A framework for construction waste minimisation in lean projects – a life cycle approach

About the Project

Construction waste can take many forms including holding excess inventory of materials, unnecessary movements of construction operatives and vehicles to/from/within a site, idle time between operations, defective work etc. (Formoso et al., 2020).

Regardless of the type of construction waste, its impact on project performance is adverse and can be substantial. For instance, damage to construction materials during transportation, storage or processing causes disruption to construction operations and generates waste that could otherwise be avoided. Although construction waste primarily compromises the quality of the project, other performance indicators are affected too. Construction waste can lead to cost and time overruns. Consequently, productivity and sustainability performance can be negatively affected too, as more human effort, materials and energy are consumed and more carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted to address waste.

Lean construction is a paradigm that advocates the removal of all forms of waste from a construction project by focusing only on activities that add value to its end deliverables (Koskela, 2020). With its origins in the manufacturing sector, the transferability of the principles and techniques of the lean philosophy into the construction sector has attracted research interest (Demirkesen, 2021). Several studies investigated the practices and toolkits encompassed within lean construction (Li et al., 2019; Singh and Kumar, 2020), whilst other considered barriers to its implementation (Albalkhy and Sweis, 2021). There is also a body of literature that aimed to assess its impact on aspects of project performance (Awad et al., 2021; Bajjou et al., 2017; Zhang and Chen, 2016). However, to date, it appears that limited research has been conducted to consider the systematic implementation of lean construction in each stage of the project life cycle and measuring its impact on a wide array of metrics.

The project associated with this PhD studentship proposes the development of a framework for embedding lean construction objectives into the delivery of construction projects. Specifically, the framework will be designed to identify wasteful activities likely to occur at each stage of the project life cycle and match these with pre-emptive lean strategies and tools for their prevention or elimination. The proposed framework will also seek to quantify the impact of waste reduction on project performance criteria related to quality, time, cost, Health & Safety, productivity, social and environmental sustainability etc.

The project will employ a mixed methods approach for the design of the framework. Types and causes of construction waste as well as suitable countermeasures and performance assessment criteria will be determined through an extensive review of the relevant literature and subsequently further enriched by empirical data sourced from industry experts. The generalisability of the developed framework will be considered by conducting focus groups and any identified improvements will be incorporated before the final stage of the project which will involve testing its applicability in real-world projects used as case studies.

It is anticipated that the developed framework will fill in a research gap and advance developments in the field of construction management by proposing a holistic framework for construction waste elimination and project performance optimisation. The findings of the project will encourage streamlining and optimising industry practices with a view to improve quality, productivity and sustainability, which are at the top of the agenda for the construction sector.

Funding Notes

there is no funding for this project