resources. This allows companies to reduce costs, eliminate waste and deliver projects on time.

Many industries are applying lean principles to their work and regularly achieve productivity improvements in excess of 20%. It became apparent that the concepts of lean thinking could be successfully applied to any industry.

There are three key concepts to focus on:

• Processes – these transform the form, fit and function of the material or information to meet the customers’ requirements. Processes can be one off or repeats, but they all have costs attached to them
• Value – something is only valuable if the client cares that it is being done
• Waste – if it’s not valuable to the client it’s called waste, and should be reduced.

By focusing on these areas a company can start to remove all non-essential wasteful activities, and minimise non-value adding activities.

CLIP focuses on changing the behaviour of people at the ‘sharp end’ of a business. These people operate the industry’s processes, and are the ones closest to adding value and meeting the needs of the customer more effectively. A CLIP engineer, with world class expertise in lean construction methods, works with your team to make practical improvements and to train them by example; it is not learning in the classroom. In this way, results are immediate and directly related to needs.

For participating companies, CLIP begins with two start-up activities: input diagnostics and a management awareness workshop. These are followed by an individually tailored programme built up from four core modules (Lean Processes Masterclass, Lean Relationships, Leadership and Communications, Teamwork and Team Leader Training).