The 25th Anniversary Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction

The special collection of papers from the 25th anniversary conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) is available in the ASCE Library (https://ascelibrary.org/25lean_construction_conference)

The International Group for Lean Construction community was established in 1993. It began as a network of researchers and practitioners in the fields of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC). Over the years, the IGLC has worked to further education, research, and practice in these fields with strong emphasis on the generation of a theory of construction (IGLC 2019). From its inception, the group challenged received traditions dictating how projects should be designed, managed, and delivered; developed new ways to represent, analyze, and manage construction projects as production systems; and advocated for those closest to the work (whether in design, construction, or operations) to help in collaboratively organizing project processes and networks to deliver value to their owners and, ultimately, to their users.

The term lean construction was coined by Lauri Koskela in his technical report “Application of the New Production Philosophy to Construction” (Koskela 1992). The report helped establish a common language within the IGLC community, while challenging and exposing the underlying theories used in project management and their consequences for the AEC industry.

This special collection brings together a group of papers originally presented during the 25th IGLC conference in Crete, Greece, and extended for this collection. The papers build on 25 years of lean construction research, education, and practice and represent part of the work developed by the IGLC community to address gaps of knowledge in construction engineering and management (CEM) theory and practice.

The collection starts with the work of Koskela, Ferrantelli, Niiranen, Pikas, and Dave on the “Epistemological Explanation of Lean Construction” (Koskela et al. 2019). Their study presents an integrative literature review that raises important concerns about CEM research, teaching, and practice. Their arguments are thought-provoking and raise questions about current practices used in CEM and their underlying assumptions and methods. The authors compare and contrast the teachings of Plato and Aristotle and use them to raise awareness of how epistemological choices shape the way knowledge is generated, transmitted, and applied within the CEM community, and the consequences resulting from these choices.

Transparency, a core principle in lean construction, addresses the ability of systems to communicate with those around it. Valente, Brandalise, and Formoso’s “Model for Devising Visual Management Systems on Construction Sites” (Valente et al. 2019) supports an increase in transparency in construction sites to improve information management and communication. The multistage study relied on benchmarking studies in organizations inside and outside of the construction industry, and empirical studies to identify existing visual devices and ways to better design and assess their effectiveness in construction projects.

In their paper on “Practices for Designing Cross-Functional Teams for Integrated Project Delivery,” Laurent and Leicht (2019) present the results of a year-long case study on practices to design cross-functional teams for integrated project delivery (IPD). Projects delivered using IPD agreements in the United States, and elsewhere, are still rare in comparison with projects using other delivery systems such as design-bid-build and design-build. Moreover, longitudinal studies developed in a single project are even more scarce in the academic literature. Their study provides a first-hand account of how cross-functional teams evolved in the case analyzed, during the design stage, and recommends practices for their successful implementation.

In an attempt to study how information systems support the implementation of another staple of lean construction, Lagos, Herrera, and Alarcón make the case for a structured system to collect metrics related to the last planner system (LPS) in “Assessing the Impacts of an IT LPS Support System on Schedule Accomplishment in Construction Projects” (Lagos et al. 2019). Their study reports on data collected from 50 projects and underscores the relationship between consistently tracking LPS-related metrics, the number of LPS practices implemented, and the resulting percent plan complete (PPC) of the projects investigated.

Similarly, addressing the use and consistent tracking of representative performance metrics in construction projects, Hamzeh, Samad, and Emdanat’s work on “Advanced Metrics for Construction Planning” (Hamzeh et al. 2019) provides a list of existing metrics available in the construction management literature that are used to evaluate the performance of construction projects and the reliability of construction plans. The authors claim that the metrics currently employed are usually considered in an isolated fashion and fail to reduce workflow variability. To address this challenge, Hamzeh, Samad, and Emdanat propose a framework to organize metrics related to the performance of construction plans and support predictive analytics. Their framework supports a much-needed link between short- and long-term plans by providing visibility to last planners in charge of daily activities to make decisions that will help them achieve project goals.

The guest editor would like to thank Professor Jesus M. de la Garza, editor of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, for the opportunity to develop this special collection, and the IGLC community and anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback throughout the review process.