George Trachilis

The pace of change in construction has never been higher. The size and scale of projects continue to increase and the need for productivity improvement is becoming a necessity, not a goal. Developing leadership capability to serve these needs is a priority of our company. Helping all our employees understand and support our Lean journey and the impact it can have on improving the work lives of our field and office personnel is at the center of our mission for continuous improvement. Developing Lean Leaders at Parsons is a book that I feel truly describes and helps us understand how respect for people is fundamental to Lean. How? Beginning with a commitment to self-development and an understanding of how becoming better problem solvers by creating lean processes. These lean processes will help us expose problems which can be solved which in turn develops great leaders. Electrical and technology infrastructure is integrated into many stages of the construction process. By paying attention to where we can create flow to our work and reduce variation in the hand-offs is key to the success of our projects. The opportunity for Lean to transform our company by developing great leaders at all levels is upon us. I am confident you will find, the learnings in this book will show you how to improve not only your work, but your personal lives. This will influence the people you lead, and your customers. Your customers will appreciate how they can count on you to be an asset to their business success. Parsons will be solidified as a preferred provider to all our customers and a preferred employer for all of you.

Getting Results through Continuous ImprovementThis book shares the methodology called the P4 Planning System developed by the authors. The system has four distinct steps that start with the letter P. The authors have been implementing P4 throughout the construction industry and have found that their students have also adopted it to different industries. This special, easy to understand, process combines planning and execution in such a way that the results have been coined P4 Construction Kaizen by those that have applied it. Join the movement and apply P4 to your business, regardless of what that is.

This is the revised, Second Edition of the companion text of the Principles of Lean Thinking online course by the Lean Leadership Institute. www.Lean101.ca What exactly does this course teach people? Lean 101 teaches Lean Principles for people in all areas of businesses, the 5 Principles of Lean Thinking originate from the Toyota Production System.How long is the course? The course is about 5 hours in length and can be done on any computer, at any time, and any where. My company is in a specific industry such as engineering. How is this course relevant or useful for that segment of the workforce? This course will identify with your customers current challenges in business. It begins with a review of what your business practices are currently and then it asks that you identify WASTEFUL activities in your position. About 95% of all workplace activities will be considered WASTE from a customer's perspective. YES, 95%. This recognition empowers and teaches the student practical processes and improvements for positive change.How advanced is the course? The "101" suggests it is a basic intro to the principles of lean manufacturing, but how does it go a step further than what someone could find in Wikipedia or on the Lean 101 website? This course uses real life situations. By looking at real people describe their real workplace dilemma; this lean training assists the student with the ability to recognize how similar their workplace situation is to the example provided in this course.