Going ‘lean’ can bring big results to underground contractors

This is a story about how the parking lot of a utility installation company became a key part of how it improved its productivity.

That’s simplifying things a bit, but when underground construction company Berry It Inc. sought to eliminate waste from its operations, it targeted the layout of its home base in Kokomo, Indiana. It did so by adding what are known as lean principles to its business philosophy.

Lean is all about eliminating waste and making better use of resources to increase capacity and productivity. For Berry It, that included wasted motion when coming and going to the company’s yard and in not always having inventory prepared when crews were ready to work.

That may not be a topic that sounds too interesting to you, but you should pay attention. Because these are the results Berry It realized:

  • An approximately 65 percent reduction in the amount of time it took production employees to leave the yard after clocking in.
  • Saved time worth an estimated $165,000 per year, according to the company.

Still unsure if this topic matters to you? Then consider what having that extra time would mean for you and your crew each morning. Same thing for the impact of your company achieving significant annual savings from a non-value-added activity.

Searching for a better way

James Berry formed his company in 1999. Today, it has nearly 50 employees and specializes in underground utility installations by horizontal directional drilling (HDD), trenching and vibratory plowing.

Berry is proud that he built the company from the ground up, but he also notes that he didn’t have experience with how other companies handled their day-to-day procedures, policies and job processes. He and his managerial staff developed their own, but Berry always felt like something was missing.

“There had to be a better way to all of this,” he says. “In my mind, I was always wondering: How do similar companies operate? What do their day-to-day challenges and tasks look like? How did they beat me on a bid again? What can we do to be a better company?”

One employee even said Berry It was the most unorganized company he’d ever worked for. Berry couldn’t get mad. He felt the same way.

‘I was hooked’

Then, a couple of years ago, Berry was picking up some parts for one of his directional drills at the Vermeer Midwest dealership in Fishers, Indiana. He noticed that the shop and parts departments had undergone a significant redesign, and it seemed an emphasis had been placed on organization and efficiency. He asked Gary Nirich, strategic accounts sales manager for the location and a longtime friend, what was going on.

“He asked me if I had ever heard of ‘lean,’” Berry recalls. “‘No,’ I replied. So we talked about it for a while, and I was hooked. I knew this is what I was after.”

Nirich also offered to reach out to the Vermeer corporate office in Pella, Iowa, to see if someone would work with Berry It to implement lean strategies. Berry was so excited he headed straight for a book store and bought several books on the lean concept, which he prefers to call “continuous improvement” instead of “lean” because the process never stops. He’s now read more than 12 books on the topic.

“By the way, I don’t like to read,” he says. “But these books — I couldn’t put them down. It’s like you could see a lightbulb shining above my head. I couldn’t wait to start implementing these new concepts into our business.”

‘Huge jump’

In August 2015, Gary Coppock, senior director of continuous improvement at Vermeer, led a weeklong activity at Berry It called a Kaizen event. Kaizen is Japanese for “improvement.” Berry It was moving into a new, and larger, yard, and the goal was to develop a layout that would improve how it was set up and the organization of inventory. Future goals included reducing the amount of time it took from when employees clocked in to when they left for jobsites and the travel time for employees.

Coppock says lean starts with learning what waste is, how to identify it and how to eliminate it. An organization then creates standards to train its employees and sustain the improvements.

“Through this work, the goal is to create an environment where waste is visible and everyone in the organization is trained to eliminate and look for opportunities to improve all areas of the business all of the time,” he says.

At Berry It, opportunities were identified to improve the flow of people, equipment, vehicles and job supplies. This was done by mapping out the flow of the facility and where supplies and equipment would be located. The final plan even dictated where personal vehicles should enter, park and exit. Same thing for work vehicles.

The results have been significant.

For several months leading up to the August event, Berry It had been monitoring the time that employees clocked in every morning until the time they actually left to go to a jobsite. That accounted for up to 165 hours each week.

Berry emphasizes that his workers were not at fault. It was the company’s processes that were, in his word, broken. The facility at that time was too small and unorganized, slowing everyone down. Also, inventory was not selected and ready to go to jobsites.

When Berry It moved into its new facility, it had a strategic design to solve the problems at the old location. As a result, that 165 hours of non-value-added time to get out the door has been reduced to an average of 50 to 60 hours per week. At 35 production employees, Berry estimates that to be a $156,000 savings annually.

“We still believe that there is room for improvement, but what a huge jump,” he says.

It’s important to remember that this process and the results will vary for each business that undergoes it. In fact, a Kaizen event usually focuses on a specific process. Berry It looked at the layout of its facility. Another company may address its own maintenance shop, or inventory, or how information is collected and shared or even its financial processes.

“You could reduce the time it takes to perform a given activity or you could reduce the number of hours or people it takes to perform that activity,” Coppock says. “Any time that is freed up or people freed up could be used in other areas of the business.”

Jobsite efficiencies

Berry It will next tackle jobsite efficiencies. This is also an area Vermeer has expertise in. While every jobsite is different, Coppock says he has seen situations in which crew members are standing around because they don’t have the information or tools to do their jobs. Or there is wasted motion because a jobsite is not set up efficiently. Or they have to return to the shop because something was forgotten.

Equipment also comes under review. Contractors sometimes don’t want to take the time or expense to do routine maintenance, but that carries the risk of that equipment developing issues due to neglect.

“If the machine is not in operation because of some unplanned issue, that’s a waste,” Coppock says.

Again, these are matters that affect more than just mangers sitting in an office. Many directional boring crew members are paid by production. By eliminating waste, lean processes can potentially boost productivity. 

But even for those earning a set wage, would anyone suggest that not getting out of the yard faster, being more efficient on a jobsite and having equipment in operation is not a good thing?

“I recommend anyone interested in continuous improvement to start today, and to not give up,” Berry says.

For more information on lean principles, or continuous improvement, contact your local Vermeer dealer as a first step.

Information noted above was gathered from a third party who was advised his experience might be featured in marketing materials. Individual results may vary based on business processes, care and operation of machine, and jobsite conditions.

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