What’s one of the most important necessities when it comes to developing a construction schedule that will keep you on task and on time? Balance! A balanced production front is crucial to sustaining workflow and suppressing bottlenecks.
The Clear Flow Matrix (CFMx) provides a clear visual and intuitive mechanism for managing and controlling production – promoting and sustaining balance throughout the entire job. How?
Create the Pace for Progress
The CFMx methodology segments the entire project into smaller activities called pacemakers – each pacemaker representing the specific trades required to complete the segmented areas of work. They are then placed in a matrix accordingly with a driving axis for both flows; process and operations. What’s so great about this? The two main drivers here are based specifically on production, not time.
Remove the Burden of Time
When it comes to the success of any project, time is the dominant driver. This we know. If the project is not completed on time, the resulting consequences can be damaging to the overall success of the job and the partnership. However, when used as a governor for the production schedule, time can be more of a hindrance than a help.
Take the CPM method, for example. The ultimate goal here is the quickest path to completion. But we all know what happens when time dictates progress. People start working fast versus smart and the output suffers. Corners get cut, allowances get approved, and working out of sequence gets justified.
What if, instead, we removed the burden of time and focused more on flow as the main drivers for completion?
Ensure a Foundation for Balance
The balanced production front (BPF) is a dateline that depicts the scheduled work status at an indicated date for various areas of the project. Planned and actual production are shown by an embedded third dimension of equal takt periods defining a date-sensitive BPF. As time moves forward, the BPF helps represent work that is late (red), underway (yellow), or finished (green) to easily navigate the matrix and allow for more coherent identification of workflow progress.
Balanced production maintains both process and operational efficiency. And what this ultimately enables is flow. Process and operations will dictate the timetable in this example, versus time dictating process and operations. In this respect, the pacemaker activity will be set according to flow, and this will enable a functional timeline – based on sustainable output and calculated throughput, not rushed expectations due to time constraints. The result? Your project scheduled completion date is reached with minimal disruptions, allowing for fewer bottlenecks and streamlined handoffs.
Make Time Your Ally
You can always choose dates, but the real benefit here comes from getting the entire crew working at a takt pace based on balanced production. With this methodology, chasing end dates can be a thing of the past and costly catch-up strategies can be retired permanently – replaced by a production front and timetable that consistently remain in balance.
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