What We Do

Written by Administrator

Lean Project Consulting ( LPC) provides management consulting services to the architectural, engineering, and construction ( AEC) industry. The company focuses on helping firms move from traditional project delivery approaches to current best practices based on lean thinking, collaborative processes, and language action-based practices for coordinating action.

The firm is managed by Gregory Howell, P.E. and Hal Macomber.  Greg is also the co-founder and current Executive Director of the Lean Construction Institute, www.leanconstruction.org, an eight year-old research and education group focused on bringing lean ideas and practices to the AEC industry.  Hal Macomber is the practice leader for LPC.  He has more than 30 years experience doing projects in many industries.  Before joining LPC, he was the Chief Operating Officer of The Neenan Company, an integrated design-build firm working in the commercial market.  Both Greg and Hal are thought leaders in the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC).

LPC works in a coaching model.  The 10 project coaches have broad experience in the AEC industry.  Before joining LPC, they served as project and construction engineer, manager, and superintendent; owner representative, professional engineer, principal architect, and industrial engineer; and in corporate leadership positions.  They have successfully coached teams designing and building healthcare facilities, commercial buildings, performing arts centers and schools; refineries, petrochemical plants and power stations; and fabricators, precasters and high volume swimming pool contractors. While each project coach has the expertise to contribute directly to the work of projects, they do their most valuable work coaching them as project performers to increase their ability to do their project work.  As coaches, they only work with people who agree to be coached in order to achieve specific promised competence. In this role, LPC coaches are not consultants offering good ideas.  Rather they work as coaches always do. They identify what must change and how to make it happen.  There is a moment in most engagements when the client will not or the coach cannot make the change needed to deliver on their promise.  These moments are not to be avoided as they lead to breakthrough, transformation, and new levels of performance.

The LPC project coaches are uniquely qualified to introduce the Last Planner® System (LPS) – a lean project delivery approach – to project teams.  LPS is a project planning and delivery approach, co-developed by Greg Howell, based on lean principles, the theory of constraints, and the language action perspective.   LPC's project coaches can bring this highly-regarded project delivery approach to all aspects and phases of AEC projects and organize and apply them to transform companies.  The combination of LPS and LPC's project coaching results in projects that are delivered on time or early and at or below the project budget.