Probuild looks to car plants for tips on construction efficiency
Australian building company Probuild has learned from the assembly line process of car manufacturing to significantly speed up the construction of a residential tower in Melbourne, enabling its completion ahead of schedule. Probuild focused on having more control over its supply chain to reduce delays and also on moving workers around the site more efficiently to reduce downtime. It also worked more closely with suppliers so that materials could be delivered pre-cut, which reduced assembly time. The firm relied on data analysis to create further efficiencies and intends to apply what it has learned to future projects.

The tale illustrates the productivity lessons – and skills – Australian construction can take from the local car manufacturing industry.

Traditional ways

It wasn't always like that, however. Probuild, like many of its competitors in the industry, was suffering under the traditional ways of working and needed to change. It hired engineers with experience of the automotive production chain, who pointed out vast inefficiencies.

"We had huge issues with that supply chain," says Luke Stambolis, Probuild's managing director for Victoria. "There wasn't enough time during the day to get materials up."

Change required overturning established ways of operating. The first part involved working more closely with suppliers and understanding their processes. For a company used to working with a supplier on a lump-sum payment basis – which put all the financial risk on to the supplier – the head contractor sought to take on some of that risk itself.

Probuild's 62-storey Empire Melbourne residential tower under construction for client Mammoth Empire. Andy Henderson

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"It became less of a dictatorship and more of a collaborative approach," Grant says.

On Empire Melbourne, the company had worked with the same plumber for 10 years, but had never set foot in his factory, asked about his processes or consulted with him on how to improve things.

"We didn't even know where they were getting their materials from," Grant says.

Took on board

But when they asked the plumber's opinion for a better way to deliver supplies – instead of having products delivered in bulk, cut to size on site and installed – the plumber came up with a stillage, a frame that fitted into the hoists used to lift materials. The plumber delivered materials precut, in the stillage, which he would take back empty and refill.

The completed 62-storey Empire Melbourne tower.

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"It was something we took on board and spread through the entire site. All subcontractors ended up adopting that model for delivery," Grant says.

The process cut the volume of waste material needing to be removed from the site by 3000 cubic metres – saving $150,000 in shipping costs alone. For the contractor it resulted in a saving of between 2 per cent and 5 per cent on its bills to subcontractors.

Another bottleneck was moving people and materials around. The site had three lifts for people and materials and at peak times, such as the start and end of a shift, it could take an hour to move the 300 people clocking on or off at the same time. But by putting the three lifts on a timetable – with some express to certain floors while others were milk runs to every floor – and showing the waiting workers on screens which lifts were going where, they sped things up.

Measure performance

"We knew we could load our whole building at peak time in 22 minutes," he says.

"If we have control over materials through the warehouse and we're able to get workers to the floor as quickly as we can and know when materials are being dropped off, we know we can build as efficiently and productively as possible."

The two-year-old process will keep evolving and the contractor is now trying to make better use of data to measure performance.

"I'd like to think by this time next year I'd be able to show in real time how a project's tracking, even how a particular level on a project is tracking," Grant says. "That's where we could be improving, for sure."