Term Paper on

Lean

Construction and Safety

Submitted By
Name : Ravi Jain
Entry No. 2013CET2150
Course code : CEL773
Date : 27/09/2013

Abstract
Lean construction has been articulated as a tool in construction safety. Idea of lean with its basic
principles has been explained. Accidents are considered Non Value adding wastages in construction.
Application of Lean Construction principles for safety has been presented. Continuous flow and 5 S of
lean construction for safety have been elaborated. Other tools and ideas of lean construction also have
been explained.

Introduction
Lean
The Word Lean was coined by Mr. James P. Womack.
In the beginning it referred to only manufacturing industry but now it is used in all industries,
retail, construction, banking etc.
Lean Thinking is defined as a way to do more and more with less and less human effort, lesser
equipment, lesser time and lesser space.
The continuous application of lean construction leads to more and more close to provide the
ultimate customer exactly what he wants.
Inspiration for Lean
Inspiration is from Toyota Production System which revolutionized the manufacturing Industry.
Toyota Production system
It has three components
(1)Mura Smooth Flow.
(2) Muri Stress.
(3)Muda Waste.
MURA speaks of the smooth flow without any gaps/ interception in the manufacturing, from
start to finish of the product.Lean Construction speaks of no gaps between different activities and
between
different trades. The bane of the construction Industry is lack of flow.
MURI speaks of no stress to the worker, who should be assigned only work he is
capable of doing.

Lean Construction also says that work allocation should permit correct time and correct
resources for the product.
Unrealistic target, particularly with incomplete resources only results in demoralizing
atmosphere and driving down performance.
MUDA speaks of non-value adding activities (Waste which all players should
work their very best to avoid) Examples of Muda are over production, waiting, transporting ,
inappropriate processing, unnecessary inventory, unnecessary/ excessive motion, defects.
Construction abounds with such wastages.

Lean Construction
Lean construction is construction concept inspired by Japanese Lean Production system.
Koskela (2002) defined Lean Construction as a way to design production system to minimize
waste of materials, time, &effort in order to generate the maximum possible amount of value.
Lean construction is optimizing Efforts, minimizing costs & time reducing waste, creating
Value and doing what best can be done.
Any Effort, be it Cost, Materials, Machinery and any one and all activities in a project should be
optimized and that is Lean Construction.
Ambience for Lean Construction

Fig 1. Ambience for Lean Construction

Essentials of Lean Construction

(1) For Effective lean construction the owner plays highly significant role.
He has to show one and all that he is committed to lean construction.
(2) Continuous improvement KAIZEN.
Lean construction does not exist without KAIZEN.
(3) Collaboration In fact Immaculate collaboration, between all players whether they be big
or small.
(4) Flow -Smooth flow of work without any interruption what so ever Lean construction abhors
optimizing one activity without corresponding same with other activities.
Lean construction means optimizing all activities with flow Optimizing total project.
FLOW Excavation structural concrete brick work plaster handing over, closure of unit.
(5) Team
Lean construction emphasis team building who together will spot wastages removal / mitigating
wastages innovation all for better performance.
Team is: All for one and one for all.
Building such crack teams is not necessarily the HR departments exercise. It is more by the
engineers / higher supervisory staff at site.
(6) Monitoring at close interval
Lean construction demands monitoring preferably in not more than a week and even daily
Continuous correction.
(6) Pull
Lean construction becomes meaningless without a pull .The team should work together, should
scheme together, should innovate together, should dare to do impossible targets that is termed
as real pull.

(7) Stress Free

Lean construction means stress free ambience for one and all for better and better performance.
Targets must be feasible and reachable.

(8) Lean Culture

Lean Culture has to be adopted in full by the company.
It should not be for one project only. It should be sustaining for the entire company for the entire
existence of the company.
This will definitely take time the reward the high level of lean culture is highly cherishing
besides other gains, including happiness in work.

MORE TOWARDS LEAN CONSTRUCTI ON

1. Anything done off the site.
2. Lighter elements
3. Standardized
4. Aesthetic
5. Easy to assemble
6. After Sales Service
7. Cost effectiveness

Last Planner System (LPS)

Last planner System tools for lean construction have been developed by Glenn Ballard.
Ballard (2000) perceives LPS as a
1.
2.
3.
4.

Production control component

a mechanism for transforming what SHOULD be done into what CAN be done,
Forming an inventory of ready work, from which Weekly Work Plans can be formed.
Commitment by the Last Planners (foremen, supervisors) to what they actually WILL
do.

5 S of Lean Construction
STEP 1 SEIRI or Sort
Deals with the contents of a workplace, and removes all items that are not needed there.

STEP 2 SEITON or Set in Order

Refers to "a place for everything, and everything in its place" to enable easy access to needed
items.
STEP 3 - SEISO or Scrub
Refers not just to cleaning, but to "being proud" about the way the workplace is organised and
kept in good condition.
STEP 4 SEIKETSU or Standardise
Refers to having standards that everyone has to adhere to. Visual management is an important
aspect to facilitate easy understanding of these standards.
STEP 5 SHITSUKI or Sustain
Refers to training of all employees and communication to all employees to ensure 5S application.
Lean Construction and Safety
The Construction site is risky workplace with many safety hazards associated with it.
Improving occupational safety in the construction industry is essential.
The connection between safety and lean construction features and developed tools has been
established by many researchers.
Howell and Ballard (1999) has claimed that workers have more autonomy in production
decisions and enriched jobs as a consequence of the lean principles regarding distributed
decision making, multi-skilling, and pursuit of perfection
Accidents in Lean Construction
Accidents are considered non-value-adding (NVA) wastages in Lean Construction.
Lean principles aim to reduce NVA (Waste) elements of work processes. So it follows that safety
is one of the essentials feature of Lean Construction.
Comparison of Lean Construction v/s Traditional Construction
Traditional Construction

Lean Construction

Non Value Adding

Non Value Adding

50%

30%

Value Adding

Value Adding

50%

70%

This waste can include loss or injury of trained and experienced workers, and the resulting
disruption to progress of work, undeniably represents waste in the performance of construction.
When left uncontrolled, these factors can create disruption due to many cost related factors; such
as escalating workers compensation insurance costs, high cost of medical treatment and
rehabilitation program.
The economic losses also include indirect losses such as administrative cost, productivity losses
and low morale.
It follows, then, that safeguarding construction worker from occupational hazards would be a
natural outcome of Lean Construction ideal of waste elimination.
Saurin et al. found in their exploratory study that
(1) Some lean production concepts and methods, such as the Last Planner method, which have
been used for production planning and control, can be easily extended to safety planning.
(2) Integration of production principles into safety planning would help in overcoming the
inherent shortcomings of construction safety planning.
Continuous Improvement Program (Kaizen) and Safety
Kaizen is an essential feature of Lean Construction.
An empirical study has been done by Nahmens and Lukuma (2009) to examine relationship
between Continuous improvement (CI) Program and safety in the industrialized housing
industry.
They proposed that
(1)CI program will reduce opportunity through reduced wastes in materials, motions and process
steps) and therefore reduced safety hazards.
(2)CI program may also include safety improvement as its one category undertaken as
continuous improvement program.
In first approach, attention is paid to efforts towards continuous improvement through
reduction in waste in materials and processes.
This reduction will be reduction in material consumption and motions happened during
construction process.
This will reduce probability for accident occurrence or coming in contact with hazardous
materials.
For example by reducing the number of times a heavy object is lifted the total time to complete
the project is reduced and the risk of back injury is also reduced.

Fig 2 .Nahmens and Lukuma(2009) An empirical relation between lean

construction and safety.
.
The second approach is to integrate safety program into lean practices.
As in Fig 2, Safety outcomes are arrived when we continuous improvement program has
interaction with safety programs and initiatives.
Safety performance is ultimately dependent on avoidance of unsafe acts by workers.
So involving workers in safety planning is an important way.
Lean production practitioner often includes opportunities for team work and continuous
improvement in normal operations.
Allowing safety to be considered an aspect of team work projects and continuous
improvement efforts allows employees and managers to discuss and reduce safety hazards as
part of continuous improvement in safety.
Statistical analysis was done to find the safety outcomes of the builders that use the continuous
improvement.

Builders with CI programs have lower accident rates. The incidence rates per worker have been
identified as 14.5 per 100 workers against the incident rates of 34.7 per 100 workers those
without lean construction.

Koskela (1993) concluded that implementation of lean construction seems to be a major fact in
the elimination of accidents.
He has identified strategies to improve construction safety through the use of lean production
systems
(1)Designing, controlling, improving engineering and construction processes to ensure
predictable material and work flow on site.
(2).Improving safety management and planning processes themselves to consider hazards and
continuous improving them.
(3).Improving safety related behaviors and minimizing unsafe acts.

5 S of Lean construction and Safety

(1) SEIRI or Sort
It deals with the contents of a workplace, and removes all items that are not needed there.
More Workspace and less hazardous material and equipment on site less chance of accident
occurrence.
(2)SEITON or Set in Order
It Refers to "a place for everything, and everything in its place" to enable easy access to needed
items.
This will also reduce accidents.
(3)SEISO or Scrub
It Refers not just to cleaning, but to "being proud" about the way the workplace is organized and
kept in good condition.
Activities in organized and cleaned environment will help workers to work safely.
(4) Standardize
Refers to having standards that everyone has to adhere to. Visual management is an important
aspect to facilitate easy understanding of these standards.
So, following standards especially with related to safety will automatically lead to less injuries.
(5) SHITSUKI or Sustain
Refers to training of all employees and communication to all employees to ensure 5S application.

Organizations into safety through Lean Concept

Initiatives such as lean construction has started continue to move deeper into the construction
industry, contractors have started evaluating suitability of these principles in their projects.
Gilbane Building Co., www.gilbaneco.com, Providence, R.I., for example, considers the two to
be integral to jobsite safety.
William J. Gilbane, Jr., president and chief operating officer, Gilbane, sees as a cultural shift in
how the company views safety and progressed to become part of its overall mission to maximize
value on projects.
He has stated, "Safety is a lean enterprise initiative of ours and it matters because of the people
on our jobs each day, their families and their loved ones. The discipline and effort it takes to
make a project safe is intertwined with the discipline and effort it takes to plan, schedule and put
in place quality work. Fully integrating BIM into these efforts just makes sense from a safety
planning perspective."
Applying the principles of continuous improvement, minimal waste, and increased value to the
company's safety program, the companys safety initiative touched on leadership engagement,
proactive task reviews and planning, increased communication, and worker input, among others.

According to Kelliher, such techniques have resulted in fewer accidents, more efficient
schedules, and an improvement in logistics planning.

Other Lean Safety Approaches

(1)Planning for pre-fabrication to reduce hours worked onsite and
(2) Using new materials and equipment to create a safer work environment, among other
initiatives.

Indian Scenario
Very few organizations have adopted lean principle in India in their policies.
It is still at institute research level especially at IIT Delhi.
One non profit organization Institute for Lean Construction Excellence, established in 2008
Mumbai is working towards improving safety.
Godrej & Boyce Mfg. co. Ltd., Mumbai has adopted lean construction as part of their policy.
However they are implementing to many safety measures along with that.
But it has been reported that number of reportable accidents in 1996-97 were 82 which reduced
to 3 in 2004-05 while Frequency rate reduced from22.73 to 1.42 in the same duration. The
Severity rate also reduced from 267.3 during same time period.
Although there has not been any study and no such data available to show relationship between
safety outcomes and lean construction, but it can be said that it was continuous improvement
program. Continuous program with team collaboration is also lean construction.

One of important concept of lean construction being adopted in India is Pre-casting.

Jaipur Metro currently under construction has used precast segments for construction.
So it causes less disruption to traffic. Segments are sent on site just before previous segment is
launched. Smooth flow is established.
There is not much store at site. Sites are safe and have more space.
Even piers are used as pre-cast. JJ Hospital Flyover, Delhi was built by using massive piers but
they were casted at casting yard.
So it clear India is moving towards lean construction. But it includes basic but important ideas.
There is need for more research and to adopt the tools such as Last Planners Systems for safety.

Conclusions
It can be concluded that safety measures can be implemented through application of lean
construction principles.
Continuous Flow and 5S of lean construction improves the safety in construction by reducing the
opportunities of accident occurrence.
Furthermore, other principles of lean construction such as prefabrication, 3D , 4D visualization
techniques, adoption of new material and equipment helps in safety implementation.
Last Planner System and Building Integrated Modeling are the tools of lean construction which
can be used for safety as well. They are currently being used and researchers are working to
include safety as part of these tools.
Lean principles and safety can be separate from each other. Lean is about elimination of waste
and accidents are considered as non-value adding wastes.
Lean is just not a technique but it is a thinking that requires cultural shift in organization.
Lean is about creating more values to the product, more happiness to every party involved in the
process. Safety is natural outcome of Lean construction.

REFERENCES
Technical Newsletters (2008-2013), ILCE, Mumbai, India.
Forman, M., (2013), Inertia and change: lean construction and health and safety work on
construction sites, Construction Management and Economics, 31(6).
Bagi. , R. A., Safety Control in the Construction Industry, power point slides, Godrej & Boyce
Mfg. Co. Ltd.
Ghosh, S., (2009), Intersection between Lean construction and Safety Research : A review of
the literature, proceedings of 2009 industrial Research Conference.
Salem, O., Solomon , J., Genaidy A., Luegring, M. (2005), Site Implementation and
Assessment of Lean Construction Techniques., Lean Construction Journal, 2(2).
Nahmens, I. and Ikuma, L. H. (2009). An Empirical Examination of the Relationship between
Lean Construction and Safety in the Industrialized Housing Industry. Lean Construction Journal
1-12.