Everyone likes to talk about the need to increase productivity. It’s no secret increasing productivity means savings, especially during shutdowns or turnarounds. But it takes more than talk to increase productivity. It requires innovation — a willingness to think differently, consider “nonwrench logistics,” and leverage cutting-edge products and processes.
Safety first
Where to begin? You begin with safety, which is the most critical aspect of any project and the key to driving productivity. “I firmly believe a safe jobsite is a productive site,” said Tomi Umemoto, manager of the Safway Houston branch. “If your approach to safety is well-organized and disciplined, then everything you do on the jobsite will be well-organized and disciplined. The more focused you are on safety, the more productive you are. A productive site is a safe site.”
Safety is much more than a manual, the right training or a well-built scaffold. Safety is training, planning, awareness and focus. It’s a mindset and a culture.
“Fostering a culture of safety means the newest crew member on the job feels empowered to stop work if he/she sees or even suspects there is anything unsafe, even if it’s his/her first day on the job,” said Joey Williams, a vice president of the Safway Multiservices Team. “I like to tell people the first thing we are paying them to do is be safe.”
Adding new workers to crews who have years of experience in executing their work safely can help reinforce best practices and get everyone up to speed quickly. “A robust ‘onboarding’ process, which includes both training and mentoring — pairing newer people with more experienced crews — is well worth the effort,” explained Tim DeBolt, a regional vice president in Canada.
Effective safety also includes procedures and policies like job hazard analysis (JHA) forms (referred to as a field-level hazard analysis in Canada). To complete the hazard analysis form, you have to be able to answer questions like, “What is the scope of work? What are your objectives? How are you going to approach the job? What hazards could you encounter? How will you mitigate these hazards?” “This kind of thinking really reinforces good planning and productivity,” added DeBolt. “One leads to the other.”
In addition, behavior-based safety (BBS), a process that assists employees in identifying and choosing safe behaviors over unsafe behaviors, helps to support the development of a culture of safety. The most recognized part of BBS is behavioral observations.
“Observations provide direct measurable information regarding employees’ safe work practices,” explained Paul Amedee, vice president of Environmental Health and Safety for Safway. “Observers should witness employees doing their routine tasks and document both safe and unsafe behaviors. They should also provide nonthreatening feedback that includes suggestions on how to correct unsafe behaviors. It is up to management to provide immediate positive feedback recognizing safe behaviors. The information gathered from this process can be analyzed to identify safe and unsafe behaviors in employees, sites or departments. This allows everyone to focus on areas of concern and proactively make any needed changes.”
Excellence in safety must also be continually reinforced with toolbox talks, weekly safety meetings and leadership from top to bottom. “Good leaders accept responsibility and demand accountability,” added Amedee. “When accountability is emphasized, it creates a culture where every leader and each employee feels ownership for results and holds each other accountable.”
Cutting-edge products, services, processes
By utilizing and taking advantage of new products, services and technology, there is also an opportunity to save customers time and money. To effectively drive productivity, you need to listen and understand a customer’s objectives and concerns while at the same time think differently and suggest new approaches where applicable.
For example, by using a suspended access system instead of a more traditional scaffold buildup, you can sometimes cut a budget by as much as half. “Building up a scaffold over 200 feet can take weeks,” explained Umemoto. “By using a suspended access system, you can build a platform just at the required height in a matter of days — a significant saving in both time and money.”
Another huge time savings can be found in weather protection systems. A temporary roof system, building or shelter can protect assets, equipment and structures while at the same time creating a barrier from the weather.
Once a project is underway, keeping the customer and any other trades or subcontractors on-site informed and updated regarding activities and progress helps to maintain the focus on the critical path. In addition, letting the customer know if you’re ahead of schedule, and what modifications or changes have come up, will keep everyone on track. Using technology to monitor and report on all aspects of a project is crucial to this kind of detailed and ongoing communication.
“When you can rely on technology to manage payroll, billing, time, equipment, materials and inspections, and provide customers with up-to-date reports, you can easily track key performance indicators,” said DeBolt. “This allows you to show the customers what you’re saving them in time, modifications and materials, which goes directly to the bottom line for your customers.”
Using technology is also essential when crew sizes ramp up. “When there are turnarounds in the schedule, your crew size can more than double,” explained DeBolt. “Using technology is a huge help in managing this kind of increase and growth in labor.”
In cases where extensive engineering is required and the customer does not have recent plant drawings, surveying the facility using high-definition laser scanning can save time and money in the long run and is well worth the initial investment. If customers have their own scanning equipment and can provide digital images, these can then be imported into 3-D computer-aided design software. Digital imaging provides a solid foundation with millimeter accuracy for project design.
“Laser surveying can save time during the engineering phase of a project and allows you to basically eliminate interferences once you’re on-site,” said Bruce Layden, Safway product manager.
People drive performance
At the heart of any high-performance project are the people who work to keep a job on time and below budget. Although not a new concept, it’s worth repeating; your best asset is your employees, and your best tool is communication — before, during and after a project is completed.
Having a knowledgeable planner — someone with at least 10-15 years of experience in SIP (scaffold, insulation and painting) — is essential. “Experienced planners can safely drive down costs for everyone,” said DeBolt.
In addition, having good on-site management and a great crew is equally important. Although it may start with your project planners, when a customer is pleased with your performance, it always boils down to the crew in the end.
This also means a higher cost per hour could sometimes end up providing the best overall savings to the customer. “It’s important to go beyond focusing on price per hour and concentrate instead on delivering the lowest total cost,” said DeBolt.
For some projects, including major turnarounds, you often have the luxury of planning months in advance. But for routine maintenance contracts, the work order is sometimes received just a few weeks before it shows up on the schedule. In these instances, having a foreman with years of experience configuring and erecting scaffolds is essential. The foreman can walk the job, provide an estimate and get it on the schedule efficiently.
Hand in hand with having the right people in place is good communication on both sides of the relationship. If a customer has a structured and detailed transition plan, it can have a huge impact on the success of any project. “When you can partner with a customer, when you can coordinate together closely, when you’re sending representatives to their planning and safety meetings, and they’re sending people to your meetings, it can go a long way toward ensuring a smooth ride,” added DeBolt.
Increasing productivity doesn’t mean working fast or rushing; it’s operating smoothly and swiftly, with direction and clear purpose. It means planning, looking ahead, anticipating and thinking outside of the box. It means taking advantage of the latest developments in products, engineering and technology, and ongoing communication with everyone on-site. It’s good people fostering a culture where safety always comes first.
“With good planning, engineering, products, processes and safety, productivity and the lowest total cost fall in line,” explained Andrew Johnson, a Safway project manager. “You can’t have any one without the others. If you do your planning and safety training correctly — before a shutdown — once the trigger gets pulled and the unit goes down, everyone is on the same page and everything goes smoothly.”
For more information, visit www.safwaygroup.com or call (800) 558-4772.