What is Lean Construction (http://www.iglc15.org/)?
Lean construction is a new way to manage work over the life of a project. It is not a productivity improvement program.
Lean Construction is a production management-based approach to project delivery; a new way to design and build capital facilities. The application of lean production management to manufacturing caused a revolution. Applied in project settings, particularly in construction, Lean is having a similar impact.
Lean Construction is particularly useful on complex, uncertain, and quick projects. It challenges the belief that there must always be a tradeoff between time, cost, and quality.
When projects are managed with Lean Construction (http://www.leanconstruction.org/):
The facility and its delivery process are designed together to better reveal and support customer purposes. Positive iteration within the process is supported and negative iteration reduced.
Work is structured throughout the process to maximize value and to reduce waste at the project delivery level.
Efforts to manage and improve performance are aimed at improving total project performance because improvement there is more important than reducing the cost or increasing the speed of any activity.
"Control" is redefined from "monitoring results" to "making things happen." Performance of planning and control systems is measured and improved.
Coordination is improved because the release of work from one specialist in design, supply, and assembly to the next is more reliable.