Samir Emdanat
President and Co-Founder
Samir Emdanat is President of vPlanner and a recognized leader in Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), Lean Construction, and collaborative project management. He has spent more than two decades helping owners, designers, and contractors improve project outcomes through innovation, technology, and disciplined execution. Samir is a frequent speaker, author, and advocate for advancing the principles and practices that drive high-performing project teams.
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Sept. 13, 2026
Why Construction Schedules Fail and What Last Planner Does Differently
What happens when an architect, AI researcher, manufacturing process thinker, and construction production planner starts questioning how projects are scheduled? Samir Emdanat, President of vPlanner, joins Felipe Engineer-Manriquez to unpack the evolution of vPlanner and the thinking behind better construction planning. From early work with General Motors and Sutter Health to Integrated Project Delivery, Last Planner System, healthcare commissioning, takt planning, PPC, visual management, and Kanban-style workflows, Samir explains why teams must understand and improve the production system before trying to automate it. This episode explores why traditional CPM schedules can become fragile, how collaborative planning creates more reliable workflows, and what happens when construction teams stop treating the schedule as a document and start treating planning as a living production system.
Guest: Samir Emdanat