Last planner control system applied to a chemical plant construction

The main difference between the Last Planner production control system developed by Ballard and classical control systems is the way in which projects are controlled and planned. The Last Planner system focuses on controlling production units, workflows, and the quality of the performed work. It also permits the identification of the causes for the noncompletion of planned work and decision making in accordance with the project requirements so that actions are timely and productivity is increased. The objective of this paper is to present the results obtained from implementing the Last Planner system in the construction department of a chemical company. In this department, an information flow problem was detected among its members, in which supervisors lacked knowledge about the work to be performed until the project had been perfectly designed. This problem often led to long delays in the projects. The results from the Last Planner system implementation show that identifying the constraints of the planned work leads to an improvement in the percentage and quality of completed activities. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.