The Achieving better for Less Award Shortlist

Lean and Benchmarking Division, Highways Agency

The Lean Team was set up in April 2009. Their scope was ambitious as it focused on increasing efficiency in its supply chain, where construction and maintenance provide the majority of the Agency’s spend (£1bn on capital projects and more than £1.5bn on maintenance and other activities).

Two years on and thanks to tireless work from the team, they have energised suppliers even to the degree that many have their own staff dedicated full-time to Lean and in equivalent Lean teams to the Agency. There is a sense of vibrancy on site as staff use ‘DMAICT’ projects, collaborative planning and visual management to squeeze out waste, improve coordination and even reduce scheme delivery time by weeks/months, in addition to contributing to the Agency’s carbon-reduction objectives through reducing materials used and plant hours worked.

The team are not afraid to challenge customs and practices that they see contain so much waste activity. For example, work has been done with the departures from standard process to reduce rework and prevent the delay that can hinder scheme delivery. The team is now working with procurement to reduce regulation and shorten the time it takes to award contracts.

By driving improvement through its supply chain the team’s work is helping to address problems with UK construction (Wolstenholme report, 2009). The team also demonstrate intelligent clientship through use of a Lean Maturity Assessment toolkit that measures the progress made by its suppliers’ towards becoming Continous Improvement Organisations.