What Is Lean Construction & Why You Should Care

Lean construction is a way of designing production systems in a construction environment with the aim of decreasing time, effort, and a waste of materials.

Lean construction ensures that a project is quickly done, and lower costs are incurred during the building process. Moreover, lean construction is aimed at maximizing value and minimizing costs involved during construction project maintenance, design, planning, and activation. Worldwide, the use of Lean construction increases the productivity of the construction industry.

Lean construction possesses the following key essential characteristics:

— Concurrent design and engineering.

— Objectives that are explicitly set for the delivery process.

— Employment of project control which is implemented across the project life cycle; from design to delivery.

Every person involved in the lean construction project, from the constructors, architects, designers, savvy owners to the last tradesman, is taken into consideration for ensuring that the construction project is of high quality, delivered faster, and less costly.

Lean thinking principles are applied while implementing lean construction. Employment of lean design principles leads to a highly profitable, and flexible company. These policies include:

— Customer’s perspective is taken into consideration while defining the design value of the construction process.

— Ideas that yield to big performance gain are considered to improve the construction project performance.

— Proactive implementation of project cost and control management.

— Measuring a project planning performance to results obtained. A metric is used to define the planning to be used in lean construction.

— Specialty expertise takes precedence in solving a problem at hand that can be solved in a day over the normal process used to address the same problem in a week.

You should care about lean construction as the following benefits can be achieved while applying lean thinking in a building project:

— Production of quality profit margins

— Protecting the environment and respecting the workers ensures better social infrastructure.

— Employment of youth talents in the construction industry as lean construction provides a healthy, and pleasant environment.

Lean design and construction matters as building capital assets are built in an organized manner. The results obtained impact everyone involved in the construction process. This is from the savvy owners of the construction to the parties using the facility being built. Tenants living in a building built under a Lean design approach, as compared to a traditional approach, realize significant savings in rental costs. This is because the expenses and break-even point for recovery is conceivably lower while implementing the lean design approach.

Lean construction design approach focuses on sustainable construction practices which are pro-environmental and ensures green business practices. This method also takes advantage of solar power thus maximizing energy consumption while designing the building footprint. Additionally, implementing lean design results in the production of little construction waste, and by-product materials that are not hazardous to the environment. The end results are convenient to both direct and indirect community stakeholders.

Lean construction designs lead to competition amongst construction providers. Domestic construction companies being at a better fighting position improves local economy as well as increasing job markets.

Jessica Kane is a professional blogger who writes for Scaffold Store, the favorite and trusted scaffold supplier of the largest contractors.

FAQs

What is lean construction, and what is its primary goal?

Lean construction is an approach to designing production systems in the construction industry with the aim of reducing time, effort, and material waste. Its primary goal is to ensure projects are completed quickly and efficiently while minimizing costs.

What are the key characteristics?

Lean construction is characterized by concurrent design and engineering, explicit objectives for the delivery process, and the use of project control throughout the project life cycle, from design to delivery. It involves collaboration among all project stakeholders to ensure high-quality, cost-effective, and timely completion.

How are lean thinking principles applied?

Lean thinking principles are applied in lean construction by considering the customer’s perspective in defining the design value, implementing ideas that yield significant performance gains, proactively managing project costs and controls, measuring planning performance, and prioritizing specialty expertise to solve problems efficiently.

Why should I care?

Lean construction offers several benefits, including improved profit margins, environmentally friendly practices, enhanced social infrastructure, opportunities for young talents in the industry, organized and efficient building processes, and cost savings for tenants. It also promotes sustainable construction practices and contributes to the local economy by creating jobs.

How does it impact the environment?

Lean construction focuses on sustainable and pro-environmental practices, such as maximizing energy consumption through solar power, minimizing construction waste, and using non-hazardous by-product materials. This approach benefits both direct and indirect community stakeholders.

How does it benefit the local economy and job markets?

Lean construction promotes competition among construction providers, benefiting domestic construction companies. This, in turn, improves the local economy and creates more job opportunities.

How eSUB Can Help

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