It can be argues that high competition levels exist in all types of industries regardless of the product or service offered

to the market, with an exception to some oligopolistic industries that exist mainly in an national level. Among these industries is the construction industry as well, which can be regarded as existing in a perfect competition. In 2007 reports published by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, concerning the structure of the private construction in UK, details of which are shown in table 1, supports the above argument of perfect competition. Taking this into consideration firms in the construction industry in order to survive in a market environment of significant competition have to seek ways to remain competitive and survive.

Size of the firm (nu of employees) Label Percentage of total (%) 1-13 Small 93.2 14-79 Medium 6.1 80> Large 0.7 Table 1 Structure of the private construction industry in UK in 2006 (DBERR 2007)
Although few academic research improvements have been made directly for the construction industry as a one of a kind type of work, construction firms should be willingly welcoming, by being less risk conscious, the use of methods, philosophies and ways of doing from other sectors of the economy (Gibson 2006), to transform themselves into a more healthy, sustained, productive and profitable organization. One example of the takeover and use of other methods and philosophies, are lean and agile thinking from the manufacturing sector, where the former has primarily been adopted from Toyota (Koskela 2004). While many use the two concepts in the same way, differences do exist, both in type of product, i.e. standardized or customized, and in the market volatility force applicable to. Both philosophies goal is to cut costs enhance value generation and minimize the time delivering the project. Agility has also the advantage of being more flexible and responsive to demand changes in the market (Naim et al 1999). Also lean as regarded more efficient, gives more attention to cost minimization, than agile does. Figure 2 shows the main differences of the two concepts, as a matrix to show which strategy is most appropriate for which product and production respectively.

Figure 1 Applications of leanness and agility (Naylor et al. 1999)

Appl i l t i i i t const ction, is a way of managing const ction as a product, i treating it in a manufacturing manner (Bartelsen 2004), wit a standardi ed product and low variability in demand, to allow a continuous, non interrupted flow, of materials, information etc, minimi ing waste, destroying barriers causing flow delays, generating value to t e end user by removing non value adding activities and decreasing t e lead time. Taking account t e complexity and unpredictability of construction of construction (Bartelsen 2004), agile seems more appropriate since it allows for variability of t e product and also is more responsive in demand fluctuations caused by it market volatility. Differences t ough exist between construction projects and manufacturing products. Among these differences in the parties involved in each and their measure projects dependability of each respectively, their level of complexity, in the uncertainty of external factors associated with their completion and many others (Pheng 2005). Making a construction project associates many different parties including, engineers of all professions, design and site engineers, quantity and land surveyors, quality assurances, suppliers, contractors and subcontractors and many others. Ballard (1998) one of the founders of lean construction claims that there are two ways of making construction, either by pointing out parts and activities from the construction process which can be regarded similar to the manufacturing of products and use lean thinking, or customi ing lean thinking to suit the dynamic and uncertain environment of construction. It can be argues that agile construction suits the second approach of what Ballard has stated. Prior to the initiative of lean and/or agile principles in construction, companies either by themselves or by consultation from third parties need to understand and assess the current business situation, in order to find areas of improvements. Therefore diagnostic tools are used which may include direct observation techniques, flow visuali ation techniques, mapping of flow of information, materials, people and processes, cause and effect diagrams to find the root of problems and many others. Also current organi ational structure, quality measures, delivery times, roots of costs, productivity and performance levels are also assessed (Watson 2003). Much attention of lean thinking has been given in the supply chain management (SCM) of the construction firms. Supply chains are viewed as one of the highest contributors of waste and nuisance, which in turn to costs, in construction and good management action can play a vital role in improving and eliminating its effects (Vrijhoef 1999). Lean thinking in supply chain affect positively all parties involved in the chain, in ways of value generation by deleting non value adding activities and replacing them with value added ones and reduction in inventories, therefore at the same time minimi ation of costs, decreasing the time duration of the project and also to enhance harmoni ation of the parties involved by better communication and achievement of common goal. Use value stream analysis is a way for reengineering the supply chain in construction (Arbulu 2003). For example a general VSM is proposed by Arburu and his associates, for SCM in construction for the use of pipe supports in power plants. Visual diagram was used to assess the current situation and with the use of VSM eliminated non value adding activities (NVA), resulting in decreasing lead time (LT) and increasing value adding (VA) percentage levels. Proposed initiatives include: maintaining strong relationships with suppliers, early stages involvement in the initial designing phase of the project and standardi ation of products and processes in the SC. They also proposed the use of a data communication tool, the electronic data interchange to allow for needed information and data to be communicated between all the parties in the SC. Opposing factors though can make the proposed model difficult to be applied. Significant barriers could include: the capacity availability by the supplier(s), design engineers preferring not to involve others in the design phase, difficulty existing in the standardi ation of some products and communication problems among many different professions and parties. Another SC approach, for customi ed housing, was proposed by Naim (2002). But this          

SC involved the use of both lean and agile thinking separated by the decoupling point , a point in the chain where customization begins, i.e. the customer is involved. This point allows customization through different combinations of the standardised products that flow before it. This optimizes SC allows both concepts to be utilised to bring efficiency by using lean and also allows for customerdriven model using agile, to give space for customer fluctuating demand and preferences. They argue that assemble to order SC structure is what suits best construction. Proposed initiates are similar to Aburu (2003), mentioning also building adequate relationships with suppliers and subcontractors. This approach suits UK housing industry were house customization is limited to fixtures, accessories, internal and external finishes, mainly due to customer changing needs and the planning authority which sometimes may oppose the variability of houses in certain areas (Naim 1999). Figure 2 shows the improved model of SC of Naim and his associates.

Figure 2 Innovative construction supply chain (Naim 2003)

Another lean and agile combination of system proposal, this time in the mechanical and electrical construction part, gave insight on how, when these two are combined can have much better results (Court 2009). This structure resulted in many positive outcomes, not only improvements stated earlier but also costs reduction from labour, no recorded accidents, improved quality of work and productivity performance improvements. Figure 3 shows structure.

Figure 3 M & E lean and agile construction system (Court 2009)

It can be seen that it utilizes another concept of management control, the ABC inventory system, to differentiate materials by categorizing them together according to their consumption value (Slack 2009). In their structure, they also mention the use of the Last planner system (LPS) by (Ballard 1999), to help improve work flow reliability, by increasing levels of percentage of planned assignments competed (PPC). It is difficult to mention all the different approaches made by scholars to apply these concepts. This is because these concepts are philosophies and not tools or models which are applicable in a one off initiative (Watson 2003). For this reason some applications are extracted from literature and summarized in table 2. Part of the construction process applied Building design Author (s) Melhado (1998)

Ballard (2000)

Summary

Relevant barriers

y Lean thinking y Need for a coordination system in the centre of the people involved in design y Sharing updated information y Continuous feedback of problems for ongoing improvement of the design process y Argued that unnecessary or negative iteration negatively affects costs and time. y Therefore for efficient design to eliminate NVA loops y Proposes ways to their identification and elimination

y Customized requests from the client y Communication y Resistive forces to change

y Complex design projects need high intensity of iterations

Flow of work

Sacks et al (2009)

Planning process

Howell (1994)

y Visuali ation technique using software packages y Combined with pull flow and use of kanban system y Information sharing using reuse economics y More efficient planning and scheduling of short term work y Lean principles to optimize the planning process y Through the minimization of variation of flow of work, material, information etc to maintain equilibrium between work that should be done and work that can be done.

Tabl 2 So

appli ations of l an p in ipl s in onst u tion

 

y Unpredictable events still exist e.g. weather y Construction site is hazardous which limits the allowance to map/visualize flow of work and people

y Many parties involved which makes fluctuation of flow difficult to be managed. y Site is complex and unpredictable y Complex project planning creates uncertainty and uncontrollability of flow

  



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