Lean Construction Approach Powers More Unified, Efficient Project Team

By Ken Osmun

Construction projects are rarely completed without a hitch, but the unanticipated issues don’t have to cause delays and cost overruns. With the Lean construction approach, a project team can more successfully and easily navigate around obstacles — and even prevent many of them from arising in the first place.

Delays spring from countless variables and logistics. One company may have trouble obtaining a needed element such as a lighting fixture because of a hold-up with the supplier. Another company may anticipate being temporarily short-staffed in an upcoming week.

Enter Lean construction. The method is a series of best practices that encourages close cooperation and communication among all of a project’s stakeholders to respond to such issues. Lean construction creates a unified team that is nimbler and more efficient, avoids many complications and identifies collaborative solutions for any issues that do arise.

Lean construction has spurred benefits at LeChase Construction Services for several years. It recently reduced the timeframe for a Westchester County, New York renovation project from 14 weeks to 12. The time savings, about 14%, came from coordination and discussions to work around issues, including the previously mentioned lighting fixture that one contractor had trouble obtaining.

This is just one benefit of the approach, now a best practice for many companies. A 2021 survey of 336 contractors, conducted by Dodge Data & Analytics for the Lean Construction Institute and the Associated General Contractors of America, showed the benefits — including timeframe, profitability and enhanced team culture — of Lean construction methods across various areas. Of those that used a “high intensity” of Lean construction methods, 60% reported profitability higher than with typical methods; 56% said the project’s quality exceeded expectations; 41% reported finishing a project sooner than scheduled and 73% said they would work with the same company again.

The Lean Construction Institute describes six tenets of Lean construction. One, respect for people, which provides the foundation for the rest. For a project team to function smoothly, trust among the companies and their crews is essential. It is common to foster such respect with rules allowing one person in a meeting to finish speaking before another begins. Some development teams will use a simple object — a tennis ball, for example — as a discussion aid; the tennis ball’s holder gets to speak without interruption until passing it to the next team member.

The other tenets are to optimize the whole, remove waste, focus on process and flow, focus on generating value and continuous improvement. The principles, applied to construction and design, serve to “develop and manage a project through relationships, shared knowledge and common goals,” the institute’s website reads. “Through these tenets, traditional silos of knowledge, work and effort are broken down and reorganized for the betterment of the project rather than of individual participants.”

This collaboration and coordination can generate beneficial practices at every step. Among them:

• Align and clarify tasks. Daily conversations facilitated on the construction site help subcontractors pinpoint what they need to have completed to begin their work. For example, when electricians need the mechanical contractor to install equipment before they begin wiring a particular item, they can dialogue directly with one another to complete the work efficiently and effectively as a team.
• Talk openly about potential delays. When one contractor has trouble obtaining a needed part, a larger contractor on the team, with more buying power, may be able to call the supplier to move things along.
• Fewer wasteful activities. For instance, don’t place materials on the construction site until you need them, and then only where they will be used. That way, they won’t have to be moved twice.

Some of these common-sense practices always have taken place on construction sites when cooperation among contractors develops naturally. Lean construction formalizes the process to ensure the team follows best practices consistently, and continually looks for new innovations and efficiencies.

Lean construction’s benefit may be greater, and more apparent, in larger projects, and the method is not formally applied to every job. Still, when used frequently and proven to be of value, the principles can become part of the company’s culture and DNA. Even when Lean construction is not implemented, a superintendent experienced in the approach will be more likely to collaborate with subcontractors about potential problems and to find remedies.

Lean construction is not a one-size-fits-all process, but its approach brings value for both the construction company and clients. Success typically results in projects completed sooner and at lower cost.

Ken Osmun, a project executive with LeChase Construction Services, is certified in Lean construction.