An upcoming lean conference in Vancouver aims to increase workplace efficiency, while also improving sustainability.
The Lean Construction Institute of Canada’s (LCI-C) third annual conference takes place April 24 to 26 in Vancouver at the Sheraton Wall Centre
This year’s event is titled Leaning Forward: Reducing Waste and Working Smarter.
Lean construction is a series of practices for building and managing projects that emphasizes maximizing value, minimizing waste and increasing communication and collaboration to fulfil those goals.
The inaugural conference was held in Calgary, and last year’s event took place in Toronto.
Over 200 people attended the previous conference in Toronto, and LCI-C secretary Ken Lancastle said the upcoming conference will likely see an increase in attendance.
“One trend we see is that it’s growing. Our numbers are going up and there’s generally more interest in lean,” he said. “Owners and others are looking for new ways to seek improvements on their jobsites.”
Attendees cover the spectrum of the construction industry, Lancastle said, from owners to contractors to those who aren’t necessarily involved directly with construction.
“It’s not just improving a jobsite, it’s how you can use lean across the supply chain,” he said. “An example would be municipalities; construction is only one part of what they’re doing.”
This year’s programming will focus on how lean is practiced both in terms of workflow and human resources.
“Overall it looks at what we’re doing in terms of efficiencies and how you are accomplishing that,” Lancastle said.
“Our Wednesday keynote is all about changing your frame of mind, while our Thursday keynote is about changing human behaviour.”
Lloyd Alter, the design editor at TreeHugger and an adjunct professor at the Ryerson University School of Interior Design, is the first conference keynote speaker. Lancastle said Alter will address the need to avoid producing waste while striving for further efficiency.
“It’s about sufficiency versus efficiency. When you’re reducing waste, that’s not just physical, but also time and effort,” Lancastle said.
The conference’s other keynote speaker, Pat McNamara, will talk about the “people side of lean,” Lancastle said.
McNamara is a 40-year marketing expert who will address how companies can maximize the potential of their work practices by changing behaviours.
In addition to learning sessions, the conference will again hold a training day with five separate streams, up from four streams at the previous conference. Topics include an advanced lean boot camp, value stream mapping and target value delivery, and an “unconference” stream where topics and activities are suggested by attendees.
A new feature of this year’s conference, Lancastle said, is a discount for teams attending the event. Those with five or more registrants are able to have an additional registrant attend the conference for free. Teams of co-workers attended previous conferences, he added, but the discount was put in place to encourage the practice, as teamwork is a key component of lean project delivery.
“Lean is all about culture and it’s great to have teams at the conference who can talk amongst themselves about how they can go back and implement lean into their jobs,” he said.
While the conference won’t have programming specific to the west coast, Lancastle said Vancouver’s public and private emphasis on green solutions meshes well with the event.
“Given the City of Vancouver and their projected carbon neutral goals, there’s been real interest in how lean can facilitate green,” he said.
Registration for the conference is open on the LCI’s website.
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