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Efficient Project Delivery Using Lean Principles - An Indian Case Study

Kovvuri, P. Ramachandra Reddy / Sawhney, Anil / Ahuja, Ritu / Sreekumar, Aiswarya

Abstract Construction industry in India is growing at a rapid pace. Along with this growth, the industry is facing numerous challenges that are making delivery of projects inefficient. Experts believe that capacity constraints in the industry need to be addressed immediately. Government has recommended ‘introduction of efficient technologies and modern management techniques’ to increase the productivity of the industry. In this context, lean principles can act as a lever to make project delivery more efficient and provide the much needed impetus to the Indian construction sector. Around the globe lean principles are showing positive results on the projects. Project teams are reporting improvements in construction time, cost and quality along with softer benefits of enhanced collaboration, coordination and trust in project teams. Can adoption of lean principles provide similar benefits in the Indian construction sector? This research was conducted to answer this question. Using an action research approach a key lean construction tool called Last Planner System (LPS) was tested on a large Indian construction project. The work described in this work investigates the improvements achieved in project delivery by adopting LPS in Indian construction sector. Comparison in pre- and post-implementation data demonstrates increase in the certainty of work-flow and improves schedule compliance. This is measured through a simple LPS metric called percent plan complete. Explicit improvements in schedule performance are seen during 8 week LPS implementation along with implicit improvements in coordination, collaboration and trust in the project team. This work reports the findings of LPS implementation on the case study project outlining the barriers and drivers to adoption, strategies needed to ensure successful implementation and roadmap for implementation. Based on the findings the authors envision that lean construction can make project delivery more efficient in India.