Lacey Wargel: Lean Engineer
What is Lean Engineering?
Lean Engineer is a new role in the construction world, but has been in manufacturing for decades. Lean is the continuous improvement of any process throughout the business, focusing on the elimination of waste. In lean construction we have several tools to eliminate waste, such as pull planning, pre-fabrication and operation plans. If we get creative we can also apply many other tools used in lean manufacturing, such as 5S to organize the workspace and value stream mapping to highlight the waste in a process.
Who is a good fit for this role?
This is a tricky question, but I attribute my success to being observant, asking a million questions, and never taking no for an answer. I’m one of those nerds who loves to watch How It’s Made and I get to do that every day at work, then help the crews solve their biggest headaches on the job. If you like people, are creative and look forward to a challenge, you’ll make a great lean engineer.
How did you become a Lean Engineer?
My background in manufacturing has been a huge help in process improvement at Bowen. The more life experiences you have, the more ingenuity you have seen, the more you can picture industry specific things in other industries. You have to be creative in figuring out how to make it work, but there is no doubt that I have brought some of my manufacturing tricks to Bowen to help our guys be more efficient. The biggest push back in applying lean to construction is that we never build the same thing twice, but if you know how to break the process down, we actually do the same things all the time just in a different sequence. Figuring out how to rearrange the puzzle with the team and put it together faster is the best part of my job.
What areas in construction can be done more efficiently or with less waste?
In lean we have 8 waste categories: Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-Utilized Talent, Transportation, Inventory, Motion and Excess Processing. We have unnecessary waste in every category but some of the low hanging fruit is Motion and Transportation. We move people, equipment, materials and tools around the jobsite more than we realize. In just tools and smaller material, an average crew will spend an hour a day going to get stuff. In an ideal world, everything they need would be there so they never have to leave. In manufacturing we would strive for operators to never move their feet. That’s obviously not realistic in construction, but how do we keep everything they need close so the only moving they do is with the work. It’s not an easy problem to solve, but that’s what makes it fun.
In your opinion, what do women bring to construction?
I’m going to speak from a mom’s perspective here. Working moms are the most creative time savers in the world. They would never survive if they didn’t come up with their own tricks to be efficient and get everything done. Women can use that same gene to get creative in construction. They see things that men don’t. One of our PCs was asking questions about pouring concrete once. All of sudden, she says “Oh, it’s kind of like making a cake! The pump truck is a giant icing bag!” When you can compare this process to experiences in your life, you can use those experiences to make this process better. Women have completely different experiences to pull from.
Any words of advice for women considering a career in construction?
Jump in head first! Roll up your sleeves and show these guys what you’ve got. Show them how tough we are, how smart we are and how much they need us.
Women in Construction Week
From the field to the office, Bowen is grateful to have so many strong, talented, hard working women in every corner of the business.
Listen to honest accounts on what its like being a woman in a predominately male industry, why they chose construction, and words of wisdom for other women considering a career in construction.