What does developing lean capacity mean?

Abstract

There has been an increase in lean implementation in the construction industry during last few decades, but the progress has been hampered by several barriers. This is due to evidence that suggest the misconceptions regarding lean and its applicability to the construction industry. It appears that either the industry does not recognize lean as a capacity enhancing measure to contribute to bottom line success, and /or there is an inability to overcome the barriers that prevent the uptake of lean. Although, construction literature related to lean implementation barriers and solutions are available in the worldwide, there is a lack of research in capacities that excel lean. Hence, there are two major issues that need to be addressed. Firstly, an insightful discourse on what is meant by lean (as a means of capacity enhancing) is required. Secondly, type of capacities needed to overcome some of the barriers already identified in literature, is necessary. In developing this paper, the strong inter-connectedness of both issues is recognized. In this regard, this paper will discuss the contextual aspects in relation to developing lean capacities necessary to overcome the barriers and to successful lean implementation in the construction industry. A literature review was carried out to discuss the unique characteristics of lean construction and reasons for lean implementation failure to identify the context of lean capacity. The findings revealed that, lack of capacities as the prevalent issue for construction companies to enable lean and these capacities need to be evidently defined for the successful lean implementation. Having considered the construction literature, lean capacity can be defined as the hard/soft resources of an organization which enable maximizing value and minimizing waste of a competitive organization. Lean capacities can divide into 2 categories as soft resources (attitude, capability, knowledge, experience, skill to direct or lead the change and improvements, strategic leadership, program and processes management and networking creation) and hard resources (dedicated employees’ time, allocation of fund, means of communication, information, material, financial resources, machineries, technologies/ methodologies, facilities and infrastructure) of an organization. These capacities will allow lean implemented construction organisations to be retained and exceled in lean. Hence, construction organizations need to establish lean capacities to maximize the lean performance and thereby increase competitiveness.