My research is not based on Lean. It was an attractive area but, I decided that the business of specialty contracting is where a real need exists. The literature review bears this out. My two books indicate my passion for this. My thesis is not a surprise to people who know me.
Toyota’s 4 Ps of Lean hierarchical lists processes as the second need after philosophy and before partnership and problem solving. We believe that this is an important area of research whether the focus is Quality, Lean or Six Sigma.
The database of 155 practices and the correlation to financial result – RoNW – we are building is for others to perform follow-on research in the coming years. We hope it will be something akin to Dr. Halpin’s CYCLONE data and software.
We will be using highly sophisticated software packages that are common to the Rinker School at the University of Florida for our statistical tests. My firm is sponsoring the cost of the work.
When the results are released to the industry in a few years, we hope that processes that are common to high performing firms against U.S peer RoNW averages (and not common to low performing firms) would be used by Lean practitioner’s to further help the construction industry. As you know, statistically correlated processes from practicing contractors can only add to the knowledge of specialty construction.
As a contrast, the definitions of words vary from person to person and can cause confusion. Fact based research helps clarify.
Hope all continues to go very well.
Matt Stevens
very interesting post.. thanks to write for us.