First Planner System series

Start the Job Right: Procurement, Logistics, and Culture as the First Planner System

Most projects don’t “fall behind” in the field first. They fall behind in preconstruction, quietly, while everyone is busy. The schedule looks fine. The meetings are happening. The logs are getting updated. Then the job starts, and suddenly the crews are waiting, materials are missing, the site is chaotic, and people are blaming each other.

That is not a people problem. That’s a planning system problem.

If you want tomorrow to start clean, you have to design the job to run clean. And that starts with a simple truth: your schedule is not your first production plan.

Your production plan for your project is production plan number two. But production plan number one is your procurement.

When you see that clearly, you stop treating supply chain like a side task and start treating it like the backbone of flow. And once supply chain is designed correctly, logistics can actually work. And once logistics can actually work, culture becomes possible. That’s the sequence.

Team. Plan. Supply chain. Culture. All flowing to the foreman.

Why Supply Chain Is Production Plan Number One

Most teams build a “production plan” and then try to chase materials to match it. They treat the schedule like the base and procurement like the reaction. That’s backwards.

Supply chain is your first production system because it determines whether your plan is real or imaginary. If your material lead times, buyout timing, release timing, fabrication timing, and delivery timing are not aligned to rhythm, the field is not going to “work harder” and fix it. They’re going to wait. Or they’re going to start out of sequence. Or they’re going to over stack areas with too many trades trying to make up lost time.

A good Takt plan creates rhythm. Procurement protects that rhythm. And the rule is simple: we don’t build according to when we can get materials. We get materials according to when we need them on rhythm.

That means procurement is not a log you update when you remember. It’s a production plan that is designed from day one and maintained as part of your operating cadence.

The Three Buffers You Must Build Into Procurement

If you don’t include buffers, you are assuming perfection. That is not lean. That is fantasy.

The supply chain must include three buffers by design because real life has variability. Ports get backed up. Fabrication gets delayed. Submittals bottleneck designers. Weather hits. Transportation gets disrupted. People get sick. Stuff happens. The buffer isn’t waste. It’s protection for flow.

The first is a material inventory buffer. Some people will tell you “Lean means no inventory.” That’s wrong. Other people will stage the whole building at once. That’s wrong too. What you need is a right sized inventory buffer: enough material staged so crews don’t wait, but not so much that the job becomes a storage unit and a trip hazard.

The second is a supply chain buffer. If a supply chain is at risk, buffer it. If you know something is commonly delayed in transit or at port, you build that time into the plan. The point isn’t to complain about the world. The point is to plan for reality.

The third is the macro procurement buffer. This one is the most misunderstood, and it matters a lot when you start doing Takt planning and zone optimization. Your contractual promise and your production target are not the same thing. In Takt, you may plan to optimize forward. That means what looks “required on” in a macro plan may actually need to be earlier so you can recover and still win.

Contractual Promise vs Production Target in Takt Planning

CPM tends to chase “shortest path” logic. Then when a delay hits, the project is simply late. It’s a fragile model.

Takt runs the other direction. It anchors to contractual milestones and then uses rezoning, zone optimization, and production planning to improve flow. But you cannot optimize forward if your materials are not moving.

This is where teams get burned. They pick a date on the macro plan and say, “That’s when we need it.” Then they optimize forward and suddenly they needed it a month earlier.

If you want to be safe in early planning especially when you’re building your first versions of the procurement log assume you will need it earlier than the first pass tells you. Do not let procurement become the limiter that prevents the field from taking advantage of better flow.

Just in time does not mean “vendor straight to zone” for everything. For big ticket long lead items, just in time often means vendor to staging yard to zone. Even Toyota uses supermarkets and staging areas. The lean principle is not “never stage.” The lean principle is “don’t flood the zone too early.”

Procurement Log vs Submittal Register: Manage the Whole Chain

A submittal register is only one slice of the story. It tracks submittals.

A procurement log tracks the whole supply chain.

If your software only tracks the submittal portion, you must train it to manage the entire chain so it’s not myopic. The point is not what platform you use. The point is whether you are managing buyout, release, fabrication, delivery, staging, and installation readiness.

And procurement cannot start early enough. The whole system breaks if you try to “catch up” later. If buyout is late, submittals are late. If submittals are late, fabrication is late. If fabrication is late, deliveries are late. And then the field pays for it.

Also: before procurement is buyout. There is no point in tracking submittal dates if your contracts aren’t executed or you don’t at least have a letter of intent or notice to proceed. Procurement planning without buyout discipline is just spreadsheet theater.

Level the Work Package: Design, Buyout, Submittals, Fabrication, Delivery

Here’s a mistake teams make when they look at a work package: they only see the field activities.

A real work package is not just “install.” It includes design, buyout, trade coordination, submittals, release, fabrication, delivery, and field work. And those steps cannot all be stacked on top of each other.

When someone says, “We’ll just send all submittals at once,” they’re well meaning. But it just creates a bottleneck at design review. That slows everything down and makes everyone feel like they’re working hard while nothing is moving.

Everything should be leveled. Design milestones should be leveled. Submittal flow should be leveled. Field flow should be leveled. Leveling is one of the most important concepts if you want the project to feel calm and run fast without burning people out.

If the plan requires burnout, the plan is broken.

The 3 Supply Chain Buffers You Must Never Skip

• Material inventory buffer: right sized material on site before install so crews don’t wait and areas don’t get flooded.
• Supply chain buffer: time protection for common variability in shipping, port delays, fabrication risk, and transportation.
• Macro procurement buffer: earlier “required on” dates to protect zone optimization and production targets vs contractual milestones.

Prefabrication Where It Matters: Bottlenecks, Not Everything

Some people will say everything should be prefabricated. Other people will say everything should be stick built. Neither is correct as a blanket rule.

Prefabrication should be used where it helps flow, reduces risk, and removes bottlenecks especially when a specific activity threatens the path of critical flow.

One of the best reasons to prefabricate isn’t just speed. It’s early problem detection. If you build an assembly in the shop and find a conflict, you find it before it hits the building. That protects schedule, quality, and safety.

But don’t confuse “prefab is cool” with “prefab everywhere.” Companies have gone out of business assuming everything would pencil out everywhere. Prefabrication is a strategy, not a religion.

The Bottleneck Story: Six Weeks Down to Five Days

On one early superintendent project, there was an electrical room in the basement with underground conduit work. The trade partner said it would take six weeks. And that six weeks would bottleneck the job everything would have to wait.

So, the team stayed after it. The trade partner built the assembly in their office, chopped it up, color coded it, and then installed it in five days.

That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because the bottleneck was visible, the team treated it like a system problem, and prefabrication was applied where it mattered.

That is the mindset: see the constraint early, design a recovery method early, and protect the rhythm.

“Point of Receipt” vs “Place of Work”: Logistics as a Production System

Getting materials to the job is not the same as getting materials to the point of work.

Most jobs have a major hidden waste: materials move too many times. They arrive. They get staged somewhere random. They get moved again. And again. And again. Then finally, they get installed.

If you do a time lapse study, most materials move an average of around nine times before they’re used. That is money, time, and energy down the drain and it hurts trade partner productivity even when it doesn’t show up directly in your cost code.

Logistics must be designed. If you have space, consider a queuing and inspection area where materials can be received, checked, unpacked, kitted, and then delivered by zone. That way, trash and waste get handled early, and crews receive what they need in a frictionless way.

Even small steps toward this will improve flow.

Delivery Scheduling and the Role of Forklift, Hoist, and Crane Operators

Deliveries coming “whenever” is not a system. It’s chaos.

Every delivery should be scheduled. Every delivery should have a destination. Every delivery should be coordinated in the foreman huddles. And the map of where things go must be clear to the forklift, hoist, and crane operators.

Those operators are not just equipment drivers. They are the guardians of your logistics system. They are your deputy sheriffs. If they allow random riggers to dump material anywhere, the system breaks.

Pick your pain. Either you manage deliveries with visuals and huddles, or you trip over materials, lose production, and scramble to recover from delays.

What Your Procurement Log Must Track (Beyond Submittals)

• Buyout and contract execution timing (or LOI/NTP timing where used)
• Release and fabrication milestones tied to phase and zone needs
• Delivery scheduling with buffers and staging yard timing if required
• Required on site dates aligned to Takt rhythm and production targets
• Point of receipt to place of work plan so materials land where they belong

Culture Is Not an Accident: Respect for People First

Lean starts with respect for people. Not as a slogan. As a production strategy.

If you don’t have respect for people and stability/standardization, you can’t get to flow, visual systems, participation, or continuous improvement. The “simple stuff” enables the “complex stuff.”

That’s why culture is not optional. It is a designed system.

If you want a clean, safe, organized jobsite, you must win over the workforce. And the mandatory first step is the morning worker huddle. Without it, crews drift into separate directions. The plan discussed in conference rooms never fully reaches the workers. Information gets lost. Alignment disappears.

Morning Worker Huddles: The Missing Link Between Plans and the Field

An afternoon foreman huddle is incomplete unless the plan gets communicated to the workers.

If you rely on the normal chain of communication, only a fraction of what you planned makes it to the crews. Worker huddles close that gap.

They don’t have to be long. Five minutes. On the way to work. Music stops, huddle starts. Plan for the day. Two minutes of training. Safety reminders. Logistics reminders. A quick connection that tells people: you matter, and we’re one team.

When you do that, the job changes. The site becomes calmer. People take ownership of cleanliness. Standards become real. Flow becomes possible.

You cannot have operational excellence without this. And it works everywhere it’s tried.

Clean, Safe, Organized: 5S + Onboarding That Wins the Workforce

If you want a jobsite that stays clean and safe, you have to design it for humans.

Bathrooms and lunch areas. Parking and wayfinding. Water stations. Cooling/heating areas. Designated smoke areas where allowed. Clear signage like an airport. A huddle area that makes it easy for people to gather without losing production time.

And onboarding matters more than most teams realize. If a worker’s first day is a treasure hunt with no signage, no bathroom access, no welcome, and no connection, you cannot expect them to care about your job.

A respectful onboarding is simple: clear maps, clean restrooms, quick orientation, a real welcome, and a walk to the crew. That is how you win the workforce.

How you treat the workers is how they will treat you.

Jobsite Culture Signals That Tell You Respect Is Missing

• Graffiti and vandalism in bathrooms and common areas
• Pee bottles, trash piles, and “nobody owns it” behavior
• Confusion at onboarding: no signage, no maps, no welcome
• Crews doing their “own thing” because standards weren’t set
• A site that looks chaotic even when people are “working hard”

Why RFIs and Submittals Aren’t the Point

You may notice something: this approach doesn’t start with RFIs, submittals, pay apps, and paperwork.

That’s intentional.

You can answer RFIs on napkins. You can review submittals on any platform. You can make payments in cash. Those administrative tasks alone won’t change the trajectory of the project.

What changes the trajectory is whether the job has the team, the plan, the supply chain, and the culture at a bare minimum so production systems can actually work.

And that’s the point of the First Planner System: design the minimum viable system that makes the job run remarkable.

The Minimum Standard: Team + Plan + Supply Chain + Culture Flowing to the Foreman

All company systems should flow value to the foreman and crews.

I don’t care how good accounting is in isolation. I don’t care how good business development is in isolation. I care how well every system adds value to the people doing the work.

Everything should be optimized with flow so crews get what they need, when they need it, in their zone, every day.

And here’s the warning that matters: you cannot have a Last Planner System without a First Planner System. If you try to implement Last Planner while ignoring supply chain, logistics, and environment, you’re telling trade partners to “figure it out” without support. That is disrespect.

Respect for people is a production strategy.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Here’s your challenge: stop letting the project start on luck. Design the start. Build procurement as production plan #1. Build logistics like a production system. Build culture like a non-negotiable. And then protect flow every day.

“You cannot have a Last Planner System without a First Planner System.”

FAQ

What is the difference between a procurement log and a submittal register?
A submittal registers track submittals. A procurement log manages the full supply chain: buyout, release, fabrication, delivery, staging, and required on site dates tied to the plan.

What are the three buffers in a construction supply chain?
Material inventory buffer (right sized onsite inventory), supply chain buffer (risk protection for variability), and macro procurement buffer (protects production targets when optimizing a Takt plan).

Does just in time mean materials go straight to the zone?
Not always. For long lead items, just in time often includes staging yards or temporary supermarkets so zones aren’t flooded early but crews still aren’t waiting.

Why are morning worker huddles so important?
They connect the plan to the people doing the work. Without worker huddles, alignment breaks down, standards drift, and only a portion of planning makes it to the field.

Can you implement Last Planner without First Planner?
You can try, but it will fail or become disrespectful. Last Planner relies on supply chain, logistics, and environment being designed and supported so trade partners aren’t forced to “figure it out” unsupported.