Understanding Lean Construction

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Lean construction is not an entirely new concept by any stretch of the imagination but it is only recently that the process became popular. Much like lean manufacturing, it looks towards reducing waste in construction, optimizing the entire project, creating a better bottom line, and passing savings to the customer.

With every construction project, lean construction can help your business become safer, efficient, and less dependent on a consistent stream of raw materials. Here’s how lean construction works and why you would want it in your business.

 

What is Lean Construction?

Lean construction is a type of construction process that borrows much of the concepts of the lean manufacturing process. The easy explanation is lean construction is the optimization of processes that allows the reduction of waste throughout the project.

 

Construction is a confluence of multiple processes, working in a supply chain to complete a specific project. Whether it’s pre-planning, preconstruction, procurement, or building, you would need to fulfill these processes. They will generate some kind of waste, which costs time and money.

 

Lean follows the Toyota production system, which is one of the most efficient systems in the world when it comes to mass production. It helps with maximizing your conversion of raw materials into finished products for your process. Lean also tries to optimize construction processes to allow for faster results and a more valuable chain of creation.

 

Whether it’s machine learning in preconstruction or a stricter use of concrete for the mix, lean construction aims for maximizing value from the entire process. It helps improve efficiency while giving workers more meaningful jobs.


What Are The Goals of Lean Construction?

The primary value of lean construction relies on reducing the seven types of wastes within a project process. These wastes include:

  • Transport

  • Waiting time

  • Overproduction

  • Motion

  • Overproduction

  • Over-processing

  • Defects

 

As you can see, these wastes are standard parts of the construction process. Transport, for example, is the process of moving raw materials from point A to point B. In truth, waste in transport comes from the process itself, as moving around is not a value-added activity and opens materials to transport damage.

 

By minimizing these wastes and reducing their effect, you get more value for your money. This can result in a better value stream for the businesses. 

 

Tenets of Lean Construction

The tenets of lean construction rely on several areas within the entire framework of the construction process. As it aims to meet several goals, lean construction has a heavy focus on initial planning, as well as standardized practices. By doing so, it can create steps that are easily repeatable without using cookie-cutter solutions.

 

From design through fulfillment, these tenets include:

  • Waste removal

  • Client satisfaction

  • Consistent optimization

  • Respect for people

 

As we discussed, waste removal cuts down on the hindrances that the seven types of wastes provide. By doing so, you get more value per unit material and create a huge percentage of savings in the process.

 

Lean construction also does its best to respect why the client wants the construction. It identifies value from the customer’s point of view, trying to understand the reason for the entire process. It tries to build trust beyond its transactional benefits.

 

Standardization is also a must for organizations that look towards lean construction. By focusing on consistent optimization, the team becomes more open to new things and ways to do things better and more efficiently.

 

Lean construction also uses workers beyond being hands in an assembly line. This encourages everyone to collaborate, using multiple sources to guide the process and resolve issues.


What Are The Benefits of Lean Construction?

There are several benefits to lean construction, mostly revolving around its ability to cut down waste at every step of the way. It requires teams to work together closely with each other, starting with pre-planning up to execution. Depending on the philosophy that the team follows, there are several potential benefits to the entire process.

1.  On-Time Project Completion 

One of the most important benefits of lean construction includes finishing projects on time or even before the due date. By removing inefficiencies, it can help teams to complete projects quicker - even with fewer workers that help on-site.

 

This can be an appealing part of lean construction as it offers more for less. This can affect your bottom line, as using only enough materials and even resources to complete the project.

2.  Standardized Practices 

With proper standardization, you can focus on team communication and consistent improvements in your practices. With lean construction, you can go for a more continuous, uninterrupted workflow that allows identifiable improvements over time.

 

Rather than staying with outdated practices that offer you no real benefit in the long run, you create better practices that remove unnecessary steps within your process.

3. Engages Workers

Workers never enjoy the idea of being nothing more than extra hands. Workers who have experience in the business will be more likely to collaborate due to their increased control over the process with management. Those who are in the field know the needs of the field much better.

 

Workers who feel more engaged with the process would also waste less time on tasks that don’t contribute to the completion of the project. They are more likely to enjoy their jobs and even put more effort into the job.


4. Improves Risk management

Lean construction plans for potential issues well before they occur. The process is risk-averse because it is looking to shave off as much waste as it can. Due to this nature, the philosophy tries its best to create contingencies without using too many resources.


By creating contingency plans, it can help reduce panics. Fewer panic situations convert to fewer mistakes over time, allowing stakeholders to make the best possible decisions before roadblocks happen.

 

The Bottom Line

Lean construction is popular for a reason: it allows for better efficiency in your process, as well as lower costs, and improvements to your bottom line. The philosophy lets you become competitive while creating a better quality of work for your team. 

 

If you’re looking if lean construction is right for you, see if its philosophies fit your leadership style with everything we listed above. Done right, this can help standardize your process and make the most out of your capabilities. On-time project completion and competitive processes should make everything much easier.