Positioning Lean within an exploration of engineering construction

Christine Pasquire

Construction Management and Economics, 2012, vol. 30, issue 8, 673-685

Abstract: Engineering construction has specific characteristics that separate it from other types of construction such as technical complexity, onerous safety, health and environmental regulations, duality of new build combined with maintenance and repair, largely owner/user commissioning clients, value propositions revolving around a production Process, etc. The recent Gibson report (Gibson, 2009) highlighted several significant problems associated with engineering construction in the UK arising, in many cases, from skill shortages and poor client--contractor relationships. Informal observation and a literature review enable 12 factors to be proposed that differentiate engineering construction from other forms of construction. A new paradigm for the construction sector is Lean construction. This is an adaptation of Lean production and is based on a philosophy that focuses on delivering improved value through the assembly of problem-solving networks of knowledgeable and skilled people. Accepting that Lean construction exists in theory as a method for improving a raft of construction production issues, the question is asked here as to whether it is also relevant to the set of additional factors identified as applying specifically to production in an engineering construction context. The discussion concludes that Lean construction principles can be applied in engineering construction and that an improvement in value could be achieved. Note : throughout this paper the word ‘process’ is used in two contexts—the design and construction process and the end Process that is the function of the client business, e.g. water treatment Process, food manufacturing Process. The context is distinguished by the capitalization of the first letter.

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01446193.2012.689431 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:30:y:2012:i:8:p:673-685

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/01446193.2012.689431

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().