Lean Construction - Indian Context

Mr. P Sampath, Secretary General, Institute for Lean Construction Excellence

Project Management with Lean Construction practices is the perfect combination for Excellence in performance. Mr. P Sampath, Secretary General, Institute For Lean Construction Excellence shares with Built Expressions that true enough "Good Project Management Delivery" does invariably involve this aspect but we have to go much beyond - Lean Construction.

Lean Construction is a nascent concept introduced, in this name, only as recent as 1995 in the western world. The concept is also gaining rapid recognition in the Indian Construction world. Lean Construction is based on "The Toyota Production System" It mainly addresses the wastages (non value adding activities) prevailing in the Construction sector both in India and abroad. The wastage as it exists today is as high 50 to 60 % (Source: Dr. Tariq Abdel Hamid, University of Michigan, USA).

Indian Construction industry is reckoned to be worth Rs 6708 Billion in 2011-12 (Official Figure). 50% wastage is huge, colossal and mind boggling. Here, the definition of Wastage is generic-overrun of time, costs, poor Quality, poor design, etc. which all add to this obscenely large figure. The world all over is grappling with this unwanted national waste.

UK had many committees who had presented their recommendations to combat such inefficiencies in the construction Industry. Most prominent was the Latham report in 1994 and Egan report in 1998.

Both clearly indicated the wastage to be more than 30% and gave directions for its removal. USA too had its "The 1995 Construction and Building subcommittee Report" which directed the Construction Industry to address  corrective measures to bring  down costs, time etc. by as much as 50%.

Singapore's  "The 1999 Construction 21 Report" too had poignantly raised the call for a paradigm shift in the performance and perception of the Singapore Construction Industry - from dirty, demanding and dangerous to Professional, Productive and Progressive. Perhaps, there is no country in the developed world which one way or the other is not addressing this National Waste.

And, the universal solution to combat this enormous National waste is "LEAN CONSTRUCTION". Heralding the Lean Construction Concept and its application to the Industry are various Institutes and Universities all over the world - USA, UK, Scandavian Countries, Germany, China, Sri Lanka, and Brazil etc.

Indian Construction Industry is no exception to this immense problem of waste, particularly when the Industry is in dire straits as illustrated in a recent survey.

• 91 % of the projects in India Big and Small are delayed
• 94 % of the projects in India are overrun in costs by more than 15%
• 99% of the projects show low job satisfaction for employees

To arrest the enormous wastage, if not to mitigate them is definitely the need of the hour. True enough "Good Project Management Delivery" does invariably involve this aspect but we have to go much beyond - Lean Construction.

Definition of Lean Construction

"To design production System to minimize waste of materials, time and efforts in order to generate the maximum possible amount of value, (Koskela 2002) thus Lean Construction essentially means "Optimizing Efforts, Minimizing Costs and time, reducing waste, Creating Value"

The Epitome of Lean Construction is "The project is delivered in crash time and crash costs, highest Quality, that is the ultimate beyond which no further reduction of time, costs and improvement in quality standards would be possible" This delivery process also to be in extremely harmonious atmosphere between the different stake holders. Thus Lean Construction emphasizes "Immaculate Coordination and projects as truly collective exercises.

Project Management with Lean Construction practices is the perfect combination for Excellence in performance. Lean construction Application has many tools the most prominent is Last Planner which takes the collaboration to new heights.

A group of Leading Construction Players has come together to start "Institute for Lean Construction Excellence" (ILCE) including Larsen & Toubro Ltd, Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. Ltd,  Tata Housing Development Co. Ltd, Godrej & Boyce Co. Ltd, Tata Realty & Infrastructure Ltd, Arcop Associates Pvt Ltd, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Chennai and  Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. This is nonprofit company founded in 2008. The main objective of ILCE is to spread the knowledge of Lean Construction and its practice across the Indian Construction Industry.

IIT Madras has recently launched a subject on Lean Construction in their curricula for the Civil Engineering Course. IIT Madras and ILCE have recently concluded a site based training of nine months duration which effectively brought home the concept of Lean Construction and its applications to 10 different major sites and the staff attached to these sites.

But the above initiative is not enough to attack this immense drain.

The Government and its agencies have to take the mantle and step forward to drive Lean Construction initiative across the industry towards improving the performance of the Indian Construction sector. This interaction between Government and Lean Construction should bear fruit to arrest, if not mitigate, this unwanted colossal wastage in our construction industry.