Get the Right Foremen on the Bus – Last Planner® Implementation Series

What Do You Expect From a Foreman?

On the Elevate website, under field resources and lean signage, there’s a list I published a long time ago called foreman expectations. A few of them:

• Be located in the jobsite trailer or on site, not running around from job to job.
• Bring materials to the site just in time.
• Enforce company and project safety rules from the trade partner safety manual.
• Keep crew operations clean and organized.
• Do not let materials touch the ground. Everything on wheels, pallets, racks, or in some kind of container.
• Spend time every morning teaching about the eight wastes, 5S or 3S, and implementing lean concepts.
• Participate as a project team member in the Last Planner System and the morning and daily huddles.
• Encourage crews to come up with lean improvements.
• Post material, equipment, and supply deliveries visibly and schedule them with the project team.
• Attend a pre-construction meeting before the work and research the plans and specifications.

The bottom line is the foreman must be clean, safe, and organized, have proximity with the team, understand lean principles, and be willing to communicate and participate in the right meetings and systems.

What Happens With the Wrong Foreman?

There are people out there, and I love them and their moms love them, who aren’t yet qualified to be crew leaders or foremen but are in that position. They don’t have proximity, they don’t know lean, and they aren’t clean, safe, and organized. That is not going to work. You might need to do it out of necessity, but it’s like a bad rash.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve never seen a wrong-cultural-fit foreman problem go away. Am I blaming people? No. I’m blaming behaviors, culture, the process, and the system. A misalignment is a process, system, culture, and behavior problem, and it won’t go away. You have to have the right foremen for your systems to work.

Why One Foreman per Functional Area?

On a civil project, you need foremen for crews that are spread out. On a utility project in a public right-of-way, one foreman leads pipe installation, another supervises the paving behind, maybe another does traffic control.

On the bioscience research laboratory, we had exteriors, interiors, and a basement. For the interiors on the top four floors and the basement, there had to be a separate foreman or lead for each. Otherwise they weren’t in the right huddles, because eventually superintendents break those huddles out, and a foreman can’t be in multiple areas or too many meetings at once and be effective.

Our contract conclusions list says all foremen must be approved by the on-site team and comply with the requirements or be removed. The project is broken into geographical areas for operational control, each supervised by a superintendent and a field engineer, so each trade must provide a dedicated foreman or lead for each area.

Should You Interview Foremen?

We interview trade partners, employees, and for projects. We’re going to have to start interviewing foremen, being very selective and making sure they’re trained. If you’re saying, Jason, there aren’t a lot of trained foremen, then let’s get to training people. I have a book for you, Elevating Construction Foremen. I wouldn’t be above telling bidding trade partners months ahead that their foremen must read this book and be interviewed by the project team before the trade partner is selected.

On the bioscience research laboratory, all foremen were required to be OSHA 30 trained and all workers OSHA 10 trained. We needed 380 workers. Built in Phoenix, it would have taken about 210. That’s the difference in skill in the geographical area we were in. It wasn’t easy, but we made it happen. You can do this.

Yes, the last planners are the last people in the planning cycle, the people closest to the work, and where improvement starts. They need to collaborate, buy in, and commit. But for that to happen, you need the right foremen on the bus and in the right seats, separated by functional area or phase. Read How to Be a Good Construction Foreman.

A listener wrote that the superintendent book is the best tool in the toolbox. That made my night.

So here is the challenge. List every phase and functional area on your project. Next to each, write the name of the dedicated foreman or lead. Any blanks are your first implementation gap.

Bottom line: Get the right foremen on the bus and in the right seats, because without them your systems won’t work.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

On we go.

Takt and Last Planner Implementation series:
This is the first episode of the series.
Next: Phases & Functional Areas

FAQ

What has to be in place before implementing the Last Planner System in the field?

A takt plan and zone maps, a procurement log, a logistics plan, a trailer and signage design, an organizational chart, a risk and opportunity register, and a macro and normal-level takt plan, all formatted and ready to put boots on the ground.

What are the first five steps of Last Planner implementation?

1. Get the right foremen on the bus. 2. Understand your phases and functional areas. 3. Make sure you have foremen for all functional areas. 4. Decide on a good meeting schedule. 5. Decide on your conference room, trailer, and visuals.

What makes the right foreman for a lean project?

The foreman must run clean, safe, and organized work, have proximity to the team, understand lean principles, be willing to communicate and participate in the right meetings and systems, and be a cultural fit, trained and onboarded to the project’s systems.

People Also Read:
The Last Planner System
Foreman Series: Operational Excellence
What Is a General Foreman in Construction?
Morning Foreman Huddles Are Just Team Huddles