Talk:Lean construction/Archives/2013

Cleanup Notice
(Tabdelhamid The following comment was removed on Jan 1, 2011:

I removed this because there was no clear pointers as to how to address any inconsistency with Wikipedia's rules. The information on the page is representative of the current understanding we have about Lean Construction - as researched and practiced. (Tabdelhamid


 * I would argue that simply linking the citations to the footnotes in proper Wikipedia fashion would go a long way toward cleanup. It looks like a pasted in term paper. 69.67.193.51 (talk) 22:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * There are serious COI, how to and potentially copyright issues throughout the article. Much of it reads like original research, is essay like and frankly feels like an advertising pamphlet. All of which leaves it open to question in relation to Wikipedia standards. There are flashes of good, encyclopedic information in there worth keeping, but would end up with nothing more than a stub article as it stands at the moment. It requires editors who are serious in maintaining the article to rewrite from a more neutral POV, avoid weasel words, and eliminate the potential copyright issues. Immediate removal of two sections: Last Planner System® and Lean Construction FAQs would go a long way toward cleanup. In the meantime, I am reinstating the cleanup template, which was originally place in September 2007 (here), with little achieved in the interim to address the concerns both implied by the inclusion of the template, and stated explicitly on this talk page. --Haruth (talk) 05:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree "It looks like a pasted in term paper." It's also too technical in places, and overly long. wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 06:29, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

faq (cutpasted from article because unencyclopedic in their entirety)
Maybe someone wants to make an effort and translate these into serious content?


 * Answers provided by Lean Construction Institute (LCI) Executive Director Greg Howell and Academic Forum Chairperson Tariq Abdelhamid -

1. What is Lean Construction?
 * Lean Construction a different way to see, understand and act in the world. For example, waste in current practice is normally understood as labor utilization. Learning to see contingency as waste is the big step we need if we are to make a step change in construction, one commensurate with managing inventory just in time.
 * Lean Construction is a philosophy - it is something that people do. Lean Construction a comprehensive system of ideas that lead to the flawless delivery of the built environment.  This philosophy is  practiced using the Lean Project Delivery System, which continues to evolve as more is learned from practice and research.

2. Is Lean Construction just applying Lean Production in construction?
 * No. Lean Construction started as an attempt to reform the way work in projects is managed. Once it was appreciated that work moves between specialists in construction by the administrative act of making an assignment, it was possible to adapt principles and practices direct from Toyota Production System. However, Lean Construction is more than Lean Production in Construction.  The project-oriented execution of construction projects made it necessary to develop unique methods and tools for construction.

3. When did Lean Construction begin?
 * LC began with two main insights. First, the inability of the current planning system to produce reliable workflow. Second, the lack of a theoretical understanding of what is production in construction. This was in the middle 1980s to early 1990s. A more formal start could be identified as the first meeting of the International Group for Lean Construction in 1993.  Lean Construction remains to be a research and practice area in constant flux.

4. What are the major differences between a project run based on Lean Construction and one that is not?
 * Lean works because the work on the project is designed and managed by those who do it. LC designs and activates the network of commitments necessary to deliver the project.
 * The “tragedy of the commons” is prevented. This tragedy results because individually rational decisions are destructive to the overall project. Instead of local optimization driven by labor utilization, Lean Construction targets system optimization that is driven by throughput.  Work on Lean Construction projects is deliberately and systematically organized to maximize the project and not the pieces, and commercial terms are adjusted to align interests, and promote improvement and minimize risk to the involved parties.
 * Another difference is that the construction process, the building operation and maintenance, and the recycling/salvage needs are inputs to the design and not outputs of it; inputs needed to start the work are provided and issues (waste) that prevent finishing started work are eliminated; problem solving and learning is the job of those involved in the project and not just part of the job; Where possible, materials are brought to the site in the same way concrete is; The aim is for a zero punchlist and not to zero-out the punchlist.

5. Building Information Modeling (BIM) aims to build a collaborative relation between designers and constructors, so how is that different from LC?
 * BIM is technology. It doesn't aim, it does make possible different conversations because it is a great tool for spatial representation of design. LC structures those conversations and connecting design, logistics and installation.  LC designs and activates the network of commitments necessary to deliver the project.  It is necessary to enable Lean Construction ideals but not sufficient.

6. Is Lean Construction like Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) where you have to commit to a certain level of compliance and the project is checked against that?
 * No. Lean is a way to manage and improve work. LEED and GREEN are value propositions - an end. Lean Construction is the means to better arrive at that end.

7. What percentage of the US construction industry is adopting it?
 * There is no definitive way of knowing. The number of LCI state-based chapters are increasing which reflects an increased interest in the industry. The corporate and individual membership of LCI is increasing, again indicating interest is rising. The AGC of America Building Division has began to develop Lean Construction training for construction site professionals. AGC estimates that one in seven contractors is using Lean Construction. According to LCI, there is still time to be an early adopter.

8. Is Lean Construction accepted more in other countries than in the US?
 * There is significant implementation in Germany, UK, Denmark (the longest running with strong Union support), Sweden, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Taiwan, Malaysia, India, Egypt, Israel, and Nigeria.

9. What is the primary difference between Lean Production and Lean Construction?
 * Lean production is the inspiration for lean construction, but cannot be grafted onto construction.
 * Production & construction are different; construction is more like ship-building or airplane-building, where the workers move and the product is stationary instead of the product moving between stationary workers like in production.
 * In production, typically the same part is produced in mass volume. This is not the same as construction, unless major generalizations are made (i.e. a wall is a wall, even if made of different material and on different projects). So, Lean Construction focuses heavily on the similarity in the process of constructing more so than on the product of construction.
 * Sven Bertelsen (a Lean Construction Scholar) encouraged the move from construction on to project production in general because he sees the project as the basic form of production where mass production is just the simplified version Toyota and Shingo demonstrated as new thoughts but construction has to establish its own thinking.
 * Lean Production primarily focuses on the reduction of the time from order, of any transaction be it assembly, billing, supply, etc, to delivery. This reduction of time is achieved by the elimination of waste (the unproductive use of resources) that is captured in the mnemonic word “ DOWNTIME”.  Respect for people and continuous improvement guides the reduction of waste.   Lean Construction has been inspired by this but also by other paradigms.  Production in construction is conceptualized as a transformation of inputs to outputs through a flow process of materials and information that is directed at maximizing value to the client.  Lean Production is not about maximizing value to the client, otherwise, the Cadillac would cost the same as the Chevy, the Lexus would cost the same as the Camry, etc.  Lean Construction also draws on the new theories regarding project management as well as social science, and complexity theory.  A construction project is considered as a project-based production system.

10. Can the concept of Heijunka be used in construction? Why?
 * Heijunka = production leveling. Production leveling for a manufacturing plant relies on being able to “create” stable demand, so that the Takt time for the plant is constant. Toyota does this through its marketing and sales division.  The TPS is quite vulnerable otherwise.  Of course, it is not always perfect but they strive for this stability, especially with tactics such as mixed-model production.
 * Construction is project-based and the requirements needed to complete a project are known – the quantities are known, with a time and budget constraint. A construction project needs stability and reliability in the workflow so that it is not going in fits and stops.  This is achieved using the Lookahead and weekly work planning process with a constraint screening process (elements of the trademarked Last Planner System), and not just an FYI (for-your-information) coordination meeting.  The act of keeping a workable backlog is designed to keep work flowing and progressing.
 * The use of the line of balance (linear scheduling, flow lines) is a nice tool to visualize the production rates of different activity and avoid the interruption of work as well as the problem of overproduction. However, in Lean Construction it is not desirable to have one crew finish too fast or too slow.
 * Crew balancing is not an example of heijunka. Crew balancing may lead us to locally optimize at the expense of the system throughput.

11. Contrast “lean work structuring” with “work breakdown structure”.
 * A WBS should not be used as the sole planning tool for a project. It is a great brainstorming tool to understand the project.  It is probably the best scheme to develop a MASTER schedule.  The problem is using it for more than what it is capable of.  Project cost and project duration can't be determined by simply working the WBS.  The WBS is looking at activities in an independent fashion in support of transformation thinking.  The WBS assumes that optimizing the part will optimize the whole – reduce the part cost and duration and you will reduce the cost and the duration of the whole.   Get the lowest price and the shortest time for drywall separate from electrical and plumbing and you find on site that the work of these three trades is so intertwined that the cost and duration you received for drywall was a pipe dream.
 * A WBS is a tool to use in Lean Work Structuring.
 * LWS is thinking production, operation, maintenance, and recyclablity during design. It also focuses on work package (not trade or contract packages), i.e. the wall, or the ceiling, and how that work will be accomplished throughout its upstream and downstream stages.

12.  What are the differences between project control and production control?
 * Project control monitors progress using lagging indicators such as schedule and cost variance. It is sometimes too late to do anything about the project going off-track or it takes too much to get it back on track.  So, project control is reactive.  Think of the stock market.  The DJI - Dow Jones Industrial Average – only informs about what has happened to the market after the fact.  It’s like taking the temperature of a patient – it indicates whether a person has fever but not why.
 * In Lean Construction, production control is practiced with an aim to make things happen to prevent the project from having a fever. Production control is pro-active because work is facilitated by removing the known process and system constraints.

13. Is Value Stream Mapping  (VSM) a tool for construction?
 * VSM has a place in construction. And this applies to many other tools and techniques that are being used to enable Lean Construction ideals, but are not widely known or shared by those practicing them.  The Last Planner System is one example.
 * As far as VSM is concerned, it provides a big picture view of the flow problems in whatever system is under study. It's a flow improvement tool and not a process improvement tool (flow kaizen vs. process kaizen). A great bottleneck finder.
 * VSM has been applied to reduce the time for processing specialty contractor payment applications (from 40 days to 5 or so – see IGLC11 in a paper by Mastroianni and Abdelhamid).  An architecture office also is using it for streamlining the submittal and show drawings review and approval process because of delays and complaints by contractors.   An example for application on a construction site is that of a construction company that specializes in suspended ceiling and drywall installation.  They used VSM to identify time that drywall sheets and tiles spend before being put in place.  They used the results to justify the cost of using a temp warehouse (supermarket) close to the site and deploying a pull delivery system.   The result, using the SAME installation process, was less time per SQFT because material handling was almost down to single touch – from the truck to the installation location.   Interestingly, they then used work sampling techniques (as described in Oglesby, Parker and Howell 1989) to improve the dry walling process itself.
 * In Brazil, VSM is being used mostly by academics. As any other tool developed for manufacturing it needs some adaptation in order to become useful for construction. Researchers at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) have developed some innovative applications of VSM for administrative and design processes and also as part of production system design of construction projects. They have published a few papers in previous IGLC conferences.

14. Is Integrated Project Delivery the same as Lean Construction?
 * No. In fact, the ideals of Lean Construction are enabled by using the Integrated Project Delivery approach.  IPD is necessary but not sufficient.  In other words, just having an IPD will not guarantee meeting the Lean Construction ideals.  IPD is defined on this page (scroll up).
 * IPD is a Relational Contracting approach that aligns project objectives with the interests of key participants, through a team-based approach. The  primary Team Members would include the Architect, key technical consultants as well as a general contractor and key subcontractors.   It creates an organization able to apply the principles and practices of the Lean Project Delivery System.] (Matthews and Howell 2005).  IPD is defined at http://www.leanconstruction.org/glossary.htm.  For more information see  http://www.leanconstruction.org/lcj/V2_N1/LCJ_05_003.pdf

[IPD is a registered business mark by Lean Construction Institute with the US PTO - Class 37; Registration # 2,971,009]

This article appears to be written like an advertisement. (June 2012)
One of the principles underpinning 'lean thinking', the set of ideas under which lean construction, lean production, lean accounting, etc are subsumed is the creation of value for the customer (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_thinking)

In preparing this article some of the authors have clearly attempted to practice what they preach and I count myself among them. I have tried to think about what the reader might want to know. IS this not also a principle that underpins Wiki?

Alanmossman — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.100.15.219 (talk) 11:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Alan. There is a least one clear example:
 * "Benefits to the client are enormous," is written like an advertisement. Other problems with the article include claims without dates and opinions and facts without sources. Perhaps there's scope for improving the article's sources and accuracy as part of a term class? wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 10:12, 31 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Dear W Crosbie - thanks for your reply - I have now recovered my Wiki identity.


 * I accept your criticism and I will work on this and encourage others to do so too.


 * I also note that you deleted the section on Last Planner "because the article or image appears to be a clear copyright infringement". The article referenced as the source http://construccioneingenieria.blogspot.com/2008/09/last-planner-system-last-planner-system.html was published on 18 Sept 2008 without the graphics that appeared in the original LPS Wiki entry.  On the same day the same blogger, an engineer based in Cuzco, Peru, published http://construccioneingenieria.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/what-is-lean-construction.html.  In the middle of that blog post appears:


 * "Practical applications
 * (it would be good to add examples from other countries here such as Denmark, US, Chile, Brasil, Peru, Sweden, in addition to others from the UK)"


 * The parenthetic comment is a quote from an earlier Wikipedia reviewer.


 * The page history for lean construction shows that I wrote the original Last Planner article between January and June 2008.


 * The "what is lean construction section" was written by Prof Tariq Abdelhamid with contributions from others starting in 2007.


 * I suggest that that rather than being copied from construccioneingenieria.blogspot.com, construccioneingenieria.blogspot.com copied from the original work in wiki.
 * How does wiki deal with plagarism of this sort?


 * I cannot find the button to object to the proposed deletion - can you help me please.


 * Alanmossman (talk) 14:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)Alanmossman


 * Hi Alan I moved the content to Last_planner_system but the deletion was out of my hands. It happened very quickly.


 * The text from the LSP section is now located at User:Wcrosbie/Last_planner_system. It can be edited, or you can copy the text to your sandpit. I believe the LPS content is too long for incorporation in the LC article; it needs better referencing; it lacks introductory information that could easily be sourced from LCI the LCI glossary. I proposed editing it together before creating a new version of the LPS article with a link from the LC article.


 * My key criticism of the LC article is that it isn't written for a general audience, especially those interested in construction OR lean. This is not a good start: "... alignment and holistic pursuit of concurrent and continuous improvements in all dimensions of ... "! I suggest the article need to be shorter. How can that be achieved? I'm happy to help with referencing and copy editing. I'll leave the tough decisions up to others. wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 22:52, 8 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi again Alan. I've edited that deleted the LPS content back into the page. However, there's a risk that bot will try to delete the whole article. We may need to argue the case, again, here.
 * [Note to self, remember to add a more basic definition and use these references: ballard-1994 & ballard-thesis. ] wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 11:50, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Acronym soup & redirect suggestions
It might be helpful to have some of the basics outlined in separate pages, with redirect pages where appropriate. This would make it less difficult for the novice to find their way into LC. Some suggestions:
 * Expand CPM
 * Create IFoA or redirect to Lean construction
 * Create ILPD or redirect to Lean construction
 * Remove the duplicate content at Integrated Project Delivery because IPD "is registered business mark", isn't it?
 * Create Last Planner System & redirect from LPS
 * Create Lean project delivery and/or Lean project delivery system
 * Create PPC2000 or redirect to Lean construction
 * How is Target Value Design relevant? Does the reader need to know?

The following already have pages and/or appropriate redirects
 * From AIA to American Institute of Architects
 * From BIM to Building information modeling
 * From CMAA to Construction Management Association of America
 * From IPD to Integrated project delivery
 * Project Management Institute (PMI)
 * quick setup/changeover
 * huddles

Please feel encouraged to amend the article, or leave any suggestions here. Any sources appreciated. wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 10:08, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Proposed Last Planner System article
As discussed above, I have begun to create the Last Planner System article. There were some copyright problems with content that appeared to be copied from the Construccion e Ingenieria blog. wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 22:11, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Consistent with wikipedia copyright policy, the Last Planner System article was deleted for unambiguous copyright infringement of the Construccion e Ingenieria blog. As you can see it's better to write than copy and paste! wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 01:14, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The LPS content has been returned to the article. wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 01:03, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Integrated Lean Project Delivery
The article's section on Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) could do with better references, although it was recently expanded slightly. Additional sources to consider include:


 * Alan Mossman (2009) who answers the question What-is-Integrated-Project-Delivery?, a two-page pdf (2009)
 * INTEGRATED PROJECT DELIVERY: COLLABORATION THROUGH NEW CONTRACT FORMS, by Patrick J. O’Connor, 11-page pdf (2009)

I've updated the Integrated Lean Project Delivery (ILPD) secion to include references about the Boldt Group's trademark (TM). Addition sources which might be relevant include:
 * Quotes from Pat Loughrin, vice president of healthcare for Northern Operations at Boldt, in Constructech magazine.

Please add your other suggested sources here if you like. wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 10:23, 27 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm going to revise this section using more general terms (i.e. ones that are not trademarked). Please leave a note here if you have any concerns. wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 09:29, 2 July 2013 (UTC)