Performance Improvement Programs and Lean Construction

Despite the successful application of lean thinking across a wide range of industries, and a number of UK Government funded programmes such as the Construction Lean Improvement Programme and Constructing Excellence, the construction sector lags behind other sectors as highlighted in the Egan Report (1998) and more recently in Sir John Egan’s speech to the House of Commons in 2008 which gave the construction industry “four out of ten – for trying.” This led to the research question: What are the critical success factors for lean construction interventions? The emergence of lean production as a concept and the contributions of its key historic influencers are explored. Differences between construction and manufacturing are compared and discussed, and it is concluded that there is no practical reason why lean production cannot be successfully applied to construction operations. However, the issue of buildings being “rooted-in-place” is a potential barrier to true global competition. Progress was made towards a satisfactory definition of lean construction, a term hitherto ill-defined. Nineteen potential critical success factors (CSF) were identified in a literature review. A pilot study conducted with senior construction staff experienced in lean construction identified a further seven potential critical success factors and discounted three derived from the literature. Face-to-face interviews with thirty-one construction staff that had attempted lean construction interventions were conducted to examine the significance of each factor. Of the interventions, twenty-six were successful and six were failures. Statistical analysis compared the failure and success groups and of a total of twenty-three factors examined, thirteen were critical, two important, seven not critical and one unknown. Some of the most cited lean critical success factors, for example “There must be a crisis”, were shown to be not significantly important for the construction sector. Interdependencies between the statistically significant factors were explored and it was concluded that a wide concern with “getting buy-in” exists. Three factors appeared to possess a greater ability to influence all the others: the capability of management; client influence; and the right facilitator. KEY WORDS Lean Construction, Critical Success Factors, Intervention, Definition

Journal of Engineering and Technology for Industrial Applications, 2020

Recurring problems in the delivery of construction projects have been time and cost overruns, poor quality, poor health and safety, waste and loss of value. This situation is worsened by the reluctance of construction organisations to fully implement lean construction technique which has proved to be an innovative solution to these problems. This study assessed construction professionals' perception of the awareness, adoption and benefits of lean construction in remedying poor construction project performance in the south-south region of Nigeria. A well-structure questionnaire distributed by hand and electronically using the snowball sampling technique were used to gather data from the participants from both the private and public organisations. Frequency, percentage and factor analysis were used to analyse the collected data. It was found that the level of awareness of lean construction is high but it s adoption is low. Lean construction is a panacea for poor construction project performance because of it s cost related benefits, value and relationship benefits, environmental benefits, quality improvement benefits, motivation and productivity benefits, profitability and market benefits, time and work flow benefits, waste reduction benefits, and HS and rework reduction benefits. The creation of dedicated department/team for driving the lean initiative is recommended.

India's 16% population is depending on the construction industry. There are so many other small industries which are depending on construction industry. The construction industry contribute 5% in the GDP of India by create assets worth over 200 bilion.40% of the development investment from last 50 years has been made in construction industry by Indian government. But the main reason behind the slow improvement of the construction industry is the cost and time overrun. Around 70% of the industry faces time and cost overrun during their construction period.

2011

The construction industry of South Korea takes a relatively big portion of the nation's economy. A common sense is that, if there are systematic problems hindering project performance in the industry, the overall economy of the nation might be harmed to a high degree. This concern has already been raised by some industrial researchers' and in some public sectors research projects. If we can diagnose the industry in terms of the appropriate causal factors improving performance, we can make recommendations to improve the industry. That presumption is the motive of this research.Lean Construction has developed many components such as `Incentive based on integration,' `Set Based Design (SBD),' `Process Improvement based on Value Stream Analysis (VSA)' and `Production control based on plan reliability, Last Planner TM (LP)' in order to bring value that the owner exactly wants instantly without waste. Many research projects and relevant national innovative movement...

Construction projects are not often delivered on time and on budget and re-workings are usually required to satisfy customer's needs. This papers aims to present an overview of Lean Construction (LC) and how this construction philosophy tackles the aforementioned problems. The research is empirical and based on data from the literature, 7 new Case Studies built with primary data, 12 Case Studies on CLIP (Construction Lean Improvement Programme) projects, 4 semi-structured Interviews with Firms adopting LC and several interviews (face to face and email) with LC experts. The results show as LC can achieve astonishing results focusing on reducing waste caused by unpredictable work-flow, paying attention on how every single activity affects the next one and avoiding reworking considered as no valued-added activity. The paper provides three original set of results: (1) a fuzzy cognitive map of LC showing how the different elements are linked to each other; (2) a pathway for the implementation of LC; (3) a synthesis of the strengths and the weaknesses of LC merging literature review with case studies analysis. In particular (3) shows the dimensions of projects adequate for lean construction, the increase of productivity and time reduction due to LC implementation and finally the reasons moving firms to adopt LC. g. l o c a t e l l i · m. m a n c i n i · g. g a s t a l d o · f. m a z z a · i m p r o v i n g p r o j e c t s p e r f o r m a n c e w i t h l e a n c o n s t r u c t i o n : s t a t e ... · pp 775-783

2013

Performance measurement has received substantial attention from researchers and the construction industry over the past two decades. This study sought to assess UK practitioners' awareness of the importance of the use of appropriate performance measures and its role in supporting the application of Lean Construction (LC) concepts. To enable the study to achieve its objectives, a review of a range of measurements developed to evaluate project performance including those devoted to support LC efforts was conducted. subsequently a questionnaire survey was developed and sent to 198 professionals in the UK construction industry as well as a small sample of academics with an interest in LC. Results indicated that although practitioners recognise the importance of the selection of nonfinancial performance measures, it has not been properly and widely implemented. The study identified the most common techniques used by UK construction organisations for performance measurement, and ranked a number of non-financial key performance indicators as significant. Some professed to have embraced the Last Planner System methodology as a means for performance measurement and organisational learning, while further questioning suggested otherwise. It was also suggested that substance thinking amongst professionals could be a significant hidden barrier that militates against the successful implementation of LC.

Frontiers of Engineering Management, 2020

Performance measurement (PM) generates useful data for process control, facilitates communication between different sectors, and helps to align efforts on the most important aspects of the business. Thus, PM plays a key role in the management of projects and organizations. PM is also important in the implementation of lean production principles and methods, such as reducing the share of nonvalue-adding activities, increasing process transparency, building continuous improvement into the process, and benchmarking. Moreover, the adoption of the lean production philosophy requires changes in PM. Despite its importance, limited studies have been conducted on the use of PM systems for assessing the impact of lean production programs in construction projects. In addition, studies on how lean companies (or projects) use performance measurement and to what extent the indicators adopted reflect the result of actions that have been undertaken are limited. This study proposes a set of requirements in PM systems of construction projects from the perspective of lean production and a taxonomy of performance metrics for lean production systems. Five empirical studies have been carried out on construction companies from South America involved in the implementation of lean production systems. The scope of this investigation is limited to the construction projects as production systems rather than PM at the level of construction organizations.

Civil Engineering Journal, 2024

Construction projects frequently encounter challenges such as stagnant productivity, excessive waste, cost overruns, and delays, contributing to sustainability issues. In response to these issues, Lean Construction (LC) has emerged as a methodology aimed at eradicating inefficiencies and wasteful practices. However, the construction industry has been slow to embrace LC, primarily due to a lack of comprehensive evaluations regarding its real-world effectiveness. This study seeks to thoroughly assess the effectiveness of LC when implemented in construction projects in Pakistan. The research involved conducting a survey among experts in the construction industry, utilizing a comprehensive questionnaire to evaluate the extent of LC adoption and its impact on construction project performance. The collected data underwent rigorous statistical analysis to ascertain the influence of LC practices on project outcomes. To validate the survey results, the study selected five case study projects for in-depth analysis. These case studies assessed how well the projects adhered to LC principles and examined the resulting effects on project delays, cost overruns, quality issues, rework, and healthrelated concerns. The findings consistently confirmed that a higher level of adherence to LC principles led to significant reductions in project delays, cost overruns, quality issues, and health-related problems. This analysis strongly supports the notion that a more extensive adoption of LC practices results in substantial improvements in project performance. By presenting these compelling results, this study offers valuable insights to the construction industry, providing a clearer path for the effective integration of LC practices.

2012

The majority of lean transformations fail to meet their initial expectations and end up as disappointments. Excessive focus on specific tools and failure to understand the philosophy or to motivate people in continuous improvement are often blamed for this. This research explores the cornerstones for successful lean implementation in the construction business. Research results based on 39 semi-structured interviews conducted in Finland and California suggest that managers should pay attention to the following aspects: building trust, motivation, ensuring skills and competence, developing and selecting the right people, and providing leadership. In general, lean should be embraced as a comprehensive management philosophy which requires a long-term viewpoint in order to achieve competitive advantage. In construction, it is important to pay attention to the way people are recruited, emphasize their social skills, and develop them through training. Building trust and constructing project teams based on participants' suitability and competence will help to move the industry forward, but managers should also learn to take advantage of crises, when organizations are at their most receptive.

Over the last 10 years an increasing number of companies have implemented lean construction practices in an attempt to improve performance in construction projects. Most companies, and also some researchers, have reported satisfactory results from their implementation. However, there is still a need to provide more extensive analysis of the empirical evidence available to assess the impact of the implementation of lean construction. The authors have researched the implementation of the Last Planner System and other Lean Construction techniques in over one hundred construction projects over the last five years.