What is lean construction?

Lean construction is a “way to design production systems to minimize waste of materials, time, and effort in order to generate the maximum possible amount of value (Koskela et al. 2002) ”. Designing a production system to achieve the stated ends is only possible through the collaboration of all project participants (Owner, A/E, Constructors, Facility Managers, End-user) at early stages of the project. This goes beyond the contractual arrangement of design/build or constructability reviews where constructors, and sometime facility managers, merely react to designs instead of informing and influencing the design (Abdelhamid et al. 2008).

Lean construction aims to embody the benefits of the Master Builder concept. Essentially, Lean Construction recognizes that desired ends affect the means to achieve these ends, and that available means will affect realized ends (Lichtig 2004).

Lean construction supplements traditional construction management approaches with (Abdelhamid 2007): (1) two critical and necessary dimensions for successful capital project delivery by requiring the deliberate consideration of material and information flow and value generation in a production system; and (2) different project and production management (planning-execution-control) paradigms.

moladi Plastic Formwork Construction Technology

While lean construction is identical to Lean Production in spirit, it is different in how it was conceived as well how it is practiced. A good example of both Lean Construction and Lean Production is a company moladi who optimizes production of formwork by means of injection moulding, elimanating waste. The formwork technology then ensures a waste free time based construction process.