Leapcon 1.0 | Prof. Rafael Sacks

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The Technion LEAPCON™ (Technion Lean Apartment Construction) game simulates construction of an eight story building with four apartments on each floor. It was initially developed to test the impact of a Lean management model that was proposed in response to the significant waste identified in the conventional approach to scheduling and managing construction of high-rise residential buildings. It was found to be an excellent tool for introducing project managers, site engineers, supervisors, senior management, and students at all levels to some of the basic concepts of lean construction: single-piece vs. batch flow, pull vs. push scheduling and control, and multi-skilling vs. task specialization.

Participants are assigned the roles of project manager, a client change manager, a quality controller, a tower crane operator, and four specialty contractors. Their task is to carry out the interior finishing works for all 32 apartments in as short a time as possible. Execution of the finishing works is simulated using assembly of small building models using LEGO^® bricks (see Figure 1); they are assembled in four distinct steps, each performed by one of the specialty contractors. Two additional players represent the apartment clients – the first selects design variations from a predefined set of seven variations to the basic design, and the second checks completed apartments and pays $1,500 each for those without defects.

שלבי ביצוע Figure 1. A standard apartment. Assembly steps represent flooring (orange), partitions (blue), electrical wiring (yellow) and acoustic ceilings (brown).

In the first round of play, which lasts 11 minutes, the project manager is provided with a suggested construction plan which calls for the specialty contractors to progress up the building floor by floor, one after the other, in logical sequence according to the technological dependences of their work type. The batch size is four – only one contractor may work on a floor at a time. At set time intervals during construction, the clients select design variations by pulling apartment numbers and variation codes at random from a hat and deliver them to the ‘company’. Design variations received before work on an apartment is commenced are easily executed, although they do disrupt steady flow because they require more time. Apartments for which design variations are received after work has begun but before the apartment has been delivered to the client, must be changed. The project manager must decide whether to withdraw specialty contractors from the floors they are working on and send them to make local changes, or to delay the changes. The driving factor is that the company is only paid for completed apartments, while they must invest working capital ($1,000) for any incomplete apartment. Play is stopped after 11 minutes, and the team’s performance is assessed in terms of apartments delivered, quantity of WIP, cash flow, defective apartments, and the time required to deliver the first non-standard apartment. The results measured through distinct executions of the game with seven different groups are provided in Table 1 below.

In the second round, the following changes are made:

1. Pull scheduling replaces push scheduling – the work sequence is changed to match the sequence in which design variations are selected be pulled by the clients’ selections of design variations (work is only begun on apartments once the design variations are selected),

2. The four specialty contractors are replaced with four multi-skilled apartment finishing teams that can perform all of the activity types.

3. The batch size is reduced from four to one.

All other conditions remain as before. Typical results for this round, obtained by the same seven groups, are listed in Table 4. As can be seen, productivity is approximately doubled, WIP is drastically reduced (as in all pull systems, it is explicitly controlled) as is cycle time, and as a result, cash flow turns from negative to positive.

Table 1. Average results, 11 repetitions.

	Conventional management	Lean management
Apartments Completed	8.0	15.6
Defective Apartments	0.57	0.00
Time to First Apartment (min.)	06:35	02:49
W.I.P.	13.4	2.3
Throughput (units/min)	1.12	2.3
Cash Flow	($9,429)	$5,500
Cycle Time (min.)	06:00	01:21

Some of the leading lights of lean construction playing the Technion LEAPCON™ game (from left to right; Tariq Abdelhamid, Carlos Formoso, Fritz Gehbauer, Ken Walsh, Lauri Koskela, Glenn Ballard)

How to obtain the game

The Technion LEAPCON™ game is available free of charge for academic use in a university, or for a small fee for commercial use. The package includes complete step by step instructions for each role, playing cards, ordering list for Lego^® bricks, and directions for facilitators. To obtain the game, please e-mail Dr. Rafael Sacks.

The game is available in English, Russian and Spanish versions.

Bibliography

Sacks, R., and Goldin, M., (2007). ‘Lean Management Model for Construction of High-rise Apartment Buildings’, ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 133 No. 5 pp. 374-384.
Sacks, R., Esquenazi, A., and Goldin, M., (2007). “Simulation of Lean Construction Management of High-rise Apartment Buildings”, ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 133 No. 7 pp. 529-539.
Sacks, R., Goldin, M., and Derin, Z. (2005). ‘Pull-driven construction of high-rise apartment buildings’ Proceedings of the 13th Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, R. Kenley (Ed.), Sydney, Australia, pp. 217-226.
Esquenazi, A., and Sacks, R., (2006). ‘Evaluation of Lean Improvements in Residential Construction using Computer Simulation’, Understanding and Managing the Construction Process: Theory and Practice, Proceedings of the 14th Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, R. Sacks and S. Bertelsen, (Eds.), Santiago, Chile, pp.137-149.
Sacks, R., and Derin, Z., (2006). ”WORKMANAGER’ – an Online Interface for Lean Flow Control in Apartment Building Construction’, ICCCBE-XI – 11th Int’l Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering, H. Rivard and E. Miresco, (Eds.), Montreal, Canada, pp. 1176-1185.

Frequently Asked Questions

I have a query on the game related to the CONVENTIONAL ROUNDFor example, if an apartment is being built to a the Standard Design (A) and the flooring, partition and the HVAC duct work has been completed. After this completion design change calls for Design (F) ie. Partition has to be changed/ Ceiling is rotated 90 degree. What is the correct procedure?
1. a) Will the partition contractor come and he will remove the duct and then modify the partition. After that reassemble the duct, OR
2. b) First ask the duct sub contractor to dismantle the duct, then the partition contractor to modify the partition and then the duct contractor again to refix the dismantled duct.
What is your advice in playing in such a situation.

Rajiv Misra, XLRI, India

Strictly speaking, solution b) is the correct one. However, we are all human, and I have found that when the pressure is on, and the players feel that they are trying to compete with the clock, then sometimes they have trouble sticking to this rule, and they act as you described in a).

I have found that it makes only a small difference; but I have always made a point to explain to them in the summary discussion after the conventional round that exactly that kind of situation arises in real buildings. What happens then is that either the partitioning subcontractor says ‘Hey, it’s not my job to undo the ductwork!!’ and the project is delayed, or the project manager insists that they do undo the ductwork to avoid delay, and then damage night be done. Either way, it reinforces the participants understanding of how specialization of tasks in construction has such a detrimental effect on flow when changes are common.
Quick question — what would you say is the minimum time to play the game ? I have 1h15m in my class.Bill O’Brien, Texas A&M, USAAbout 1h45m has been the minimum time when running the game in a single session, although the smaller the group the quicker it can be set up and run – it depends a lot on how much explanation and background you need to provide them on lean production/construction before you begin the game itself.For a 1h15min session, I recommend splitting it into two. During the first session, you could provide background, explain the setup, and run the first round comfortably. Then, in a following session, you would need about 45m to do the second round and to debrief them. You could even pose a ‘homework’ challenge after the first session that the students should try to come up with an alternative management scheme and submit it before they actually are told the rules of the second round and do it. I have considered at times whether to allow an intermediate round in which the students design a system and then implement it, before showing them the benefits of pull flow, single piece flow and multi-skilling; that is something you could implement at the start of a second session.

I have seen in one of the videos (The Tidhar way http://youtu.be/2gGgCL4ZQUo ) that “The team decided to let go of the project manager and hire a second quality assurance”. In addition to this, I see that every player has a stacked amount of pieces in front of him. Did they prepare the “stock” before?Filippo Bossi, Università degli Studi di Firenze – Department of Architecture The Tidhar group had run the game a number of times, and they were trying to perfect it. They were free, in this third round, to reassign tasks within the contracting company, with one condition: they were not allowed to increase the number of production workers. Only four are allowed, the same in all rounds. They identified that the project manager was under-employed in the second round, so they assigned him to help with the quality control. Most groups do not think of this the first time they play the second round, but if you have time and you decide to play a third round, then you can challenge them to think of further improvements such as this.The tower crane and the material transport are not the main focus of the game, and so I usually do not object, if there ius a third round, that they pre-prepare piles of material close to the work place.

LEAPCON users

this is a table of all LEAPCON users
Country	Educational	Industrial or Governmental
	Carrera de Especializacion en Produccion y Gestion de Obras – FADU – Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA, Buenos Aires, Argentina
	School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW, Sydney, Australia Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
		Amelior - Centre for Excellence, Kortrijk, Belgium
	ESAM EDUCACION, Bolivia
	Dept. of Civil Eng, University of British Columbia, Canada Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism , Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, FAU UFRJ , Rio de Janeiro Civil Engineering Department, State University of Maringá, DEC, UEM, Maringá PR	COORDENAR, Sao Paulo, Brasil. See Youtube:Traditional Round , Lean Round Kaizen Institute Consulting Group – Brasil, Santana De Parnaiba, São Paulo, Brasil Secretaria De Estado Do Planejamento, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brasil
	Dept. of Civil Eng, University of British Columbia, Canada Département de génie de la construction, École de technologie supérieure , Montreal, Canada ÉTS formation, École de technologie supérieure , Montreal, Canada	Tracer Industries Canada Ltd., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Bell Nordic Inc., Saint-Laurent, Québec, Canada
	Departamento de Ingeniería y Gestión de la Construcción, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
	Antai College of Economics & Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China MBA Programme, School of Business, City University of Hong Kong	Celestica, Shatin Hong Kong Office, China
	Department of Building Technology, School of Architecture. Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia Civil Engineering Department, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia	Berah Construcciones S.A.S., Cordoba, Colombia
	Facultad Ingeniería Escuela Ingeniería Civil, Universidad Autónoma de Centro América, Costa Rica Prof. Roy Zúñiga, INCAE Business School , Alajuela, Costa Rica	Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad , San José, Costa Rica
	Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Business and Management and MBA study: www.uk-mba.cz, Brno, Czech Republic
		Business Academy Copenhagen North, Lyngby, Denmark
	Civil Engineering, Institute of Technology of Santo Domingo (INTEC), Dominican Republic - see photos and results
	Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Albert Einstein, El Salvador
	Civil Engineering, University of Applied Sciences, Tallinn, Estonia
	Rennes School of Business,France ISA BTP - Institut Supérieur Aquitain du Bâtiment et des Travaux Publics, Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, France	VINCI Construction, Nanterre, France Pablo Portugal, Construction Project Management, Lagny sur Marne, France
		Skanska Oy, Helsinki, Finland Sweco Rakennetekniikka Oy, Helsinki, Finland
	ifib - Institut für Industrielle Bauproduktion, Universität Karlsruhe, Germany Lehrstuhl für Baubetrieb und Projektmanagement, RWTH Aachen, Germany IfS - Institut für Soziologie, Lehrstuhl für Organisationssoziologie, Universität München, Germany Professur Baubetrieb und Bauverfahren, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany	HOCHTIEF Solutions AG, Essen, Germany
	Departamento de Ingenieria Civil, Universidad de Valle del Guatemala, Guatemala
		Marel Inc., Food processing equipment, Gardabaer, Iceland
	School of Business and Human Resources, XLRI Jamshedpur, India RICS School of Built Environment \| Amity University, Noida, India Department of Civil Engineering, Indus Institute of Technology and Engineering, Indus University, Ahmedabad, India Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India Faculty of Technology, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India
		Adamesk Ltd., Business consultancy, Glenageary Co., Dublin, Ireland Mercury Engineering, Dublin, Ireland ETAC Limited, Dublin, Ireland Crystal Lean Solutions Limited, Loughlinstown, Fedamore, Co. Limerick
	Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia Industrial Engineering Department, University of Indonesia
	Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel	Danya-Cebus Construction, Or-Yehuda, Israel Habas Construction Management, Israel Elhar Construction, Israel Waxman-Guvrin, Construction Management Services, Israel Tidhar Construction Ltd., Israel – see on Youtube: The Tidhar Way - 28 of 32 apartments ! Israel Association of Construction & Infrastructure Engineers, Petah Tikva, Israel
	Lecture Course Production Systems and Technology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bolzano, Italy TxP Research, Department of Architecture, University of Florence – see Youtube movie ICRIOS – Invernizzi Center for Research in Innovation, Organization, Strategy & Entrepreneurship at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy Scuola Master Fratelli Pesenti, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy	Maragno Gaetano srl, Italy
	Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania
	School of Engineering, University of Yucatan, Merida, México Master in Engineering, Construction Management Graduate Program, Universidad Iberoamericana, Campus Cd. de México, México	ITN de Mexico SA de CV, México
	Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, The Netherlands Faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Faculty of Civil Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Avans University of Tilburg, The Netherlands.	Balance Result Construction Consultants, Deventer, The Netherland
	Innovation, School of Built Environment, Unitec, New Zealand	Colspec Construction Ltd, Palmerston North, New Zealand
		Fafo Lean Construction Network, Oslo, Norway
	Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal	FUNDÍNIO - Fundição Injectada de Alumínio, S.A., Portugal
	Diplomado Gestion de Proyectos, CICE - Facultad de Ciencias Economicas, Universidad Ricardo Palma, Lima, Peru Escuela Profesional de Ingeniería Civil, Universidad Católica San Pablo, Arequipa, Peru	AESA Construcciones, Lima, Peru Los Portales S. A., Lima, Peru
	Chelyabinsk Institute of Humanities, Chelyabinsk, Russia - See Челябинский гуманитарный институт - Игра «Бережливое Строительство Construction Schools, "Workers of New Generation" Educational Centre, Moscow, Russia
		Rajdeep Ghai RG, Singapore
	Building Informatics and Integrated Systems Lab, Faculty of Architectural Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea (See the Yonsei LEAPCON site)
	Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona Tech
	Dept. of Construction Management, Technical University of Luleå., Sweden Department of Urban Studies, Malmö University</span	Lean Forum Bygg, Malmo, Sweden
	Architecture, Wood and Civil Engineering, Berne University of Applied Sciences, Bern, Switzerland LGPP – Laboratoire de Gestion et Procedes de Production, EPFL – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland MAS Digitales Bauen, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, Muttenz, Switzerland
	Department of Civil Engineering, Gebze Technical University, Kocaeli, Turkey
	Salford Centre for Research and Innovation (SCRI) in the Built and Human Environment, University of Salford, UK Salford Business School, University of Salford, UK Construction Management, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, University of Bath, UK School of the Built Environment, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Scottish Construction Centre, Division of Civil Engineering, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK Laing O'Rourke Centre for Construction Engineering and Technology, Dept. of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK Grŵp Llandrillo Menai Construction Dept, Grŵp Llandrillo Menai, UK Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton, UK Department of Construction Management and Engineering, School of the Built Environment, University of Reading, UK	Evolution-IP, Kent, UK Rounded Developments Enterprises Limited, Cardiff, Wales, UK Applecross, Property Developers, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Alturos Ltd., Lean Management Consultants, Lewes, East Sussex, UK Queen’s Crescent Community Association, London, UK
	Civil Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA Dept. of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, TX Manufacturing Engineering Technology, Ferris State University, Big Rapids, MI School of Planning, Design, and Construction, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX Construction Management, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Sacramento State University, Sacramento, CA McWhorter School of Building Science, Auburn University, Auburn, AL Dept. of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University, NC Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronic Engineering, and Manufacturing Technology, California State University Chico, Chico, CA Department of Manufacturing Technology and Construction Management, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO Construction Management, Department of Technology, Illinois State University, IL Dept. of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Construction Engineering & Management Program, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA Dept. of Construction, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, NJ Building Construction Science in the College of Architecure, Art + Design at Mississippi State University, Starville, MS. Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla MO Construction Engineering and Management, Department of Civil Engineering, The Catholic University of America.	Seaview LLC, Old Westbury NY Flannery Construction, Inc., St. Paul, MN Haselden Construction, LLC, Centennial, CO CJT Consulting, Sacramento, CA Jenco Inc., Scottsdale, AZ
	Maestría en Gerencia de Construcción, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Carabobo, Valencia, Venezuela Catedra Gerencia Construcción, Universidad Metropolitana (UNIMET) Caracas, Venezuela
	Civil Engineering Faculty, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam	Standing Agency of BIM Steering Committee, Ministry of Construction, Institute of Construction Economics, Hanoi, Vietnam
	Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo - Universidad de la República ( FADU – UdelaR – Uruguay)

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