Thais da C. L. Alves

Exploring lean construction practice, research, and education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the history of dissemination and use of lean concepts in construction and potential challenges for continued use, as application of lean concepts transitions from a small group of first adopters to an industry‐wide community.Design/methodology/approach – Using insights obtained from a meeting with industry practitioners, literature review, and published cases in which different approaches were used to disseminate lean production/construction, evidence is presented that supports these challenges.Findings – The authors identify three challenges facing lean construction (LC) practitioners, researchers, and educators. One challenge is lean has many meanings (whether denoted or connoted) when applied to construction. Another challenge is to have academics constantly working with industry practitioners to keep working on the adaptation of concepts/systems and not only tools. The third challenge is that without a sustained effort to engage people in meaningfu...

Challenges and opportunities for productivity improvement studies in linear, repetitive, and location-based scheduling

Despite theoretical advancements in alternative project planning methods the extent of their practical implementation varies strongly; it has been limited especially in the US construction industry. The family of linear, repetitive, and location-based scheduling techniques holds significant but barely substantiated promise by containing multiple variables of interest for integrated analysis and optimization. Yet it is necessary to provide empirical evidence that using such techniques can improve productivity to increase credibility and acceptance by practitioners, because claims of conceptual superiority are only sporadically supported with detailed measures. An analysis is performed to identify relevant decision-making variables, extract challenges that currently limit the corpus of quantitative productivity studies on alternative scheduling to its insufficient size, and reveal opportunities to expand it in breadth and depth. Variables are categorized by their relevance to time, activity, resource and location, as well as the managerial approach. Challenges include the diverse definitions of productivity itself, issues related to achieving generalizability, and the detailed steps of data collection, preparation, and analysis. Opportunities include the guidance from existing but rare studies and well-established research methods such as case studies that can be applied. This is illustrated with a sample project of a high-rise apartment building in Brazil. If alternative methods can be proven to be measurably better for specific applications, there might be a paradigm shift from merely defaulting to traditional but problematic network-based scheduling toward consciously choosing the planning method based on its potential benefits for a project.

Visual Management in Brazilian Construction Companies: Taxonomy and Guidelines for Implementation

Visual management (VM) is the managerial strategy of consciously integrating visual tools in workspaces with the aim of increasing transparency on construction sites. Several VM tools and approaches that had been originally developed in the manufacturing context were implemented in construction. However, research on the application of VM in construction as a managerial strategy is scarce. This paper aims to investigate and classify the types of visual devices that can be used in construction sites through multiple case studies carried out in nine construction companies actively implementing VM. It also discusses strategies for the implementation of VM in construction. The main contributions of this investigation are: (1) a VM tools taxonomy that can be used to identify VM application opportunities, providing a basis for evaluating the level of VM implementation in construction; and (2) identification of critical factors for the implementation and various features of the VM strategy in construction.

Leveraging Building Information Models to Support Supply Chain Decisions in Construction Projects

This study uses Vrijhoef and Koskela’s model on the four roles of supply chain management (SCM) in construction to investigate how building information modeling (BIM) can be used in the management of construction supply chains. Two important facts are known about supply chains in general: 1. supply chains compete for projects, not isolated companies; and 2. participants who can see each other’s needs are able to better manage their business and ultimately better serve their clients. In this environment, BIM may be used as a catalyst to provide visibility in terms of product, project, and participants’ requirements to the extended supply chain working to deliver a project. The authors identify cases provided by the literature and ongoing case studies in which BIM has been utilized to exchange information with suppliers. The cases are categorized using the model to identify which SCM roles are currently being used for different products based not only on the characteristics of the products but also the supplier’s approach to delivering product and services. The findings point out the supply chain decisions that were enabled by BIM as well as opportunities for further application of models to facilitate the implementation of supply chain practices in construction.

Implementing Target Value Design: Tools and Techniques to Manage the Process

An alternative to the traditional way of designing projects is the process of target value design (TVD), which takes different departure points to start the design process. The TVD process starts with the client defining an allowable cost that needs to be met by the design and construction teams. An expected cost in the TVD process is defined through multiple interactions between multiple stakeholders who define wishes and others who define ways of achieving these wishes. Finally, a target cost is defined based on the expected profit the design and construction teams are expecting to make. TVD follows a series of continuous improvement efforts aimed at reaching the desired goals for the project and its associated target value cost. The process takes advantage of rapid cycles of suggestions, analyses, and implementation that starts with the definition of value for the client. In the traditional design process, the goal is to identify user preferences and find solutions that meet the needs of the client’s expressed preferences. In the lean design process, the goal is to educate users about their values and advocate for a better facility over the long run; this way owners can help contractors and designers to identify better solutions. This article aims to inform the healthcare community about tools and techniques commonly used during the TVD process and how they can be used to educate and support project participants in developing better solutions to meet their needs now as well as in the future.

Supplier Quality Management Inside and Outside the Construction Industry

Abstract: Supplier quality management (SQM) inside the construction industry is complex given the one-off nature of projects and the enormity of project size and life cycle. The resultant supply chain that supports these projects is extremely broad and deep, creating unique challenges with managing a network of hundreds and even thousands of independent contractors, sub-contractors, and suppliers that often span the globe. It is a continual challenge to ensure that the project equipment, products, and materials that are produced are not in need of rework. This article summarizes findings from the literature of diverse approaches for SQM in the construction industry, and from other industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, aerospace, and food and restaurant. The aim is to identify approaches that could be beneficial to the construction industry such as supplier partnerships, category captain management, and product life cycle management and to determine how these approaches might be adapted to the construction industry. Engineering managers are challenged to improve SQM within an environment of limited resources. By investigating effective practices of SQM inside and outside the construction industry, the engineering manager can leverage and apply these practices. The contribution of this article includes examining and identifying diverse practices for assuring supplier quality. These practices can be applied by engineering practitioners to improve the current management systems so that poor quality problems can be prevented.

Learning from the Cathedral Hill Hospital Project during the Design and Preconstruction Phases

This article explores opportunities and limitations of implementing and experimenting with Lean Product Development ideas and practices in the design and engineering of a complex hospital project. In this environment, new forms of contracts have given rise to new forms of organizing teams to deliver capital projects in which architects, engineers, and contractors are co-located to promote collaboration and deliver projects with a strong focus on clients’ needs. The Cathedral Hill Hospital (CHH) project is a 1.2 million square feet urban replacement hospital in San Francisco, California. It is not just designed to be a state-of-the-art hospital but also to break new grounds in multiple areas of design, construction and operations. Since the beginning of project validation in 2007, the Integrated Project Delivery Team has been applying and testing Lean ideas, concepts, tools and processes to develop this very complex project. The article’s nurturing proposition is that CHH has implemented most principles related to the Lean product development system at Toyota, and that these principles are the foundation for the evolving operational system that supports its processes on a daily basis. The article contributes to the literature by providing an account of how different processes worked in a co-located environment.

Analyzing Effective Supplier-Quality-Management Practices Using Simple Multiattribute Rating Technique and Value-Focused Thinking

Supplier-quality-management (SQM) practices are important to ensure that supplied project materials are within quality specifications. However, not all SQM practices have similar impact on quality or are easy to perform within construction projects. This research describes applying simple multiattribute rating technique (SMART) to analyze a number of SQM practices that are consistent with the balanced scorecard (BSC) perspectives, namely, financial, customer (supplier), internal business, and innovation and learning. Each SQM practice is assessed in terms of its ease of implementation and impact on quality. In addition, the research describes important leadership principles that were found in the literature, and utilizes the value-focused thinking (VFT) method to derive important leadership objectives and practices for SQM. The SMART analysis identified SQM practices that are most important within each perspective, such as the practice of holding joint quality planning within the innovation and learning perspective of the BSC. The results of applying VFT show that having a quality director who establishes and supports the culture of SQM is the most important leadership practice. The research findings can benefit construction organizations wishing to improve their existing SQM by identifying practices that are easy to implement with high impact on quality, and by sharing organizations’ leadership objectives and practices necessary to develop strategic leadership and successfully implement SQM practices within construction projects.

A Qualitative Data Analysis for Supplier Quality-Management Practices for Engineer-Procure-Construct Projects

AbstractThe process of assuring the procured and fabricated materials for an engineer-procure-construct (EPC) project are within their quality requirements is challenging because nearly every EPC construction project is complex and distinctive from previous projects in terms of its size, supply chain, and materials usage. In particular, EPC projects include contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers who collaboratively perform the engineering design for the project, procure the required materials and equipment, and then construct. Many (or most) construction organizations, representing owners and contractors, place high importance on documenting and tracking the quality performance of their suppliers as part of their sup plier quality management (SQM) to ensure that procured and fabricated materials are within the quality specifications. However, these organizations still face problems with their SQM, evidenced by the large number of rework tasks and replacement efforts for the supplied materials in the E...

Quantitative Analysis of Supplier Quality Surveillance Practices in EPC Projects

AbstractThis study was funded by the Construction Industry Institute (CII) to investigate effective supplier quality practices that can reduce rework associated with supplied components in engineering-procure-construct (EPC) projects. The motivation was to analyze how the level and amplitude of inspection in different stages of a supply chain (from fabrication to mechanical completion) affect the resulting quality of products as measured by the number of nonconformances (NCs) found in its different stages. Quantitative data were collected using an instrument used by CII member organizations to submit data on actual purchase orders and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney (M-W) test on the nonparametric set of data obtained. Following the statistical analysis, interviews with subject matter experts, face-to-face presentations, and sharing of reports with the research team were used to clarify questions, interpret the data, and validate conclusions. The results provide insights regarding where inspection is most...