Lean Project management
Lean project management programs are aimed at improving every department in construction projects (Mann, 2010). In the recent years, construction industries have faced challenges due to economic instability in various parts of the world and for them to remain competitive in the market; they have opted to increase their effectiveness and efficiency by exploiting the use of lean methods to carry out their operations.
The objective of implementing lean construction program is to help construction companies to achieve value maximization for their stakeholders. This is achieved by time wastage reduction and quickening the completion of construction projects through less costly and attaining high quality levels. This has always been possible since lean project management allows all critical issues to be addressed at source and promotes participation by all stakeholders of the construction project from the initial stage of the process (Hines & Taylor, 2000).
Appropriateness of lean project in construction project
Since the objective of lean project management system is to minimize wastages in a construction project, this is achieved by eliminating unnecessary material, time or work force that might not be valuable to the construction process. This system promotes an organizational culture that focuses on enhancing employees production skills that ensures construction products and services are available in the required quantities, in the perfect states, where needed at the right time (Leach, 2006).
According to Hines and Taylor (2000), lean project specifies the value of a construction project by defining the value of the products and their abilities in relation to their prices through communication with the project customers.
Lean methods promote time consideration in defining the project value that eradicates ordinary project problems (Leach, 2006). It also identifies procedures to be followed in the value stream of a construction project through the definition of the value of the project from the customer’s point of view. All the steps in the project value stream need identification and this comprises of construction project structure, roles as well as materials that generate value. In ensuring that every role and materials are not misused, guiding procedures are put in place to guarantee the construction project is on course (Dennis, 2007).
During the planning stage, lean project enables value creating procedures to flow towards construction project customers in order to provide solutions to customers’ problems (Rodriguez, 2013). When value stream is in a proper blue print, several steps will be found to add value to the construction project such as adding extra procedures to reinforce the existing ones and eliminating the useless procedures as they are wasteful in the construction process (Hines & Taylor, 2000).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the implementation of lean project management technique in the construction project is a viable strategy that can handle the challenges facing the sector, such as the production of competitive products at the least probable cost. Nevertheless, the implementation of lean methods will depend on the uncertainty and the complexity of the project. However, lean management will be of importance in a situation where solutions matching the project needs are of a dynamic nature (Rodriguez, 2013). Therefore, a construction project involving many stakeholders will benefit more from lean techniques, as they are able to create tradeoffs in the project to consistently have value creation as a critical concern in the construction project (Dennis, 2007).
References
Dennis, P. (2007). Lean Production Simplified. Cambridge; CA: Productivity Press.
Hines, P., & Taylor, D. (2000). Going lean, Lean Enterprise Research Centre. Cardiff, U.K.
Leach, L. (2006). Lean Project Management: Eight Principles for Success. New York; NY: BookSurge Publishing.
Mann, D. (2010). Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions. (2nd Ed). Cambridge; CA: Productivity Press.
Rodriguez, H. (2013). Lean Project Management Principles. Cambridge; CA: Productivity Press.