REPEATABLE, SCALABLE, GLOBAL IMPLEMENTATION OF OPTIMIZED CYCLE TIME FLOW (OCF)

Abstract

Optimized Cycle-Time Flow (OCF) is a comprehensive lean construction approach to portfolio, process, and operations management of design, demolition, and tool installation projects. It comprises seven principles which teams can implement in sequence to align resources across a portfolio of projects, remove constraints, and plan for continuous uninterrupted execution of each project once it has started. Beginning in 2018, it has been applied to increasingly larger portfolios of projects in an expanding set of Intel facilities, generating consistently reliable results with up to 50% reductions in project cycle-time. A plethora of quantitative data collected through action research over five years indicate that the characteristics of OCF make it more resilient and persistent than many lean construction interventions, overcoming the various barriers to implementation discussed in the literature. The results indicate that OCF principles, vertical integration, leadership, and education make OCF repeatable and scalable. Applying these features to lean construction implementations may help practitioners achieve better results.