Development of Lean Model for House Construction Using Value Stream Mapping
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 135, Issue 8
Abstract
Lean construction has recently attracted considerable attention in the home building industry. Lengthy delivery time and significant waste in the construction process have caused many home builders to seek a more effective production model that will increase process reliability, reduce total lead time, and improve quality. However, although housing construction provides the closest analogy to manufacturing, a high level of variability prevents the direct transplantation of lean paradigm and techniques. In collaboration with a local home builder, a systematic approach based on value stream mapping technique is developed in this research to analyze the current process and to formulate a lean production model. The model has four main features: synchronized first-in, first-out lane-based flow, production leveling at pacemaker, work restructuring, and improved operation reliability. A simulation template is built to verify the model and to assist in the development of interim implementation models. This paper presents data collection and value stream selection, current practice analysis, and specific changes proposed for the lean production model.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The work presented in this paper was supported by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) under the External Research Program (Grant No. 6585-A075-1). The writers are grateful to the industrial research partner, Landmark Homes (Edmonton), for providing access to production tracking data and for assistance in lean system development.
References
Alves, T. C. L., Tommelein, I. D., and Ballard, G. (2005). “Value stream mapping for make-to-order products in a job shop environment.” Proc., Research Congress 2005, ASCE, Reston, Va.
Arbulu, R. J., and Tommelein, I. D. (2002). “Value stream analysis of construction supply chains: Case study on pipe supports used in power plants.” Proc., 10th Annual Conf., Int. Group for Lean Construction, Federal Univ. of Rio Grande do Sul, Gramado, Brazil, 183–195.
Ballard, G. (2000). “The last planner system of production control.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Birmingham at Birmingham, U.K.
Ballard, G. (2001). “Cycle time reduction in home building.” Proc., 9th Annual Conf., Int. Group for Lean Construction, National Univ. of Singapore, Singapore.
Ballard, G., Harper, N., and Zabelle, T. (2003). “Learning to see work flow: An application of lean concepts to precast concrete fabrication.” Eng., Constr., Archit. Manage., 10(1), 6–14.
Barlow, J., Childerhouse, P., Gann, D., and Hong-Minh, S. (2003). “Choice and delivery in housebuilding: Lessons from Japan for UK housebuilders.” Build. Res. Inf., 31(2), 134–145.
Bashford, H. H. (2004). “The on-site housing factory: Quantifying its characteristics.” NSF-PATH housing research agenda Vol. 2, 27–33, ⟨http://www.pathnet.org/si.asp?id=1118⟩ (Sept. 15, 2007).
Bashford, H. H., Sawhney, A., Walsh, K. D., and Kot, K. (2003). “Implications of even-flow production methodology for the U.S. housing industry.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 129(3), 330–337.
Bashford, H. H., Walsh, K. D., and Sawhney, A. (2005). “Production system loading-cycle time relationship in residential construction.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 131(1), 15–23.
Fontanini, P. S., and Picchi, F. A. (2004). ‘‘Value stream macro mapping—A case study of aluminum windows for construction supply chain.’’ Proc., 12th Annual Conf., Int. Group for Lean Construction, Lean Construction—DK, Lyngby, Denmark.
Gann, D. M. (1996). “Construction as a manufacturing process? Similarities and differences between industrialized housing and car production in Japan.” Constr. Manage. Econom., 14(5), 437–450.
Hajjar, D., and AbouRizk, S. M. (1999). “Simphony: An environment for building special purpose construction simulation tools.” Proc., Winter Simulation Conf., IEEE, Piscataway, N.J., 998–1006.
Koskela, L. (1992). “Application of the new production philosophy to construction.” Technical Rep. No. 72, Center for Integrated Facility Engineering, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Stanford Univ., Stanford, Calif.
Mastroianni, R., and Abdelhamid, T. (2003). “The challenge: The impetus for change to lean project delivery.” Proc., 11th Annual Conf., Int. Group for Lean Construction, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg, Va.
Pasqualini, F., and Zawislak, P. A. (2005). “Value stream mapping in construction: A case study in a Brazilian construction company.” Proc., 13th Annual Conf., Int. Group for Lean Construction, Univ. of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Rother, M., and Shook, J. (2003). Learning to see: Value stream mapping to create value and eliminate muda, Version 1.3, Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, Mass.
Tapping, D., Luyster, T., and Shuker, T. (2002). Value stream management, Productivity Press, New York.
Winch, G. M. (2003). “Models of manufacturing and the construction process: The genesis of reengineering construction.” Build. Res. Inf., 31(2), 107–118.
Womack, J. P., and Jones, D. T. (1996). Lean thinking: Banish waste and create wealth in your corporation, Simon and Schuster, New York.
Womack, J. P., Jones, D. T., and Roos, D. (1990). The machine that changed the world: The story of lean production, MacMillan, New York.
Yu, H., Tweed, T., Al-Hussein, M., and Nasseri, R. (2007). “Management variability in house production.” Proc., 15th Annual Conf., Int. Group for Lean Construction, Michigan State Univ., Lansing, Mich.
Zhang, J., Eastham, D. L., and Bernold, E. B. (2005). “Waste-based management in residential construction.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 131(4), 423–430.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 1, 2007
Accepted: Mar 11, 2009
Published online: Jul 15, 2009
Published in print: Aug 2009
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.