Lean Construction: 5 Key Concepts

Lean Construction is a journey that takes time and can call into question traditional construction management delivery. This paper is intended to help your organization take the first step of this journey by illustrating a few Lean tools and techniques that can be implemented on your project(s) over the next couple of weeks.

There is plenty of academic literature covering the concepts and guidelines of Lean, yet little on how to get started. This series of articles flips the framework on its head by introducing Lean concepts through simple actions that can be taken right away. Think of this as a training program that an athlete would follow to prepare for a competition. The key is to start with small, actionable steps that will generate quick successes in a short timeframe. These first results will help you build habits and, as you become more familiar with the Lean culture, set you up for long term success.

This first e-book presents five quick practices that support the key concepts of Lean Construction:

1. Use visual displays to increase transparency
2. Start daily huddles to improve reliability
3. Hunt down double data entry to eliminate waste
4. Use floor marking to improve workplace organization
5. Implement Plus/Delta to encourage continuous improvement

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