Takt planning
Pace
A takt plan for your live job, built with your foremen, plus the daily routine that keeps it on track.
For sites that already run weekly planning and need the structure underneath it: where each trade works, in what order, at what pace.
Book a 30-minute callRead this before you book
Pace works best when your site already runs weekly planning. If it doesn’t, Cadence is the better place to start.
A takt plan with no weekly promises behind it can look perfect on the wall and still fail on site. The plan says a trade moves to zone three on Monday; without someone having promised it, and without anyone clearing what would stop it, Monday comes and they don’t. We would rather tell you that now than take the booking.
Video coming soon
An explainer on takt planning is being finished. Until then, the written explainer covers the same ground.
The problem it solves
Trades on most jobs do not flow, they surge. A gang finishes an area, moves to the next, finds the preceding trade still in it, and goes elsewhere or goes home. None of that lost time appears on a programme. It appears as trades being slow and labour costs creeping.
A takt plan fixes it by designing the movement: the building is split into zones that hold roughly equal work, the trades are lined up in sequence, and each one spends the same agreed beat in a zone before handing it on.
What happens, day by day
Covers one phase of one live project. Larger or multi-phase jobs are scoped on the call.
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Day 1
Drawings, quantities and a site walk
Where the work actually is, and how much of it sits in each part of the building. You cannot zone honestly from a plan alone.
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Day 2
Zoning workshop with the foremen
Zones carry equal work, not equal floor area. A plant room and an open-plan office of the same size are not the same zone, and the foremen are the people who know that.
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Day 3
Wagons, the takt time and the plan
The trades in sequence, one agreed beat, and the plan drawn out so the whole phase fits on one sheet that everybody can read.
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Day 4
Launch the daily routine
Zone handovers, a visible takt board on site, and the huddle. The plan is worth nothing until there is a routine that uses it every day.
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Day 5
Run it with them, then hand it over
A full day of the routine running with your people leading it and us watching rather than driving. Whatever breaks on this day is better found now than after we have gone.
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Return visit
A few weeks later
Is the rhythm holding? Where is it slipping, and why? We re-balance the zones or the beat if the site says we got it wrong — and the site is the only thing that can tell you whether the zoning judgement was right.
What you keep
- The zone map
- The wagon list, in sequence
- The takt plan, with real handover dates
- The routine for keeping it on track
What we need from you
- A site that already runs weekly planning. This is the one that matters.
- Current drawings, the programme, the list of trades and packages, and any quantities you have — sent at least a week before Day 1. Day 1 is for checking that information, not producing it.
- Your foremen in the room on Days 2 and 3. Not their managers — them.
- One live job with a real milestone.
Draft it yourself first, if you like
Three of the free tools do a first pass at exactly these decisions. They are free, there is no sign-up, and nothing you do in them commits you to anything.
- Work Density Zone Mapper Check whether your zones really do hold equal work, which is the assumption the whole plan rests on.
- Takt Wagon Builder Put the trades in sequence and see where the durations are not level.
- Takt Plan Calculator Try beats and zone counts against each other and see what each does to the duration.
Drafted it with the tools? We’ll build the real one with your foremen.
Questions
About Pace specifically. The questions about choosing between our four services are on the homepage.
How do I know if we already run weekly planning?
The test is not whether you hold a meeting. It is whether the people who do the work leave it having promised something specific, and whether anyone counts afterwards. If the meeting is a progress report, start with Commit instead.
Can’t we just use the free calculator?
You can, and you should — it will tell you what different beats and zone counts do to your duration in about ten minutes. What it cannot do is sit in a room with your foremen and settle an argument about whether two zones really hold the same work.
What if our zones turn out to be wrong?
Then we change them, which is exactly why the return visit exists. Zoning is a judgement made from drawings and quantities, and the site is the only thing that can tell you whether the judgement was any good.
Does this work on refurbishment?
Yes, and often better than on new build, because refurb is where work content varies most wildly between areas that look identical on a drawing. That variation is the thing zoning by work content is for.
Our trades will say the beat is too fast.
Some will, and sometimes they will be right. The beat is agreed with the foremen in the room on Day 3, not handed down — and a beat nobody believes in produces a plan nobody follows, which helps no one.
Not sure if this is the right one? Let’s talk.
You tell me what keeps going wrong. I’ll ask how your jobs run from win to handover. Then I’ll tell you straight which of these is right for you, if any.
- 30 minutes, by video call
- With me, not a sales team
- No slides, no pitch
Pick a time that suits you
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