Advanced Work Packaging podcasts

Talking AWP – Ep. 2: Tailoring IWP’s to the Foreman

Listen to the leaders in AWP discuss the processes, the challenges, and the triumphs
of implementing Advanced Work Packaging.

Advanced Work Packaging Podcasts Series

Insight AWP Podcast Series

In this episode, Gregorio discusses Tailoring IWP’s to the Foreman, the value of bringing them into the process, the cases where this works, and what can happen if you don’t.

Discussion Highlights

  • The IKEA example
  • Aligning data as a Construction Manager
  • The case when bores are built together
  • Listening is the key component
  • What happens when we don’t
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This podcast features:

Jeff Samis - AWP Business Development

Jeff Samis

VP of Business Development

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Ryan Bonnell

Marketing Director

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Podcast Transcript: Tailoring IWP’s to the Foreman

Jeff Samis: Oh, good morning, Gregorio.

Gregorio Labbozzetta: Hey. Good morning, Jeff.

Jeff Samis: How are you doing today?

Ryan Bonnell: Hey, Gregorio.

Gregorio Labbozzetta: Hey, ciao Ryan, I am very good. Thank you. And what about you?

Jeff Samis: I’m doing well. Yeah. Yeah, we have, obviously, Ryan with us today again. We’re off to our second topic in this podcast series. With you. The first one, obviously, we did was Five Skills of a workplace planner. People can find out on our website. So the next topic we’re going to delve into with you, Gregorio is why it’s important to tailor IWPs around the foreman. We know in advance work packaging, the kind of the center of the universe is really around that foreman and making sure that he has everything that he needs in order for the guys on site to be doing what they need to do to be productive and to be on time and beyond budget.

Jeff Samis: Then why don’t you tell us a little bit about this topic and why you chose it as one of the ten topics that you wanted to talk about in your podcast series?

Gregorio Labbozzetta: So this is one of the questions that was answering is foundational to this discipline. I always like to make the IKEA example because, in my opinion, it’s pretty much the start. And also I always say, imagine that going to IKEA and buying a wardrobe and then coming back at Wal-Mart and find out that the instructions to build the wardrobe are in the alphabetical order.

So they are not in the construction sequence, but they are in the alphabetical order because this is what makes the most sense for who is doing the instruction book. So it makes a lot of sense for them, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense for you. Actually, it’s very difficult to, to build a wardrobe with the extraction sorted in the wrong way at that.

Yeah, and this is what happens when we don’t build the packages, engineering, or when we don’t plan with the end in mind. Thinking more about our satisfy as engineers, as designers, and a bit less about who is actually doing the work.

Jeff Samis: Okay. Makes sense. Care to care to expand a little bit on that?

Gregorio Labbozzetta: Yeah. I mean, I can bring examples from, from real life because this is what typically happens. So I could make one example for piping, which is very easy to understand. So typically engineering companies, they design large and small-bore and with two different nomenclature because they think that who is going to build the site is going to first do the large bore and then is going to do the small-bore.

Gregorio Labbozzetta: But there are cases where large and small bore are being built together So if we structure our WBS as our nomenclature in a way that it’s very difficult to combine larger small together, then we create that, we create lots of problems. Another example could be primary and secondary raceways So if we build this system in advance thinking that there’s going to be one crew building primary raceways and then there’s going to be a second crew building a secondary raceways which is not always the case, then again, we make a mistake So “starting with the end in mind”, is a beautiful sentence, but actually, it’s really, really difficult because it involves listening to the people who are going to do the job, and that’s a very difficult skill to have.

Jeff Samis: So how important is the foreman in all of this because you’re saying you’re tailoring the idea of IWP around him. So what does the foreman have to give you around information or communication around how to tailor those IWP’s?

Gregorio Labbozzetta: Yeah, so when it’s the moment about taking the decisions that are going to influence the foreman in two, three, four, six years from now, it’s really difficult to involve the foreman upfront. What’s difficult happens is that the Contractors, Construction Manager’s are being involved during engineering. The Superintendents are being involved during engineering, and they are the ones who have to speak on behalf of of the Foreman and General Foreman. So…

Jeff Samis: Okay, interesting. Yeah, well, I guess that I think that the IKEA example that you gave us at the beginning, there was enough to scare us all the way because we’ve all opened up a box from IKEA and gone well, what do we do with all this stuff? Right. Poor instructions or missing, missing materials or what have you. Right. That’s why I never shop at IKEA.

Unless I am dragged, dragged, dragged by my teeth. So that was that was an interesting analogy I think we can all relate to that Gregorio. Was there anything else that you wanted to kind of expand on with with respect to this topic? Or does that kind of encompass your thoughts on that?

Gregorio Labbozzetta: I can add, I can add to that for sure by saying that listening is a key component to that. So many times we are we tend to listen not too much and to try to figure out what our final customer is going to need in the future and that process doesn’t work. So the only way to understand exactly how to build the structure is to listen. And the only way to listen is to ask to the people who are going to build the site so that their voice is very, very important to be heard.

Ryan Bonnell: So that Gregorio actually ties this back to your the first podcast we did where we were looking at communication as part of the top five skills that you need. So it’s good to see that that is reinforced when you’re talking about the foreman and really listening.

Ryan Bonnell: Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s the first thing that we need to understand when it comes to AWP and workface planning.

Ryan Bonnell: So, so Gregorio were saying it’s important to tailor these IWP’s towards that foreman. What happens if you don’t like where where do the mistakes happen? Like what are the consequences of not doing that?

Gregorio Labbozzetta: So this is a nice question, because this is the interesting part. So typically what happens is that we have an increased distance between management and reality. So we typically we have managers who thinks that they are providing construction work they need, and then we have construction thinking that they are not getting what they need. And that these are these are sort of how to say distance, sort of a wrong understanding of what the reality is. And this can can really lead projects to to failure because we don’t we we don’t we don’t have a clear idea of the reality. We are not communicating and and we don’t know that we have a problem.

Ryan Bonnell: Would you say that that is where some of the other companies like fail when implementing it is because of this communication issue and not doing this, not tailoring these IWP’s.

Gregorio Labbozzetta: Yeah. And the majority of the of the problems, in my opinion, my history is that it’s about managers trying to figure out what people need and taking decisions on their behalf and not listening too much to who’s going to do the job.

Ryan Bonnell: Right.

Jeff Samis: Well, thanks very much for joining us this morning. Gregorio was really interesting to listen to your opinions on why it’s important to tailor IWP’s for the Foreman. And we look forward to talking to you next time in a topic that I really have no idea what we’re going to be discussing. But the topic line is, IWP’s and rules of credit. Let’s make some clarity. I guess there’s no clarity, and that’s why we want to make them so.

Ryan Bonnell: That’s right.

Jeff Samis: I’m looking forward to you talking to us about that. When we get together with you next time.

Ryan Bonnell: Let’s do that. Thanks, Gregorio. Thank you. Caio, Caio.

Jeff Samis: Thank you.

Ryan Bonnell: Thanks for just talking AWP with us. If you want to learn more about AWP, please visit our website at insight-awp.com. That’s insight-awp.com. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, where we post the latest in AWP and its many facets.