The emergence of lean management in property markets

Seppo Junnila Tu Jylhä and Edward Finch

ERES from European Real Estate Society (ERES)

Abstract: "Purpose This paper seeks to describe how the lean management approach challenges the traditional way of thinking and pushes organisations to develop their operating practices in partnership within property markets. Method This exploratory study examines one in-depth case study regarding the partnership of two organisations, a real estate owner and its property manager. A theoretical lean property management approach was constructed in order to understand the prevailing partnership. Data was collected through 26 interviews, partnership documents, and workshop activities. Based on the empirical evidence, lean principles to develop the partnership were formed and later discussed in a subsequent workshop. Finally, three closing interviews were conducted in order to understand what new insight lean offered to the case organisations. Findings To make it possible to develop operating practices in the partnership, lean suggests making the current practices more transparent through process mapping. A key insight was gained through this process: although the organisations had the same contracts and other documents, a major difference was found regarding the agreed practices adopted in the respective organisations. The organisations had the same goals but the perceptions drove them along different routes to achieve their aims. Thus, a lot of conflicts and turbulence was generated in the daily working. From a lean perspective, a flow was absent; ""the boat ran into each shoal along the way"" and, thus, the end-customers, (i.e., the office users), did not get the value that would have satisfied them. Implications Through lean management the organisations found a much-needed new approach to develop their partnership, which was sought in order to increase the satisfaction of their end-customers. Although many of the ideas from lean can be implemented and used without being lean conscious, the principles of lean made the problem clearer and enabled the organisations to start dealing with the challenges."

JEL-codes: R3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-01-01
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