Lean Construction Tools for a Construction Project

Abstract

Lean construction is now a famous term in the construction business. There has been discussion about the lack of productivity growth in the construction business for several years and many actions has been provided to tackle it. The lean construction project delivery method clearly has many practical improvement ideas to the problem. The objective of this study was to provide a proposal of lean construction tools for the commercial department of the case company, to improve the production in a construction project.

This research includes four phases. The first phase is the current state analysis in which current production tools are reviewed. The second phase is the literature research of the lean construction knowledge and best practices existing. The third phase of this study includes building the proposal of the lean construction tools for the commercial department according to the previous phases and the feedback. The final phase is the validation of the proposal and selecting the lean construction tools for the implementation.

Several strengths and weaknesses were found in currently used production management tools in the company. The pilot projects provided some very good information about the use and experiences of these production tools. The outcome of this study is the final proposal of the lean tools which will be implemented, and which are suitable for the case company´s commercial department. The objective was to present a practical solution how to apply lean tools for a construction project and present how to utilize the tools to improve the production.