Lean construction is a project management philosophy in the construction industry that aims to optimise processes and minimise waste.
With the introduction of lean management in construction, the idea here is about making complicated real estate or construction projects easier to manage. As project demands more people, it becomes harder to keep up with time and budget. Additionally, there are now higher demands for safety and environmentally friendly construction practices.
At the same time, the quality of processes has deteriorated, with less than 50 to 75% of deadlines and quality promises being met at various construction sites. The result is high construction costs, long delivery times and dissatisfied customers. Lean construction can change all that. How, you ask?
In this blog, you will find the answer to the question of what lean construction means. Along the way, we will learn more about the methods, principles and benefits of lean management in construction. Let’s learn.
What is Lean Construction?
Lean construction may sound like a diet for construction sites, but it is a clever concept for making the construction industry shine. By applying lean principles, Lean management aims to improve processes and procedures in the construction industry to reduce waste, cut costs, and increase efficiency.
The concept of lean management originated in the automotive industry and became popular on construction sites in the 1990s.
Large construction companies are already using lean construction practices to improve productivity, but, it is not as widespread among smaller companies.
Next, we will introduce the 5 Lean principles and explain how they can be implemented in construction companies.
5 Lean Construction Principles
1. Define Customer Value
The customer is king, and not just in the castle building! Lean management places great emphasis on customer focus. In construction, this means recognising and defining value from the customer’s perspective. An important question to ask is What is important to the customer?
A good price-performance ratio, quality, reliability, and adherence to delivery dates are just a few of the many possibilities that exist.
2. Identify Value Stream
The second step focuses on analysing and optimising all value-creating processes once customer value has been identified.
In the construction industry, this means looking at how exactly the customer value defined in step 1 is created in the construction process. The aim is to maximise value-adding activities while reducing unnecessary tasks and eliminating waste.
3. Optimise Flow and Avoid Waste
Once the value stream has been identified, it is important to remove unnecessary activities from the process and ensure that everything runs smoothly.
The aim was to remove wastes like waiting times or errors and to optimise processes to ensure a continuous, uninterrupted flow.
4. The Pull Principle
Since customers are at the heart of lean construction management, it is crucial to understand their needs. It is important to focus on what they really need.
In the construction business, this means procuring just the required amount of building materials so there isn’t too much left over. This helps keep things efficient and saves money.
5. Continuous improvement and striving for perfection
The aim of lean management is to continuously increase the value added for the customer. There’s always room for improvement.
The fifth lean construction principle, therefore, means constantly looking for ways to speed up construction processes or improve quality.
3 Tips for Implementing the Lean Construction Principles
Customer Surveys:
Conduct regular surveys or interviews with your customers to find out what aspects of the construction project are most important to them. Use this information to better tailor your offerings and services to their needs.
Adopt Digital Tools:
Digital tools enable better communication, planning and collaboration between everyone involved in a project. One possible solution is NYGGS, which offers comprehensive Construction Management Software for subcontractors, document management, digital access control, financial management, and construction logistics.
Implement Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Define clear performance indicators to measure and monitor the success of your improvement efforts.
Methods for Lean Construction Management
This starts during the early planning stage where we look at the whole process. It’s crucial to involve everyone working on the construction to ensure that everyone understands how things will work in each part. Based on this understanding, we plan the process by breaking it down into clear tasks and steps, including important checkpoints and goals for stability. All trades contribute valuable experience here. During execution, a board on the construction site provides information about the future construction process, construction progress, and any obstacles that may arise. The board thus functions as a control instrument for construction management and ensures transparency.
There are several methods available to support Lean Construction Management:
- The Last Planner System (LPS) is a way for construction teams to plan their work together. It involves the different trades and planners, known as “last planners,” working together to create a detailed schedule that breaks down tasks by the day.
- Cycle Planning and Cycle Control as a method for process planning on the construction site focus on the process flow. The interdependent trades “flow” through the building in a fixed order, forming an uninterrupted process flow; eliminating the residual risk of external influences. It works well for large projects with many repetitive elements, such as office buildings, apartments or hospitals.
- Target Value Design (TVD) (often budget-related) is a collaborative planning process in which all project participants work together to create a design that delivers the greatest value to the owner. The advantages of this method are transparency and low risk for the client.
Benefits of Lean Construction Management
The biggest benefit of lean construction is the increase in efficiency throughout the project. Other benefits include:
- This method greatly boosts quality because project managers regularly check and communicate about each step of the construction process.
- Greater transparency and more precise planning shorten construction times.
- It also reduces waste and costs.
- Employees also benefit: the process steps become clearer to them, mutual understanding increases, and the stress of project managers decreases.
- Clients’ needs are better fulfilled because we look at and create processes as a whole throughout their entire journey.
- Reduces the need for rework by identifying and avoiding obstacles, disruptions and risks early on.
- This method improves communication and therefore transparency.
- The lean philosophy aims for zero defects. This also applies to construction: everyone involved is expected to meet deadlines and deliver quality. This makes it easier to identify and correct design errors.
- This also promotes mutual learning, as we look at how mistakes can be avoided in the future.
Conclusion
To sum up, Lean Construction is the holistic management of construction projects to deliver them faster and more efficiently – with high quality, on time and on budget. In addition to the technical knowledge of those involved, communication skills and a willingness to be transparent will become increasingly important as success factors. Combined with digital methods such as construction management software and Building Information Modelling (BIM), Lean Construction Management will permanently change the working environment in the construction sector.