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The purpose of this paper is to explore the transfer of lean manufacturing/production from the Japanese manufacturing industry to the construction sector in the west.

Research literature from the fields of lean manufacturing/production and lean construction was reviewed. This revealed a number of characteristics that are specific to lean construction, most notably the recognition that critical research findings have been slow to emerge but appear to be gaining momentum.

In the transition from manufacturing to construction the process losses appear to be related to critical aspects and the challenges surrounding practical application to a different context. Lean is highly interpretive and there is no shared definition or understanding of what is meant by lean, lean production, and lean construction. The focus has been mainly on production system design, planning and management, and implementation. This narrow focus has meant that some important issues concerning the wider aspects of lean have been overlooked. There is a need for a “back to basics” discussion on many other aspects of the approach, such as whole‐life value and waste identification.

The work is limited to an extensive literature review.

The extensive literature review makes an original contribution to the lean construction field and provides a valuable resource for researchers.

Project management has neglected production. Its theory and techniques are devoted for the most part to the formation, award and administration of contracts. Production management has equally neglected projects. Developed in manufacturing, theories and techniques of managing production focus almost entirely on the task of making multiple copies of a single design. Management of project‐based production systems lies at the intersection of these two disciplines, is enormously important, and has been until recently almost entirely undeveloped. A new project delivery process is emerging in the architectural/engineering/construction (AEC) industry. Its first module is production control, dedicated to the management of work flow between specialists. A new production control system, termed the ‘Last Planner’ system, has been successfully applied both to construction and design phases of AEC projects. The paper presents a case study describing one of the first applications of Last Planner to design, which is considered to be essentially a value generating process.

Specialty contractors have knowledge to contribute to the early design of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) products. In current practice, however, they are seldom involved in early design, but evidence suggests that their early involvement is increasing. Lean construction theory advocates such involvement. The practice of involving suppliers in product development efforts and manufacturing has proven to be highly successful. The paper reports on empirical research that identified the contributions of specialty contractor (SO knowledge to early design, which led to gains in process efficiency and improvements in product quality. These contributions are categorized and illustrated by means of examples that stem from current practice or present potential opportunities for improvement. Reasons are given why SC knowledge is often ignored in design. Changes in AEC practices nevertheless suggest that organizations are creating conditions to increase interaction between designers and SCs. Such interactions will help AEC organizations to retain and share the knowledge of individuals as well as learn to develop new knowledge.

The overall contribution of this work is to provide a usable maturity model for collaborative scheduling (CS) that extends the literature, identifies inconsistencies in schedule development, and improves collaboration in the construction industry.

Via subject matter expert elicitation and focus groups, the maturity model establishes five pillars of collaboration—scheduling significance, planners and schedulers, scheduling representation, goal alignment with owner, and communication. The maturity model is then validated through iterative feedback and chi-squared statistical analysis of data obtained from a survey. The five pillars are tied to the literature and previous work in CS.

The analysis shows that current industry projects are not consistent in collaboration practice implementation, and the maturity model identifies areas for collaboration improvement. The study's contributions to the body of knowledge are (1) developing a maturity model-based approach to define and measure the current level of collaboration and (2) discovering the level of consistency in scheduling collaboration practice implementation.

The findings provide a benchmark for self-evaluation and peer-to-peer comparison for project managers. The model is also useful for project managers to develop effective strategies for improvement on targeted dimensions and metrics.

The construction engineering and management (CEM) literature does not contain targeted models for scheduling collaboration in the context of maturity and, broadly speaking, neither does the literature at large. The literature also lacks actionable items as presented for the maturity model for collaborative scheduling (MMCS).

The purpose of this paper is to identify and theoretically explain the general barriers to adopting lean construction practices in the construction industry regardless of the country or the company size or specialization, and to suggest future research studies in this field.

Systematic literature review was conducted to identify and explain the list of the barriers from scientific sources that were published before May 2018.

Twenty-nine barriers were identified and explained, and a proposed model to classify the sources of the barriers was chosen. Seventeen barriers were classified as internal environment-related barriers, five were labor-related, three were materials-related and four were exogenous barriers. In addition, some directions for the future research studies were suggested.

The barriers that are related to the advanced levels of lean construction (LC) implementations, to a specific location or to a specific LC tool were excluded.

This review will help to increase the understanding of the new concept of LC and might help to encourage the adoption of LC practices. Also, it might be useful for identifying the strategies to achieve successful application of these practices.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of implementing the Last Planner System (LPS) to improve construction planning practice and enhance site management in the Saudi construction industry.

LPS was implemented in two large state-owned construction projects through an action research process. The data collection methods included interviews, observations and a survey questionnaire.

The findings identify benefits including improved construction planning, enhanced site management and better communication and coordination between the parties involved. The paper describes the critical success factors for LPS implementation. The paper also describes barriers to the realisation the full potential of LPS, including the involvement of many subcontractors and people's commitment and attitude to time.

The work reported in this paper is limited to two case studies.

The study has thus contributed to improving management practice and may aid the establishment of a basis for the development of further research in the area of lean construction. The research outcomes can inform practitioners of the opportunity to implement alternative management methods in construction, and give a good account of the opportunities and challenges. Beside the direct benefits to managerial practice, the study also contributed to practice by offering practical recommendation that can assist in the achievement of the full potential of lean and LPS in Saudi Arabia.

This is the first comprehensive academic study in the Saudi construction sector concerning the application of lean construction principles and techniques. The study has thus contributed to practice and developed a basis for the development of further research in the area of lean construction. It may help construction organisations to establish a new strategy and policies to improve their managerial practice. The outcomes of the case studies can be used as a reference for organisations seeking to improve their managerial practice.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate an effective project management practice focusing on planning and control. By doing so, it contributes to the debate on rethinking traditional project management practices and accentuates the need for adjustments based on the project context.

This paper extends the project management theory by proposing a lean project planning (LPP) and control framework, developed and tested in collaboration with ten engineer-to-order (ETO) companies. By following a design science research approach, elements from lean thinking and current project planning and control practices are combined into a maturity model (MM).

ETO project characteristics are identified, and their implications for planning and control are discussed. Nine enablers that transform current project planning and control approaches into a lean approach are defined, allowing the analysis of the underlying complexity of planning and controlling ETO projects and thus facilitating the determination of the actions required to improve project performance.

Once fully embedded in an organization, the presented MM can provide a safe framework for self-criticism and can be used to conduct self-assessments without the need for an external facilitator. Thus, this paper is of particular interest to practicing project managers who aim to implement LPP and control.

To the authors’ best knowledge, this paper is the first to empirically examine the journey toward LPP and control from a MM perspective. This research attempts to describe the enablers of LPP and control.

Traditional cost management systems adopted by construction firms have many problems, which are widely discussed in the literature: the information provided by them is usually too late, and tends to be too aggregated and too distorted to be relevant for production management. The main objective of this research work is to propose a project cost planning and control model for construction firms. This model aims to support the development of production management systems, in which cost management and production planning and control can be gradually integrated, in order to overcome the existing limitations of cost accounting systems. The scope of the model was limited to building projects carried out by small and medium sized companies, involved in both product development and production. The development of the model was based on the literature review and also on the results of nine empirical studies conducted in four different Brazilian construction firms. The model suggests the integrated application of three fairly well known cost management techniques: operational cost estimating, S‐curves and target costing. By using this set of tools, it is expected that cost management will become more proactive, and able to deal with the dynamic, uncertain and complex construction environment that exists in most projects. The model was partially tested in two case studies, in which it provided key information for supporting decision making related to design, production planning and contracts with suppliers.

The emergence of collaborative delivery models and working practices in construction industry has created a potential area for project success research. Previous studies have addressed success factors of various collaborative delivery models (e.g. alliance and partnering). However, there is currently very limited research-based knowledge concerning core success factors for different collaborative delivery models, exploring the commonalities. Thus, this study aims to conceptualize a success model for collaborative construction projects by identifying and structuring their core success factors through the lens of project delivery elements.

A systematic literature review was conducted, and thematic as well as content analysis of the relevant studies led to the identification of mentioned success factors in the literature for different collaborative delivery models. Then, those common success factors were structured in a model based on factors' relation to project delivery elements.

The obtained results present eight core success factors (e.g. equality, mutual trust and commitment to win–win philosophy) for collaborative construction projects, structured in a model based on their contribution toward project organization, contractual relationships, and operational system in construction project delivery. Moreover, the differences between success factors for traditional and collaborative construction projects are discussed.

This study's findings provide insightful theoretical contributions on collaborative construction project success and providing a departure point for future studies based on the discussed differences between success factors of collaborative and traditional construction projects. The findings can be also practically insightful for the project professionals in collaborative construction projects to succeed in managing project organization, contractual relationships, and operational system.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Last-Planner-System’s impact on project cultures in terms of partnering.

A case study was performed using multiple data gathering approaches. The project cultures of three projects not applying the Last-Planner-System were compared with three projects that apply the Last-Planner-System. In total, 30 participants were involved in the study. Semi-structured interviews were held and analysed by applying qualitative content analysis. Also, the “organizational culture assessment instrument”, which belongs to the “competing values framework”, was used by means of an online survey.

The Last-Planner-System leads to increased levels of mutual understanding and control about the tasks and issues of the other parties. This detailed overview leads towards a more distinguished evaluation of the trustworthiness of individuals. This does not necessarily lead to a partnering project culture.

The contribution to research is that higher levels of transparency and mutual understanding do not necessarily lead to a high level of trust. Rather, transparency could be seen as a controlling mechanism that leads to better-founded estimations about the trustworthiness of others in the project.