Lean Construction Management

The construction industry occupies the second most important place in the Indian economy and industrial sector. The contribution of the sector to the country’s GDP is almost 9%, employing over 51 million people.

Infrastructure development industry contribute to growth of society and typically spent over billions USD. They come under category of Engineers to Order (ETO). This means that unless the engineering design is complete the order can not be executed. ETO decisions are dependent on following.

·???????Client

·???????Local authorities

·???????Design engineering firm

·???????Third party logistics

·???????Supplier subcontractors

·???????Financiers

They also fall in to the category of operation management, but their advancement with respect to the manufacturing or other service industry are very slow. Most of the development work we see around still managed traditionally may be with better tools and project management software. However, they still need to walk miles to achieve lean operation.

There is advancement in construction industry but limited to certain pockets not over all. For construction service the delivery time line is the most important KPI which has not changed in last 4 decades or the changes are too marginal. Enough study or innovation effort are yet to be exercised to get the benefits unlike manufacturing industry. Today manufacturing and most services industries are in pursuit of lean and management is able to achieve the gain by implementing the lean. However, we have not adopted lean in infrastructural project.

The central concept of Lean construction is all about reducing wastages in the process of building a project from contract sign off to handing over of project to client. These wastages could be result of any one of following or combination.

·???????Excess quantity material and/or skilled personnel available at work site.

·???????No material but skilled personnel or material available but no manpower.

·???????Multiple clearances for contract execution.

·???????Friction between stakeholders.

·???????Un availability of skilled manpower

·???????Scope Creep

·???????Frequent revision of specification and drawing

·???????Defects and Rework

·???????Excess movement of material

·???????Safety and Environmental issues.

·???????High Volatility of metal price.

·???????Inclement adverse weather.

·???????Natural calamities, adverse socio-political situation.

·???????Met Goal/ intent of projects.

·???????Within Budget

Direct cost estimates from rework on commercial building construction are more conservative, averaging about 5% (CII, 2005). Based on this more conservative estimate, a simple calculation based on U.S. construction industry expenditures of $1.246 trillion in 2007 (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2009), reveals that $62 billion is wasted on the direct cost of rework alone. Experts and research firm estimate COPQ (cost of poor quality) ranges between 5 to 15% for construction industry. Lean can help to reduce the COPQ substantially. Lean approach can start with focus on following in general.

·???????Planning & Risk Assessment:

Planning is important to any project, without planning project is impossible. However, with conscious planning involving the experts always helps to reach closeout fairly well with not much variation. Better visualization and alternatives are available to those they analyze their risks well.

·???????Employee Skill:

Businesses or the projects are run by people and obviously skilled project manager will be effectively able to manage a project in a more efficient way. Normally it has been observed that projects are managed by people with domain/functional expertise but rarely with project management skills. In a study published by Access group it is mentioned that barely 56% of those manage projects are certified project managers or have skill set to understand and manage project in line with PMBOK. (Project Management Body of Knowledge). This study pertains to advance/ developed countries and considering developing or under developing countries the gap is much higher.

·???????Digitization:

It is undoubtedly clear that software technology can improve the project performance by indicating KPIs (Key Performance indicators) on a real time basis, that will help decision makers to take suitable decision in the interest of project.

Using BIM model working drawing at construction site with PDA (Portable Digital Assistance) could improve the project delivery by

o??Review the drawing dimension on real time basis at worksite to finalize decision as well as to update the drawing.

o??Reduce gap of communication between construction drawing and actual updated drawing. All agency/discipline will be working in collaborative platform to prevent rework.

o??Common platform to maintain all document and communication for the project with the access level.

o??Visual control of area under construction to visualize site, estimation of work, progress of work, safety checks and providing access to key agency as per requirement.

o??Technology: Using Drone, google eye many detailing could be done without wasting time of specialist more accurately on real time basis.

·???????Agile Supply Chain:

Supply chain can make a project delivery faster, cost effective. Since projects work as high customization contrary to mass manufacturing the bringing efficiency to supply chain is a real challenge. Few actions can be taken for an effective supply chain could be.

o??Collaboration between supplier and contractor

o??Virtual connectivity for project visibility and planning.

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Conclusion: Project performance can be improved with conscious effort by implementing Lean construction management practices with technologies and processes. Lean is reducing wastages.

Practicing lean concept will help organization with following benefits

·???????Efficient Safe Work Practices.

·???????Reducing Waste.

·???????Jobs Are Finished Faster.

·???????Saves on Total Labor Costs

·???????Bottom Line: More Money, Less Waste

In today’s competitive environment it is the essence that we adopt lean management philosophy to bring changes in the project life. Identifying the wastages and their systematic reduction is the next required change in the infrastructure development organization.

Fair project-oriented procurement and supply chain are critical to keep project under cost and time control. The procurement must be done keeping the project dependencies and schedule as critical as cost and quality.?