The Challenge: The Impetus for Change to Lean Project Delivery

Abstract

A challenge from a customer to use “Lean” in our business and production processes caused a significant change in thinking and review of “Best Practices” to deliver projects better, cheaper and faster. Our research has shown that for select construction activities the valued added portion is about 5% and the remaining 95% is both necessary non-valued added and non-value added activities, also known as “waste”. The conclusion was obvious, in that, we needed to focus on reducing the non-valued activities rather than reduce margin to stay competitive. This paper presents the efforts undertaken by Walbridge Aldinger (WA) in response to a challenge from Ford Motor Company to utilize “Lean” production principles in WA’s construction delivery process. These efforts resulted in the identification and implementation of lean tools and methods that comprise a set of “Lean Construction Best Practices”. Deployment of “Lean Construction Best Practices” will reduce the waste in our processes and reduce the cost of capital facilities. Implementing lean in our businesses will be a matter of survival.