What could be done to simplify

construction?

Angelica Salas 1325065

STATEMENT OF OWN WORK

I certify that this essay is my own work, based on my personal

study and research and that I have acknowledged all material and
sources used in its preparation, whether they be books, articles,
reports, lecture notes, and any other kind of document, electronic
or personal communication. I also certify that I have not copied in
part or whole or otherwise plagiarised the work of other students
and/or persons.

Angelica Salas
18/03/14

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WHAT COULD BE DONE TO SIMPLIFY

CONSTRUCTION?
Applying Lean thinking and BIM in construction
As in other industries, in construction, design plays an important role in the
life of a project since inefficiencies in this stage could led to delays and over
budget. In this phase is that the idea of the client begin taking shape, his
thoughts and requirements are needed to be taken into account on drawings
and technical specifications. Therefore, the most usual issue faced in this
stage is lack of communication which eventually causes that the client is not
satisfied with the design and demands for a change. Previous research has
led to the conclusion that planning and control are substituted by chaos and
improvising in design, which causes poor communication, lack of adequate
documentation, lack of coordination between disciplines, and erratic decision
making (Freire and Alarcon , 2000). Solutions to these either approach the
implementation of Lean Construction (LC) or the application of Building
Information Modelling (BIM), but what about a strategy that embraces both
concepts. Through research and practice, it has been appreciated that LC
and BIM have significant synergies, and by implementing it together it can
bring more benefits (Dave, Boddy and Koskela, 2013). This essay will
critically examine both methodologies, and then it will discuss how by
implementing both could successfully simplify these construction stages.
Lean Construction originated as an adaptation of the principles of Lean
Production, not only embracing the concept of flow and value generation but
also changing the traditional view of the project (Aziz and Hafez, 2013).
When people hear of LC, they only think in the construction stage, but the
truth is that the major goal of LC is to make value added activities flow,
which will only be accomplished if lean concepts are applied from the
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beginning of the design process. The successful implementation of LC in the

construction stage, using the principles largely developed by Toyota, has
opened up the possibility of using lean design management, thus helping to
establish a systematic approach to the creative design phase (El Reifi and
Emmitt, 2013). Lean design encourages design teams to include contractors,
subcontractors, and material suppliers, because communication among all
parties means that everyone can cooperate on a design instead of isolated
from each other. According to El Reifi and Emmitt (2013) these are the
procedures to achieve lean design management:

Ensuring the early engagement of al critical parties, designer,

contractors and suppliers.

Reviewing collaboratively to agree about critical stages to generate an
action plan to monitor jointly buffer usage to achieve certainty of

delivery
Making services as efficient as possible through the use of innovative
technologies and management techniques.

Above procedures can help for a more communicated design stage, but what
about planning? LC also provides a very successful tool that begins in the
planning stage and extents until the end of the project: Last Planner System.
The Last Planner System (LPS) was described by Kalsaas (2012) as A
practical approach in which construction managers and team leaders
collaborate to prepare work plans that can be implemented with a high
degree of reliability, thus improving work stability and predictability. He
explains how it differs from traditional planning by the uncertainty of making
predictions until all constraints are out of the way and can only be removed
in the final instance by the team leader, who is called Last Planner. LPS
can manage a project even if it is complex and uncertain, because of the
planning and control tools that provides. Nieto-Morote and Ruz-Vila (2011)
describe the three different schedules that are used in LPS:

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1. The master schedule is the entire project schedule and includes only the
major milestone.
2. The look-ahead schedule contains the activities that need to be completed
in order to successful execute the milestone at the times set in the master
schedule. These activities are reviewed to find the constraints and make sure
that it ends before the scheduled start date. The duration of the look-ahead
depends on the time to eliminate all constraints.
3. The short term schedule has duration of one week. Includes all activities
that need to begin in that week, in order to comply with the completion
dates of the look-ahead schedule.
With this schedules, LPS is able to reduce uncertainty, integrate all projects
participants and improve planning and controlling. When you implement a
new philosophy as LC or its tool LPS, it is inevitable to have challenges as
lack of integration, lack of commitment to the program, staff without
appropriate learning and resistance to change. Nevertheless, when the
success of this tools is experienced, these challenges become opportunities,
as everyone become more committed to the program.
The other approach that will help to simplify construction in all its stages is
BIM. Some people mistakenly think of BIM as just a new variety of software,
but is actually a process that relies on information rich models that helps to
more efficiently plan, design, construct, and manage building and
infrastructure projects (Autodesk, 2011). The truth is that with BIM,
miscommunication, design errors, and, in turn risk are mitigated, while
decision making is improved with the ability to use the model to simulate
nearly all aspects of the project (Autodesk, 2012). The overall advantage of
implementing BIM is that even though the algorithms that define the objects
created by the users are no less complex than those developed for CAD
applications, with BIM the software design and computation effort creates a
much closer to reality user experience that understands that these objects
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represent real world components (Smith and Tardif, 2009). As stated by the
BIM handbook (2008), these are some of the advantages of implementing
BIM in the design stage:

Earlier and more accurate visualizations of a design: With the 3D

model generated by the BIM software it can be visualize the design at

any stage of the process.

React quickly to design problems: The impact of a suggested design
change can be entered into the building model and changes to the

other objects in the design will automatically update.

Generate accurate and consistent 2D drawings at any stage of the
design: This significantly reduces the amount of time and number of
errors associated with generating construction drawings for all design

disciplines
Extract cost estimates during design stage: At any stage of the design,
BIM technology can extract an accurate bill of quantities and spaces
that can be used for cost estimation.

It also points out the challenges that can be encounter:

Determining the methods that will be used to allow adequate sharing

of model information by members of the project team.

Using a shared building model as the basis of all work processes and

for collaboration, will require time and education.

Replacing a 2D or 3D CAD environment with a BIM system involves far
more than acquiring software, training, and upgrading hardware.

The challenges of implementing BIM can be overcome very fast, because of

the fact that you only have to make an investment in training and time.
Therefore, after making that investment, the only thing that will be perceived
its going to be benefits.
These two different methodologies complement each other. The first one,
aims to attack communication and variation, while the second one helps to
have an accurate interactive model. With BIM, the implementation of LC
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could be more approachable because the LPS get access to the most
complete and up to date information about the project in all its stages.
Therefore, by applying both methodologies, there will be a simultaneous
visualization of the product planning process, visualization of the BIM model,
and a mapping of the tasks to the corresponding BIM element. Problems
faced before with any change that the client will need, will be easily applied
with BIM, which means it will also be effortless change in the planning with
LPS. In fact, it is important to mention that there is a new research software
called VisiLean, which provides integration between lean workflow and the
BIM model. It aims to bring the simultaneous visualization of process and
product to production management through a single interface (Dave, Boddy
and Koskela, 2013). Imagine having the best of LC and BIM in one place,
being able to have a visual representation of the project through BIM with
planning.
Returning to the question posed at the beginning of this essay, applying
either LC or BIM will definitely simplify construction, but nothing as strong as
implementing both. BIM can be used effectively to address the conceptual
design of the LC principles and rapidly do any type of change that the client
will need. LC will achieve a more cooperative working environment, where
the designers will be able to work with the entire team and this will enhance
the communication. LPS as a tool of LC will help for a more predictable
construction, where variance will not be an issue anymore. Furthermore,
applying all this together will attack most of the problems faced during
planning and design, which will eventually lead to a more stable and inbudget construction. The biggest challenge with the implementation of this
tools its resistance to change, but research has shown that eventually when
they experienced success, people get more cooperative. Hence, the tools are
there, its not what could be done to simplify construction, but when we will
start simplifying construction?

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References
Autodesk (2011) Realizing the benefits of BIM. [online]. Available at:
<www.autodesk.com/bim>
Autodesk (2011) BIM for infrastructure: A vehicle for business transformation
[online]. Available at: <www.autodesk.com/bim>
Aziz, R.F. and Hafez, S.M. (2013) Applying lean thinking in construction and
performance improvement. Alexandria Engineering Journal [online], 52(4),
pp. 679-695 Available at: <http://www.sciencedirect.com>.
Dave,B., Boddy,S. and Koskela,L. (2013) Challenges and opportunities in
implementing lean and BIM on an infrastructure project. Proceedings of the
21st Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction. ,
2013.
Eastman, C.M. (2008) BIM handbook: a guide to building information
modelling for owners, managers designers, engineers, and contractors.
[online] Chichester: Wiley.
El Reifi, M.H. and Emmitt, S. (2013) Perceptions of lean design management.
Architectural Engineering and Design Management [online], 9(3), pp. 195
Freire,J. and Alarcon,L. (2000) Achieving a lean design process. Proceedings
of the 8th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean
Construction. , 2000.
Kalsaas, B.T. (2012) The last planner system style of planning: its basis in
learning theory. Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management
[online], 2(2), pp. 88-100 [Accessed 2/11/13]. Available at:
<http://www.ppml.url.tw/EPPM_Journal/>.
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Nieto-Morote, A. and Ruz-Vila, F. (2011) Last Planner Control System Applied

to a Chemical Plant Construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and
Management [online], 138(2), pp. 287-293 [Accessed 29/10/13]. Available
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Smith, D.K. and Tardif, M. (2009) Building information modelling: a strategic
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asset managers. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

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