Fostering lean construction through human capacity building : an empirical study of the large-scale contractors in construction industry

Abstract

The construction industry practitioners are tending to implement lean based approaches for the successful project delivery instead of conventional project management approaches. Successful lean implementation in construction industry is severely impacted by human related challenges. Hence, human capacities are significantly necessary for the successful lean construction implementation. However, there is a lack of empirical investigation on lean enabling human capacities in construction industry. Therefore, this research was aimed to develop a model to foster lean construction through human capacity building by large-scale contractors in construction industry. An in-depth literature synthesis was carried out to review on how to foster lean construction through human capacity building. The literature synthesis emphasised the human capacities necessary for successful lean construction implementation under seven sub human capacity categories namely knowledge, leadership, positive attitudes, work ethics, team work, critical thinking, and communication and strategies to build human capacities under four levels of individual, organisational, industry, and government. The data collection was carried out through the semi-structured interviews in three phases. Manual content analysis was used to analyse the obtained data. Phase I of data collection identified several human related challenges of lean implementation including no commitment, knowledge level constraints, and lack of leadership on lean construction. Necessary human capacities to foster lean construction were identified for human resources of each hierarchical levels under aforementioned seven sub human capacity categories. Moreover, the advantages of human capacity building in lean construction implementation were investigated. Phase II of data collection has identified the strategies to build human capacities under four levels of individual, organisational, industry, and government. Finally, the collected data on human capacities and strategies were integrated in to a model and presented to three experts for validation and finalised the research model on fostering lean construction through human capacity building. This study makes several noteworthy contributions to the existing body of knowledge on human capacity building in lean construction and strategies to build human capacities to foster lean construction. Several recommendations on understanding potential advantages of human capacity building in lean implementation, and employing the developed framework on human capacity building in successful lean construction implementation can be made to the industry practitioners through this research.