Last Planner System – the Need for New Metrics

Several metrics have been used to evaluate the planning performance within the Last Planner System (LPS). Percent Planned Complete (PPC), which measures the reliability of weekly work planning, is the most commonly used metric. However, studies have shown the need to complement PPC with other metrics to measure performance. Researchers have developed many metrics to assess the makeready process, workflow reliability, and weekly work planning. Many of those metrics were either inconsistently used, showed no correlation with the overall project performance, or required data that was too difficult and time-consuming to collect. This paper offers an overview of the various metrics proposed in the literature. It also proposes new metrics and details their calculation method to measure aspects not yet supported by a measurement metric. This paper is useful for last planners who can employ the newly suggested metrics to assess weekly work planning performance taking into account activity characteristics.