1.1 From manufacturing to Construction
Inspired by the work of the Henry Ford’s ‘introduction of the assembly line production system’ and refined by Toyota, which also created many elements and concepts to arrive at what is called lean manufacturing.
In 1992 lean manufacturing had already had a profound impact on industries of cars manufacturing and electronics. Also, the application of this approach has also spread to different fields such as customized production, services administration, and product development. Thus, Koskela introduced to the construction industry this new production philosophy proposing that as manufacturing, construction is also, a transformation-based philosophy. Hence, the principles of lean manufacturing not only can be used in the construction industry but also, the industry can expect significant gains and competitive benefits.
However, despite the fact that lean construction is based on the principles of the lean production, these two industries are obviously different. While some techniques and views of lean manufacturing are intimately linked to and have the ability to perfect fit to lean construction, some others theories of lean manufacturing are entirely unsuitable for construction. These differences go from the type of production, the uniqueness and complexity of the industry, and the risks and uncertainties associated with construction to the physical proprieties of the final product itself (Shakeri, Boroujeni and Hassani 2015).
As stated by Linker and Convis, Toyota never expected that any other companies or industries should accurately copy their processes. In fact, nor their own plants should copy or follow the same processes from each other. Every organization must identify and solve its own challenges based on the variables of its process, place, people, and any other unique factors. “Seeing practices that work in other contexts can be useful as a way to stimulate ideas, but it will not produce commensurate results unless a practice solves a real problem and is adapted, or ideally improved on, by the work groups to fit a specific context” (Liker and Convis 2012).
In further work, Koskela also defined the method as 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 , Howell, et al. 2002)
To sum up, even that LC is more than 20 years old and is yet being object of study, improvements, appraisals, rejection and failures. Adittionally, besides the evident success of Lean construction projects, it is also obvious that it yet need do be better understood by the industry.
1.2 Construction Today – The false impression of efficiency:
Despite the lack of evidence and veracity of its real author, a quote often attributed to the great Greek philosopher Socrates, credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, illustrate this conception: “The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.” Exactly in the same page, another quote with the same inaccuracy or evidence of the author, but at this time attributed the genius physicist, Albert Einstein “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know”.
If both phrases were actually spoken by those who have said, they have at least 2,300 years between each other. Which, in fact, does not have any importance, none the time-frame nor the actual author of them. The only things important are that they were said, need to be understood, probably will be true forever, and perfectly fit the perception of there is no improvement to be done.
It is not uncommon that very often people think that they are doing a great job until they learn something else and realize otherwise. The same theory can be applied to knowledge, best practices, impressions, prejudgments, etc.
A recent study with almost 200 surveys distributed by ‘Dodge Research and Analytics’ and LCI (Dassault Systèmes and McGraw Hill Construction 2013) demonstrate how the pieces of literacy presented earlier are valid for LC. The outcome was that 62% of Lean Practitioners thinks that the construction processes in the industry are inefficient, and on the other hand, only 14% of the non-Lean Practitioners (and not familiar with Lean) thinks that the construction processes in the industry are inefficient (Figure 1),
Figure 1: Efficiency of Construction Processes in the Industry by the level of engagement.
Among others reasons, some good explanation for this discrepancy is the lack of knowledge of better practices, management tools, scheduling, or the incapacity in see waste. All of them are fundamentals principles of Lean. Which, very often, its existence is not even known by the industry.
1.3 Lean Construction in Practice
1.3.1 Focus in Implementation is the key to success.
It is a fact that the success of LC is evident. However, even though it has been an object of study for years, it still has challenges in its implementation. Some crucial aspects are culture changing, training, leadership, and partial implementation. The importance of the implementation of Lean construction’s method, tools, and thinking has been a challenge since its introduction (Wandahl 2014).
In his pioneer work in 1992, Koskela has presented some limitations of initial implementation of LC, such as: (Koskela, Application of the new production philosophy to construction 1992)
– Cases and concepts presented to illustrate lean are mostly likely fit to mechanical fabrication and assembly, and not easy to internalize and generalize to other industries (Baudin 1990).
– Lagging response by the academic institutions.
– International competition is relatively sparse.
– The construction itself, its uniqueness of products, site production, temporary project organizations, and regulatory interventions.
Besides these preliminary barriers presented by Koskela, researchers are intense in studying and presenting evidence of the difficulties and barriers of implementation of LC. So that, year after year several papers are presented in the annual IGLC Conference related to LC or of its techniques implementation.
Several papers reinforce the implementation phase in favor to achieve a successful outcome. Moreover, a well-planned and accurate implementation is crucial to avoid another leading cause of why implementation fails, the misconceptions. As know, lean construction is a borrowed methodology from another field, which the main principles were adjusted to the construction field. Which, besides it, with one of the obstacles predicted by Koskela, “Lagging response by the academic institutions,” it leads to companies creates their own lean concepts and a total misconception of its principles. This can clearly result in a failure or a misjudgment of the benefits of Lean Construction.
According to ‘Dodge Research and Analytics’ and LCI (Dassault Systèmes and McGraw Hill Construction 2013), presented in Figure 2, the top challenges faced in the implementation of Lean approach are:
Figure 2: Top Challenges encountered in the implementation of Lean
Also, several types of research are done in the implementation challenges of applying Lean construction practices. A variety of barriers to the implementation of LC were found and were identified as a crucial focus area, which has important significance for the success and efficiency of the LC processes (Wandahl 2014).
1.3.2 Insufficient knowledge, Lack of Training, and Universities response.
As Koskela predicted in his pioneer work (Koskela, Application of the new production philosophy to construction 1992), the lagging response by the academic institutions was mentioned as a limitation for the LC implementation. Unfortunately, almost one-quarter of a century has passed, and this prediction is still valid. This lagging from universities cause
s one of the greatest barriers to implementing LC – the lack of knowledge. In a study in one important tool of LC, Last Planner System® was found that the knowledge is insufficient, and there is imperative the necessity of further “…education in order to improve their planning ability, resulting in more profitable projects.” (Friblick, Olsson and Reslow 2009). This lack of knowledge or its variances is often mentioned by researchers (Porwal, et al. 2010) (Sarhan and Fox 2013) (Viana, et al. 2010).
Thus, it is a fact and very well studied that exists a lack of knowledge of LC tools and techniques. Though it is indeed, and the simplest and high efficient solution for this issue is invest in the training of the employees to have a better understanding and implementation of the LC principles, tools, and techniques. However, this is definitely not what is happening. The lack of training is also in the top of the list of the most common implementation barriers and have been diagnosed as a major and a repeated cause of issues or failures in LC implementation by researchers (Brady, Tzortopoulos and Rooke 2011) (Viana, et al. 2010) (Porwal, et al. 2010) (Sarhan and Fox 2013) (Cerveró-Romero, et al. 2013) (Ahiakwo, et al. 2013).
1.3.3 Understanding Waste
One of the Oxford dictionary definition to waste is: “An act or instance of using or expending something carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose” (Merriam-Webster, Incorporated 2015). By false perception, people tend to believe that ‘something’ is only about material. However, Lean thinking faces waste in a different way, this ‘something’ can be changed by ‘everything’. Waste is everything that does not add value. However, one reason waste is not well recognized is the lack of appropriate tools and methods for measuring waste and its value. The processes used in construction traditionally, are not well suitable to distinguish whichever activity is non-value adding and value adding activities (Lee, et al. 1999).
In addition, Formoso at all concludes that the lack of knowledge is also an important cause of waste. As also stated in other concepts in Lean thinking, several companies know the amount of waste that they had. (Formoso, Isatto and Hirota 1999). It happened because they did not know how to see neither what is considered waste.
Waste is the incidence of material losses and execution of non-necessary work that create additional costs but do not add value to the product. Some examples of how Lean thinking see waste in construction are (Koskela 1992):
– Time (Waiting time, delays)
– Quality costs and time (defects, rework, poor constructability)
– Lack of safety
– Over processes
– Transportation (Unnecessary transportation trips, long distances, unnecessary motions)
– Improper choice or management of methods and/or equipment
– Excess of Inventory
– Unused employees’ capabilities and skills
In his presentation to LCI about Lean manufacturing, Paul Akers suggested that, as soon as employees understand the Lean thinking, they will also start to use it in their houses. The employee will perfectly know what waste is, then, become to see waste everywhere, not only on the job but also in life, house and anywhere they go. Thus, this is the point that everyone can be sure that the employees are totally engaged to the Lean definition of waste and started to think Lean. This is in fact, a significant signal when the waste was understood, and a culture change has happened. (Akers 2013)
“Therefore, waste should be defined as any losses produced by activities that generate direct or indirect costs but do not add any value to the product from the point of view of the client.” (Formoso, Isatto and Hirota 1999)
1.3.4 Culture Change and Employees Resistance
To achieve higher performance, Lean Construction not only must use technical concepts and theories, it needs to be combined with human elements. (Moore 2002). Because of the human elements and some misconceptions about Lean, the cultural changing and employees’ resistance has often been mentioned as a barrier to Lean implementation. Some of they have a preconceived idea about Lean, others only because is afraid to changes, and maybe because the word ‘Lean’ is quite scary for employees that automatically misrelate it to layoffs (Harris and Harris 2007).
Although this could make sense in a first instance because Lean will provide better practices, continuous improvements and do more with less, this is a myth. Thus, in the employees’ misconception, if an improvement will make possible to fewer workers perform the same activity achieving the same results, it is indeed that it will lead to layoffs. This is a total misunderstanding and misconception of the lean principles. Layoffs nor downsizing are an outcome of Lean processes improvements. ‘Doing more with less’ is, in fact, true in a production perspective; however, it may be not the most accurate definition of a better understanding of the employees’ acceptance. It might be better if said as ‘doing more with the same.' It is important to make clear that the company is not implementing lean to decrease business, neither to continue the same, but to increase business, do things better, reduce waste, improve the satisfaction of employees and principally of the clients. Rewriting an unknown maxim, Lean is not about doing different things, is about doing things differently. However, to do so, it is not only in the employees’ hands.
1.3.5 Company’s Culture Change and Management Support
The employees are not the only ones considered as a human barrier to an implementation of Lean concept. The implementation of Lean in construction requires both a change in organizational culture and structure itself. The effective implementation of Lean requires a rigorous analysis of the organization’s capability to become more engaged to Lean thinking (Nesensohn, Demir and Bryde 2012) (Wandahl 2014). Thus, the employers and the companies have to be aware that their culture also needs to change. Some companies do not encourage, sometimes not even accept, that employees propose ideas to modify and improve the processes. The ancient business idea of ‘the employee is not paid to think, just to do their job and follow the protocols’; and that the ‘employee is the one that should adapt to the company, not the opposite’, is still very commom. These cultures are entirely unacceptable in Lean principles. Otherwise, the employers not only must incentive the continuous improvements but also need to implement to test the employees’ ideas. Also, the company should be open minded to have the employees working on improvements during the work-hour, and accept that during this time they might be not producing. The perception of the company is open to new ideas creates the reality where the employees become happy to create improvements. This perception and feeling are ones of the several ‘Invisible changes’ that the Lean commitment creates. Culture changes determine the way that everyone make decisions, feel, think, and act. However still exists a lack of top management commitment and support. Furthermore, culture and tradition changes seem to be a valuable requisite for the implementation of LC (Porwal, et al. 2010) (Sarhan and Fox 2013) (Ahiakwo, et al. 2013).
The company should assure that any idea is a good idea and have to be open to it. Also, be prepared to learn with the mistakes, and keep improving, with no blame-game nor stop the incentives to improvements. Researchers often cite the engagement of higher management as one of the issues faced by implemented Lean companies. “Teams are the key learning units which can best handle and produce novelty, whereas the hierarchy assures that key learning results are stored, accumulated and channeled to other places in the organization.&rdqu
o; (Matthews, et al. 2000). Management’s involvement and leadership are essential for the flow, implementation, acceptance and engagement of the Lean thinking.