A Flow-Based Perspective to Streamlining and Transcending Construction Industry like the Manufacturing Industry

The trillion-dollar construction industry is augmenting the cost and time of construction whereas the manufacturing industry on the other side has been multiplying their productivity through state-of-the-art lean production planning systems. While the reasons for cost-time overruns are aplenty in the construction, frameworks for reducing wastes in cost-time remains unfulfilled owing to lack of avenues for understanding construction as a production process rather than as a project-based activity. To this end, our research relies on the need for a new systemic approach to complement present project-based methodologies to better understand the construction industry’s production complexity. This systematic approach necessitates a flow-based lens to analyze the feasibility of a productionized concept along the lifecycle of a construction project. Our work intends to derive a flow-based framework for conversion of complex project-based activities into a multi-line production process in construction using Value Stream Mapping and other overarching Lean principles. Though the use of Value Stream Mapping in the construction field is an emerging trend and can help reduce wastes, Value Stream Mapping is constructed to be a simple tool that can be used for only single-line processes. By adopting a flow-based lens in Value Stream Mapping, we thereby aim to operationalize and demonstrate simple, multi-line lean interventions that become vivid in an otherwise complex setting.