Yolaine Perrot is Lean Management Director at Bouygues Construction. Lean management, which has been in place at the entreprise for the past four years, consists in identifying all added non-values in a project to eliminate wasted time and reduce costs. Xavier Motsch founded LeanCo two and a half years ago. This software creation company targets players in the construction industry (constructors, developers, general contractors, etc.) in order to optimise deadlines and productivity on construction sites. It is committed to providing the digital tools that make rolling out lean management easier. Since Xavier presented his solution to Yolaine a few months ago, her work has become considerably easier. To understand properly what LeanCo has to offer, you have to understand what lean management contributes to the planning and realisation of a construction site. “Starting from the objective schedule, it is about creating a detailed and executable pathway. The aim is to create a geotemporal schedule with the tasks broken down by area and shared by all the players involved in the project. It is finicky iteration work, using a not very user-friendly Excel file”, explained Yolaine. Xavier’s idea was to facilitate the creation of this pathway using an intuitive, user-friendly piece of software. In a few clicks, the executive schedule is compiled and the project team can then discuss optimisations in order to improve productivity. But that is not all.

“We also offer a tool for managing construction sites digitally, recording progress and using a specific Lean dashboard, which is more precise and rigorous than the dashboards conventionally used”, Xavier says.

  Progress on the site is thus tightly controlled, with regard not only to safety but also to quality and deadlines. The tool is more visual than an Excel table or a Gantt, and means that problems can be identified more quickly – or even anticipated – and solved as soon as possible. Finally, the dashboards give an overall view, and you can determine the health of the site and even of the company at a glance! Yolaine feels that it is the perfect medium for achieving the Group’s ambition: developing Operational Excellence and using lean management principles to eliminate insufficient and excess quality for all of our construction sites and work processes. For the time being, the tool is being tested on four of our projects and used to realise the execution schedule, and on two other sites for monitoring progress. “These field trials – which incidentally have met with a very positive response – are giving us an even better understanding of the requirements expressed by Bouygues Construction. The precise and genuine feedback from the site means we can adjust our roadmap and our concepts to be as accurate as possible”, Xavier finished. What comes next? “The first step is to roll out the solution all the way from design to construction in the projects, as it currently covers only the scheduling for the electrical and plumbing work. Then, why not make it a company tool that everyone can share?”, replied Yolaine enthusiastically. This objective could well be achieved, thanks to Matching Up. Xavier is going to enter LeanCo for the challenge, so any employees interested will be able to get in touch with him and realise some new projects.