Exploring Lean Practices in Commercial Construction Projects

Abstract: Lean construction is often suggested as way of enhancing the productivity of the construction industry. There are no clear definitions of lean construction, but it is often referred to as a construction management philosophy that aims to minimize waste and maximise customer value. Adopting lean construction in a project can be difficult and there are several critical factors for successful implementation; one of which is the use of lean construction practices. Lean construction practices are tools, techniques and strategies through which the principles of lean construction can be implemented. It has been pointed out that there is lack of information on the number of existing practices and their exact area of use. This master thesis report identified lean practices that have been implemented in commercial construction projects, and categorised them according to the phases of lean construction. The report also explored which lean production-planning-and-control- practices have been adopted by a commercial construction contractor. To identify the lean practices, a literature analysis was conducted based on the documents reviewed by Babalola et al. (2019) in their article ‘Implementation of lean practices in the construction industry: A systematic review’. This revealed 22 different lean practices that have been implemented in commercial construction projects, with the Last Planner System having been reported the most followed by Just in Time and Pull Scheduling. The literature analysis also resulted in the project delivery stages in which each identified practice had been adopted. This helped categorise the practices according to the phases of lean construction. The phases were defined by the conceptual framework ‘The Lean Project Delivery System’ as Project Definition, Lean Design, Lean Supply, Lean Assembly and Lean Use. The categorisation showed that (out of the 22 identified practices) 3 practices belong to the phase Project Definition, while 8, 9, 15 and 0 practices belong to the other phases respectively. To explore which lean production-planning-and-control-practices have been adopted by a commercial construction contractor, a case study was conducted of the production phase of a large-sized project referred to as Project X. Seven members of the production team were interviewed as to reveal the contractor’s working methods in the planning and control of production in terms of time, activity and logistics. The revealed working methods were then compared to 9 out of the 22 identified lean practices, since they were interpreted as production-planning-and-control-practices. This analysis showed that six of those practices were seemingly implemented in the production of Project X, while one was partially implemented and two were not implemented.