BONUS – Jake & Jason Lean Series- Setting up Contracts for a Lean Culture

Setting up Contracts to Build a Lean Culture
When I look back on our early Lean experiment at BSRL, one lesson stands above the rest: Lean doesn’t truly work unless it’s built into your contracts from the beginning. Paul Akers teaches that Lean doesn’t require incentives it requires expectations. But unlike a single company with its own employees, a general contractor depends on dozens of subcontractors, each with their own habits. If Lean isn’t clearly defined contractually, every meeting, huddle, and planning session becomes something someone must “justify.” To prevent that, we treated Lean not as an add-on, but as a required part of the project strategy and we paid for it up front so no one could argue about the time it took to do things the right way.

Integrating Lean into the Schedule and Expectations
At BSRL, we created a detailed basis of schedule that defined how the job would run: takt planning, one-piece flow, daily huddles, cleanliness, safety, and the rhythm of the work. This wasn’t a suggestion it was attached to every contract. During preconstruction, we walked trade partners through the plan, making it clear that Lean wasn’t optional. Most nodded politely, thinking we were exaggerating. But once the project began, the expectations held firm. If an area wasn’t clean, we shut it down. If crews didn’t take their setup time, they were reminded that it was already budgeted. Lean didn’t cost more it simply shifted waste into structured, productive effort.

Creating Buy-In and Protecting the System
When Jake joined shortly after groundbreaking, the structure was in place but still flexible. The team voted on additions like requiring OSHA 10 for everyone, shaping the final standards together. That involvement mattered. It helped the team own the system rather than comply with it. One of our strongest stances and one that changed the culture was declaring publicly that no PM or superintendent had the right to take away a worker’s 30 minutes of morning setup. We had already paid for that time, and protecting it was non-negotiable. That clarity created trust, consistency, and accountability across the entire jobsite.

The Real Value of Lean
People often ask whether Lean costs more. The truth is that Lean saves more than it ever spends. On BSRL, safety improved, cleanliness became second nature, rework disappeared, and morale increased, and turnover dropped. We used less contingency than normal for a project of this size, and the owner awarded us another project because they could see the difference. The biggest return wasn’t financial it was cultural. Lean created a jobsite where people enjoyed working, took pride in their areas, and knew that the systems would support not punish them.

Key Takeaway
Lean only works when the expectations, rhythm, and systems are built directly into your contracts and protected on the jobsite. When Lean becomes the standard not an optional extra you gain cleaner operations, safer environments, stronger teams, and better long-term results. The investment isn’t additional cost; it’s a shift in where the cost goes, transforming waste into structure and turning chaos into predictable flow.