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1.23: Introduction to Lean Construction

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    Learning Objectives

    After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

    • Define ‘lean construction’
    • Understand the types of waste on construction projects
    • Be able to list various methods used on projects to increase value and reduce waste
    • Describe the Last Planner System™
    • Understand the process to develop a Lean Deployment Plan for a project

    Defining Lean Construction

    Lean is…

    Lean Construction is …

    Lean concepts originated from the Toyota Production System, and many earlier references to lean concepts reflect upon Japanese terminologies, such as ‘muda’ for waste or ‘kaizen’ for continuous improvement (see https://txm.com/place-japanese-lean-jargon-place-japan/ for additional examples).

    The 6 Tenets of Lean

    The Lean Construction Institute (LCI) has identified six core tenets of Lean (see Figure 1). It is important to note that the foundation is ‘Respect for People’. Without this respect, it is difficult to adopt a lean approach on projects or within organizations.

    Image showing the six tenets of lean as 1, respect for people, 2, optimize the whole, 3, generate value, 4, eliminate waste, 5, focus on flow, and 6, continuous improvement
    Figure 1: The Six Tenets of Lean (Source: Lean Construction Institute (LCI))

    It is important to note that the foundational tenet within Lean Construction is ‘Respect for People’. Without this respect, it is not possible to successfully achieve the other five tenets. This foundation principle is embedded throughout lean projects.

    8 Wastes on Construction Projects (Muda)

    One of the core tenets of lean is to eliminate waste (or muda). To do so, one must first be able to identify waste. There are many sources of waste on a construction project. Obvious waste can be include the the need to redo work that is not acceptable or wasted time due to not having the proper materials to complete a task. But there are other wastes that are less obvious, such as not leveraging the full talents of the team members.

    An image showing the eight wastes of lean including defects, overproduction, waiting, unused talent, transporation, inventory, motion, and extra-processing
    Figure 2: The 8 Wastes of Lean (Image source: The Lean Way)

    Lean Construction Methods

    There are many methods that can be applied to achieve the Lean principles. These can include simple methods, such as completing each meeting with a plus-delta activity, focused on identifying what went well and what could be improved in future meetings to enable continuous improvement. Or they can include more complex, comprehensive methods such as target value design which focuses on developing a design that meets the overall project budget through frequent interactions of design and construction cost estimating.

    Image showing two categories of lean methods, specifically project operating system and project organization), with select lean methods including The Last Planner System, Modular and prefabrication, Takt Planning, and others.
    Figure 3: Select Operating System and Organizational Lean Methods (Source: Lean Deployment Planning Guide)

    The Last Planner System

    The most popular lean construction system is the Last Planner System. The Last Planner System is composed of a number of integrated lean methods.

    A flowchart showing the 5 steps of the Last Planner System being milestone planning, phase pull planning, lookahead planning, weekly work planning, and learning and improving
    Figure 4: The Last Planner System Overview Flowchart

    Lean Deployment Planning

    Lean Deployment Planning focuses on the development of a detailed implementation plan for lean on a project during the earlier stages of the project. Ideally, the team members will get together and collectively develop and document this lean deployment plan.

    The Lean Construction Institute through a Penn State research team developed a guide to support the creation of a Lean Deployment Plan. This Lean Deployment Planning Guide walks a project team through a structured process to design and document their plan. The main steps in this process are to initiate the plan development, select the lean methods to be adopted, plan for each method, and integrate the individual method plans and metrics into a comprehensive plan (see Figure 5).

    An image showing the four main steps to create a lean deployment plan which are 1) initiate, 2) select, 3) plan, and 4) integrate with additional more detailed steps for each.
    Figure 5: Lean Deployment Planning Process (Source: The Lean Deployment Planning Guide, Messner et al. 2019)

    Enterprise Adoption of Lean

    It is important to note that lean principles, or lean transformation, can be applied at both a project or an organizational level. The Lean Enterprise Institute has developed a lean transformation framework to conceptualize the important considerations when transforming an enterprise or company (see Video 1).

     

    Video 1: The Lean Transformation Framework by the Lean Enterprise Institute

    Review Questions

     

    References

    Messner, J., Leicht, R., and Bhawani, S. (2019). The Lean Deployment Planning Guide, Version 1.1, available at https://leanconstruction.org/download-page/lean-deployment-planning-guide/

    This page titled 1.23: Introduction to Lean Construction is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by John Messner via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.