Literature Study On Construction, Six Sigma, And Lean Construction

“Lean is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste (non-value-added activities) through continuous improvement by flowing the **product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.” Lockwood [24].

These principals include; elimination of waste, continuous improvement, respect for humanity, leveled production, just in time production, quality built in among other principles.

Lean is not only a set of tools and techniques implemented by an organization; it is a cultural change. It is importance to develop a foundation for this cultural change, to ensure the success of any organization that starts the lean journey.

The concept of Lean Manufacturing was not quickly adopted by the United States manufacturing companies because of the cost incurred by changing the old manufacturing processes; the perceived need did not outweigh the benefits. In the 1970’s and the1980’s manufacturing companies in the United States took a closer look when Japanese and Chinese companies were selling similar products as the United States like cars, trucks, electronics, and toy, but at lower cost to the U.S. consumers. Companies within the United States urgently sought out experts from Japan to understand this new method due to declining revenues and the realization they were being forced out of market share. They learned that the concept of Lean Manufacturing was to change the goals by exposing waste in all areas within the manufacturing process with an increased focus to satisfy

In the construction industry, lean thinking still consider a new way or method of managing project in construction. Lean in the construction is an issue of developing a new thinking, knowledge and adopting new culture. On the other point, lean focused on value and the right process that would maximised value and moving towards perfection.

1. Define the clearly value in the organization for product or service from the non-value activities

The idea of Lean construction when properly implemented, it becomes the centerpiece for all steps in the construction process. According to the figure above, Lean construction is the most important part of the process, all steps must keep in mind that value needs to be maximized and waste needs to be minimized (Mayer Construction). From lean design, that includes the concepts, process, and products to the supply and fabrication, all these pieces build up to the principles of Lean construction. Lean design then leads to the supply aspect, where they make sure to just order the proper amount needed with the goal in mind, to not make waste (Mayer Construction). The planning process outlines all of these pieces in Lean construction. Once they get the supply than the construction begins, during this step than they need to make sure to be time efficient, like previously stated, sometimes construction workers are believed to be lazy but when they maximize their efficiency within lean construction the negative beliefs will probably dissipate along with the time wasted. With detailed, scheduled planning all the steps are previously stated and the parties know automatically what is going on (Mayer Construction).

In the terminology of construction industry, the term Lean can be defined as the methodology adopted in the field of construction inclining towards innovative and technological advancements. Appropriate applications of these methods would result in the efficiency of the project, also, helps in limiting different types of wastages.

The greatest challenges to any manufacturer in implementing a lean manufacturing strategy is attacking those processes that cause one of the seven types of waste first, and second, creating a more synchronized manufacturing strategy. The major characteristics of this strategy are

Lean Manufacturing seeks to produce high output with low inventory. Lean Manufacturing was originally known as the Toyota production system invented by Sakichi Toyoda. The whole purpose is to lower waste and increase profit and output. This paper will discuss the history of lean manufacturing Lean manufacturing and the transition and steps involved with Just-In-time manufacturing. Lean manufacturing defines waste as anything that absorbs resources but creates no value. So what is considered waste? The main concepts of Just-In-Time manufacturing are to eliminate waste and excess inventory stocks. Toyota was the developer of these techniques, a lot of Toyotas concepts were derived from Henry Ford’s methods.

You should appoint a devoted leader or group to take on The Core Classes Of Lean Certification

The main characteristics of lean operations and philosophy and their difference with the traditional approach are discussed below.

Lean manufacturing is a method of carefully reducing non-value-adding work during production. Value is defined from customer’s perspective as any action or process that the customer will be willing to pay for. Lean manufacturing has been traced to automobile industry – Ford motors in the United States and Toyota motors in Japan(Singh et al., 2010a; Singh et al., 2010b). These companies simplified the processes of making their products by eliminating non-adding-value works. This also led to standardization.

The main aim of lean manufacturing is to limit inventory, excess workers and waste. The basic principles can be broken down into five practises – value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection [1]. It is essential to map the value that the product provides to the customer. Decisions need to be well thought-out, and implementations should be rapid. It is also important to ensure that each step provides value thus maintaining the value stream. Flow recognises the processes that ensure that the movement between the value creating steps is smooth. Lean manufacturing requires the customer to pull the output from the previous step and hence avoid overproduction. Finally, the vendor needs to continually strive to improve their quality and processes. Lean manufacturing emphasises on continuous improvement in quality and work should be stopped as soon as quality starts suffering.

When it comes to Lean Enterprise, it focuses mainly on reducing cycle time and also waste in the process. Lean Enterprise was at first developed by Toyota Motor Corporation as the Toyota Production System which became popular after 1973. The energy crisis facilitated the increasing demand at that time. “The term ‘Lean Enterprise’ is used to broaden the scope of a Lean programme from manufacturing to embrace the enterprise or entire organization”. (Alukal, 2003)