| Title |
Implementation of Lean Construction on London Heathrow Airport's T5 Project |
| Authors |
Koo Bon-Sang ; Park Hee-Sung ; Chang Chul-Ki ; Kim Dae-Young |
| Keywords |
Lean Construction ; Lean Construction Implementation ; Assessment of Lean Implementation ; Case Studies of Lean Construction |
| Abstract |
This paper introduces a case study in which Lean Construction concepts were successfully applied to the London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 ("T5") project in the United Kingdom, currently the largest design build project in Europe. Lean Construction views construction as a production control process and focuses on identifying and removing constraints that create waste (idle time, rework, etc.) in the delivery of projects with the ultimate goal of achieving continuous flow of work for on site project participants. Many companies and researchers worldwide have worked to formalize and implement these concepts in the construction industry. However, not many cases exist in which Lean concepts have been implemented on projects of a massive scale. The T5 project was severely in need of an approach to streamline their material delivery and site coordination processes, as limited material lay down space and sheer number of contractors negatively impacted the project’s productivity. The T5 project used a web-based Lean production control tool to synchronize material delivery and the workflow between its contractors. Results show that existing bottlenecks have declined and the project is delivered on time and under budget. The case study provides critical insight to stakeholders who are in need of improving their project management approaches to reduce risk on large scale design build projects. |