Davis, L; Miles, M; Riley, M and Pan, W (2010) Developing lean supply in construction. In: Egbu, C (ed.) Proceedings of 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
Since the Latham Report in 1994 the UK government has been active in urging the construction industry to improve how it manages its supply chains. Yet despite these efforts, research has shown that sophistication of supply chain management (SCM) in construction, in general, is still at a low level in comparison to that in many other industries. Often citing the manufacturing industry the government has largely focused on encouraging construction organizations to make their supply chains leaner. However, the construction industry has a unique working culture, a project-based feature, and high levels of fragmentation, which together differentiate it from mainstream manufacturing. This makes lean supply for most constructed products a different proposition to that of most factory manufactured products. This paper presents a Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) approach which is developed for addressing complex, multi-disciplinary project problems. Research is proposed to examine the use of SSM in construction projects undertaken by a large UK contractor. Such use should enable project managers and SCM practitioners to view the process of developing lean supply in a holistic manner and also to take into account the 'soft' cultural and project-based features of construction, leading to more effective solutions for delivering their project.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction project; culture; fragmentation; lean supply; soft systems methodology |
| Index terms: | construction industry, practitioner, construction project, fragmentation, manufacturing industry, project manager, soft systems methodology, Latham, low level, construction organization |
| Subjects: | industry analysis, measurement and scaling, industry policy reports, production management, research methods, practitioner, business, organization, profession |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Governance, Business Strategy, Project Management, Research Practice, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here