Conclusion, analysis part I

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- Concerning the mechanism of commitment project management prioritised the trades over the plans, separating the mechanism of commitment from its potential of being a concurrent control.

All of the above separations of concurrent controls from the renovation project took, interestingly, place according to enacted strategies of flow. The strategy in the LPS therefore remained strong, in spite of, or maybe even because of these separations.

The above episodes support the findings in the two previous sections on the feedback controls and the feedforward controls that similarly to a great extent get separated from the renovation project, while the strategy remains strong. In the following section this point is elaborated upon and the first part of the analysis is concluded.

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The main focus in the first part of the analysis was to dig into the specifics of the LPS strategy and the LPS controls in episodes of planning and evaluation. In this relation it was the aim to examine their enactments. Referring to the introductory chapter on the LPS the abstractly proposed strategy concerns maximizing production flow and three types of controls in the LPS are:

- The contracts and the master schedule perform the general feedback mechanisms

- The Look-Ahead plan and its explicit focus on controlling the seven prerequisites constitutes the feedforward mechanism

- The week plan and the PPC measure constitute the concurrent control mechanism. The notion of commitment strengthens the performance of this concurrent control mechanism

The findings from the analysis part I have, however, illustrated that the controls were to a great extent separated from construction practice, while the strategy remained strong in episodes of planning and evaluation:

6.6.1. The feedback controls

The three episodes discussed in chapter 6 – section 3 illustrated that the unambiguous relationship between the strategy and the feedback controls proposed by Ballard was troubled in the particular renovation project. There were more issues at stake than proposed in the LPS. This was,

interestingly, not a problem to the existence of the LPS as a strategy, since the participants enacted the LPS pretty pragmatically, selecting (parts of) the strategy and separating it from the feedback controls:

In the first episode the enaction of the strategy by the chief manager rendered the contracts inappropriate: It was not possible to maximize flow when the contracts were settled. The contracts that were meant to be mere frames for the general construction process only controlling final output evidently influenced the planning of input. The contracts therefore became more than mere feedback controls, and they came to act against the chief manager’s aspiration of maximizing flow.

The contracts therefore had to be unsettled, in order to fit the flow ideal. This was obviously not a

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problem to the LPS since the flow ideal was intact. The strategy of flow therefore in this episode attained a function of re-arranging the contracts.

In the second and third episode the relationship between a maximization of production flow and customer value got disordered. The solution was again unproblematic to the LPS existence, as customer value was pragmatically separated from the LPS. It was in the interest to everybody present at the meeting to maximize flow, and at the same time identifying with the LPS.

6.6.2. The feedforward controls

The case of the Look-Ahead Plan in chapter 6 - section 4 illustrated that the feedforward control was not enacted as Lean in the renovation project, and eventually it was dismissed. This is similar to the episodes concerning the feedback controls: A dismissal took place as the control did not attain support in construction practice. The strategy of maximizing flow, though, remained strong:

In order to keep the trades motivated to participate in the weekly LPS meetings, a 1-hour time limit was prescribed, and that made the Look-Ahead Plan a competitor instead of a prerequisite to the Week Plan. In addition, the Look-Ahead Plan did not achieve the competence of managing complexity, since the project was not viewed as complex, although a lot of variability and uncertainty emerged in the project. Issues of variations and uncertainty potentially to be handled by a feedforward control did not therefore automatically attach themselves to the Look-Ahead Plan. An effort to make it easier to handle, made the Look-Ahead Plan even more irrelevant, since the Gantt chart came to over perform it. In addition, a great part of the decision competences to order preconditions in the quest of securing sound activities was allocated to actors that did not participate in the meetings. These issues rendered the Ahead Plan an inefficient control. The Look-Ahead Plan became a waste of precious time, a non-lean element to the participants. The case was, however, also an example of an unproblematic separation of the control from LPS since neither the trades nor project management were seemingly interested in maintaining the Look-Ahead plan, but they remained interested in flow. In that sense, the idea of being Lean remained strong as a strategy.

131 6.6.3. The concurrent controls

The findings concerning the concurrent controls support the two previous sections on the feedback controls and the feedforward controls in that the concurrent controls to a great extent got separated from the renovation project, while the strategy remained strong:

Concerning the Week Plan the evaluation part was to a great extent disconnected from the weekly LPS meeting and evaluation changed partly into facilitating agreements on the future. The limit on time set by management in order to preserve motivation to participate in meetings restricted evaluation. Though part of the concurrent control tool was therefore dismissed, this happened in the name of the strategic LPS aspirations. Additionally, the method of asking was often dispensed with in order to finish up the renovation of particular bathrooms. Concerning the PPC measure it was removed completely from the LPS in the construction project, as it did not bring any visible consequences to the participants. Instead, it achieved a status of being irrelevant. Concerning the mechanism of commitment project management prioritised the trades over the plans, separating the mechanism of commitment from its potential of being a concurrent control.

All of the above separations of concurrent controls from the renovation project took place according to enacted strategies of flow. The strategy in the LPS therefore remained strong, in spite of, or maybe even because of these separations. This proposition will be elaborated upon later.

The magnitude of selections and separations that took place, do however state a question of whether the LPS actually remained in the renovation project as a planning and evaluation device or it was dismissed. After all, the three controls were rather drastically reconfigured in the project. This question is rather difficult to answer unambiguously. Referring to de Laet & Mol (2000) a fluid object is characterized by its non-essentialism. There must, though, still be some kind of

rigidity/stability left in the object in order for it to stay an object. One might then ask the question of

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when it ceases to be an object? As the second part of the analysis gets concluded, this discussion is continued, after its fluidity has been fully accounted for.

Another crucial question that brings itself to the fore is the how of the enactment of the strategy. It is obvious that the strategy of maximizing production flow is rather fuzzy and could be enacted in many ways. So how to interpret this? Does this mean that the strategy has not been present all? It definitely has, though in a very plastic form affording interpretive viability. If the account had merely discussed the reconfigurations of the controls would not tell the whole story of the diffusion capability of the LPS. The strategy definitely was performed. In most of the episodes there were explicitly issues of Lean and flow visibly present. The words were used intentionally to argue for inappropriateness of certain LPS controls and vice versa.

In the upcoming part II of the analysis, the account in part I of what makes the LPS durable in the renovation project is added to. Part II addresses the identities that the LPS takes on additionally to the one of being concerned planning and evaluation. Part II serves to complete the account in this thesis of the reconfigurations take place in and around the LPS as it achieves durability. Part II therefore adds to the diffusion abilities in the LPS already addressed in part I.

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