855429

research-article2019
WMR0010.1177/0734242X19855429Waste Management & ResearchVilventhan et al.

Original Article

Waste Management & Research

Value stream mapping for identification

2019, Vol. 37(8) 815­–825
© The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
and assessment of material waste in sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0734242X19855429
https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242X19855429

construction: A case study journals.sagepub.com/home/wmr

Aneetha Vilventhan1 , VG Ram2 and S Sugumaran3

Abstract
Construction sites are plagued with numerous problems, such as improper planning and management, high amounts of waste generation
and low awareness of waste reduction. Construction and demolition waste literature provides several best practises and prescriptive
strategies that help minimise waste during construction. However, it lacks in the systematic identification and minimisation approach
of all possibilities of waste. Therefore, studies focusing on principles and tools that help systematically analyse the inefficiencies of
on-site processes leading to waste generation and philosophies addressing waste minimisation are necessary. As eliminating waste is
one of the key lean principles, this article discusses the need and importance of integrating the lean construction with the construction
and demolition waste management. This article aims to estimate and assess the causes of waste generation in a high-rise building
construction through a case study in Chennai city (India) using value stream mapping, a key lean construction tool. Onsite monitoring
and measurement were performed to quantify the amount of waste generated. A waste generation rate of 66.26 kg m−2 was identified,
of which concrete, cement mortar and brick waste represented almost 90% of the total construction waste. Direct observation and
interviews of site personnel were conducted to understand the causes of waste generation. A strategic framework has been proposed
to improve construction and demolition waste minimisation depicting the synergy of combining lean construction principles with
construction and demolition waste management strategies. The proposed framework helps in the systematic identification, assessment
and minimisation of on-site construction waste generation.

Keywords
Construction waste, estimation, causes of waste generation, waste minimisation, lean construction principles, value stream mapping

Received 5th November 2018, accepted 13th May 2019 by Associate Editor David E. Ross.

Introduction
Construction industry generates a large amount of waste all
over the world. Waste generation rates in construction projects
range between 17 kg m−2 to 158 kg m−2 and about 910 kg m−2 to
1636 kg m−2 in the case of demolition projects (Ram and Kalidindi,
2017). The sheer quantum of waste from construction industry
being reported in literature substantiates the need for better ways
of managing them (Wu et al., 2014). Even today, a major quantity
of construction and demolition (C&D) waste generated is being
dumped in landfill or at open spaces or disposed of illegally in the
waterbodies and roadsides in most of the countries (Mah et al.,
2016; Paz and Lafayette, 2016; Ram and Kalidindi, 2017; Saez
et al., 2015). C&D waste majorly consists of materials, such as
bricks, blocks, concrete debris, metal, wood and packaging
wastes, which are reduceable, reusable and recyclable to a large
extent (Esa et al., 2017; Lau et al., 2008). Lack of awareness about
C&D waste stream, cost concerns, influence of attitudes and other
people-related factors have been reported to be significant barriers
among several others in improving C&D waste management
(Al-sari et al., 2012; Rao et al., 2007; Teo and Loosemore, 2001).
C&D waste literature provides several best practises and pre-
scriptive strategies, including prefabrication, use of Building
Information Modelling (BIM) regulations, incentives, etc., that
help minimise waste during construction (Esa et al., 2017; Saez
et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2015).
However, construction projects are complex, fragmented and
known to pose a high amount of resistance to change in work prac-
tises (Bresnen and Marshall, 2001). Moreover, construction pro-
jects are so unique that there is some learning involved in every
project (Bresnen et al., 2005). A set of prescriptive strategies just
undermines the uniqueness of construction projects and lacks guar-
anteed identification and minimisation of all possibilities of waste
1National Institute of Technology Warangal, Telangana, India
2Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
3Construction Engineering and Management, SRM University,
Kattankulathur, India
Corresponding author:
Aneetha Vilventhan, National Institute of Technology Warangal,
Telangana 506004, India.
Emails: aneetha@nitw.ac.in; aneethavils@gmail.com
816
(Bresnen et al., 2005). Therefore, studies focused on principles and
tools that help systematically analyse the inefficiencies of on-site
processes leading to waste generation and philosophies addressing
waste minimisation is necessary in C&D waste literature. An
orthogonal stream of literature on lean construction, adapted from
lean manufacturing, is rich in terms of tools and methods that were
exclusively developed for identifying bottlenecks and inefficien-
cies in construction processes.
The lean construction philosophy streamlines flow in activi-
ties and minimises waste associated in the processes (Ballard
and Howell, 1994; Koskela, 1992). Establishing and enabling
flow in a process gives a clear focus on waste in the processes.
Thus, waste minimisation is the core concept of lean and flow
visualisation aids in achieving that objective. While site person-
nel are accustomed to associate waste to material waste gener-
ated during the project, lean thinking advocates a holistic picture
of waste to include other kinds, such as waiting time, non-value-
adding activities and transportation of materials (Koskela,
1992). This other non-value-adding processes has potential to
lead to material waste generation if they are left unchecked.
Lean thinking could help us systematically screen out all the
waste-producing processes and improve waste management per-
formance. Moreover, the role of lean principles and practises has
been studied in areas, such as improving coordination among
project participants, aiding in the adoption of technologies, such
as BIM (Ballard and Howell, 2005; Mahalingam et al., 2015).
But literature combining lean and construction waste manage-
ment is limited in the extant literature.
There are several studies on the integration of lean/green man-
agement in the manufacturing sector (Dües et al., 2013; Fercoq
et al., 2016; Garza-Reyes, 2015; Martínez-Jurado and Moyano-
Fuentes, 2014). In the construction industry, Hosseini et al.
(2012) has tried to implement lean construction theory to con-
struction waste management. However, research in the integra-
tion of lean with construction material waste management is
limited. Hence, the objectives of this article are (1) to quantify
and assess construction material waste on site (2) to develop a
lean strategic framework for waste minimisation on site.
The article is organised as follows: The next section describes
the literature review covering both the literature on C&D waste
and lean construction literature and highlights the gap in the lit-
erature. Then, the research methodology adopted in this research
has been introduced. The application of a value stream mapping
(VSM) tool in the assessment of material waste in a building con-
struction case study and the results have been presented in the
subsequent sections. A discussion on the proposed strategic
framework that integrates lean and waste management principles
precedes the main conclusions that are put forth in the end.
Literature review
C&D waste literature
Construction industry is primarily driven by cost and time targets
with least priority towards waste management. Waste generation
Waste Management & Research 37(8)
has been reported to occur in all the stages of construction start-
ing from conception, design, construction and operation. A large
amount of research attention in the literature has been towards
estimating the amount of C&D waste generation in various
regions. Detailed reviews of estimation studies could be found in
articles by Mália et al. (2013) and Wu et al. (2014). While these
studies discussed a number of quantification tools that utilise dif-
ferent kinds of data for estimation and forecasting, systematic
tools, such as those in lean literature, to study processes with
focus on waste generation is lacking.
A source of waste framework, as proposed by Gavilan and
Bernold (1994), consisting of six categories of sources of
waste – design, procurement, materials’ handling, operation,
residual and others – has been found to be very informative.
Several studies have explored the sources of waste in con-
struction and the root causes of such waste generation. Tam
(2008) had reported that the major source of construction
waste is concreting works (almost 29% of the waste) followed
by reinforcement works, formwork, scaffolding, material han-
dling and finishing works. The results of the study conducted
in 22 construction sites by Poon et al. (2004a) reported that
formwork, finishing activities, concreting and masonry works
contribute major amounts of construction waste. The order of
magnitude of waste production in these processes have been
reported to be slightly different in different studies (Esin and
Cosgun, 2007; Formoso et al., 2002; Li and Yang, 2014). This
variation among construction projects is to be noted as they
represent the uniqueness of construction projects in a way.
Measures to achieve waste minimisation in retrofit projects
were identified to be a reusable and flexible design, integrated
waste management planning, proper documentation, including
as-built drawings and establishment of benchmarks (Li and Yang,
2014). However, managerial problems in many stages before
production, such as design, planning and procurement, have been
reported (Esin and Cosgun, 2007; Formoso et al., 2002). Formoso
et al. (2002) studied 74 building construction sites and concluded
that a significant amount of waste was generated owing to flow
activities, such as handling and transportation of inventories,
which are overlooked by site personnel.
Simulation techniques of waste handling processes have been
advocated to improve waste optimisation methods. A waste
management mapping model could assist in the planning of
operational strategies and thereby help solve weaker areas (Lu
et al., 2006). Incorporation of new tools, such as BIM, has been
shown to help in waste estimation as well as planning for waste
management strategies and related equipment management
(Cheng and Ma, 2013). Thus, a transition from prescriptive strat-
egies to the need for a systemic and site-specific approach could
be inferred.
Lean construction literature
Lean construction principles focus on improving overall perfor-
mance of a system with a holistic view rather than local optimal
Vilventhan et al. 817

solutions with specific activity focus (Gambatese et al., 2017).

Researchers have identified various lean design and lean con-
struction techniques, such as target value design, set based
design, pull scheduling, cross functional teams, integrated pro-
ject delivery (IPD), 5S’s, first-run study, PDCA (plan–do–check–
act), mistake-proofing, just-in-time (JIT), lean project delivery
system, Poka Yoke, last planner system (LPS), 5 why’s, spaghetti
chart, Andon, Kaizen, Kanban, kitting, work standardisation,
VSM and work structuring to reduce seven different types of
waste (Ballard et al., 2002; Gambatese et al., 2017; LCI, 2014;
Nesensohn et al., 2012).
Lean tools help decouple the expertise needed in screening
out waste and provides guidance for a systematic waste search in
the construction processes. VSM is one of the lean tools that has
a high potential to identify and reveal waste in a process. A value
stream is to be visualised as a sequential order of activities
involved in the transformation of a product or a service from the
raw initial state to the final state reaching the customer. VSM
represents the flow of material and information in a process,
identifying each value/non-value added in the process stage to its
Figure 1. Research methodology.
product stage (Rother and Shook, 1999). VSM could be viewed
as a quantitative tool to portray the current state of a process
using several process-related parameters and helps in future state strategic framework has been proposed to improve C&D waste
predictions (Yu et al., 2009). minimisation depicting the synergy of combining lean con-
A comparative study of lean and sustainability principles struction literature with C&D waste literature. This article con-
found that these two principles interact by a percentage of 13.5% tributes to lean/waste management research in two ways. First,
and applying lean always shows considerable achievement using VSM, this article measures and quantifies the construc-
towards sustainability (Khodeir and Othman, 2018). Lean plays a tion material waste generated in the process of construction.
greater role when non-value-adding activities exist in the pro- Second, it demonstrates the waste minimisation potential of
cesses (Ballard and Howell, 1994). Apart from the primary ben- integrating lean principles and waste reduction strategies
efit of waste reduction, several other benefits reported from through a lean strategic framework.
adopting lean techniques are productivity improvement, cost
benefits, construction time savings, reduction in labour require-
Research methodology
ment and costs, improved quality and safety, improved stake-
holder satisfaction and system flexibility (Ballard et al., 2002; A case study research methodology (Yin, 2003) has been adopted
Nesensohn et al., 2012). to study waste generation in a construction project in Chennai,
To sum up, a systematic methodology is needed to study and India. Real-time monitoring and measurement of waste is
screen out all the waste-producing processes and lean production required for assessment and quantification of waste on site.
paradigm provides excellent tools for the same. A lean-based Therefore, a case study research approach is appropriate for iden-
thinking could serve as a guide for all construction personnel to tifying, assessing and analysing the causes of waste generated on
anchor their thoughts and might help enable a cultural change site. Construction waste generated in each construction process
towards resource conservation. While the literature on lean con- in the case project was mapped using VSM tool. VSM was used
struction is rich, there are limited literature on the integration of in this article with the intention of capturing the percentage of
lean with C&D waste literature. Moreover, research addressing waste generated in each of the activities through mapping the
the applicability of lean tools to identify, assess and minimise current state of the processes.
material waste in the construction industry is negligible. VSM implementation in this research included the follow-
VSM being an effective tool, this article demonstrates the ing steps: (1) data collection and waste estimation of primary
usefulness of VSM in identifying the generation of material materials; (2) development of current state maps, identifying
wastes at different stages of the construction process and in the causes for waste generation and analysis of the current
doing so, it also investigates the waste generation rate for a state; (3) development of lean strategic framework through
reinforced concrete construction project. The article also dis- adopting lean construction principles and practises; and finally
cusses relevant lean principles, such as work standardisation, (4) the recommendations for implementing the lean strategic
5S and JIT, to improve waste management in construction framework. The research methodology adopted is depicted in
owing to their high relevance for construction projects. A Figure 1.
818
Figure 2. Value stream map showing waste evolution at the site.
Project selection
A high-rise reinforced concrete building construction project was
selected for this study. The characteristics of the selected project:
Reinforced concrete framed structure with pile foundation, brick-
made partitioned wall interiors and flat roof. The total floor area
of the project is about 1,41,000 ft2 (13,099.33 m2). The project
was selected based on the following parameters.
1. Construction process adopted in this project is very common
and typical of many other construction projects in India.
2. Project with job-site access for measuring waste generated on
site. This was very crucial since waste management is a very
shady concept in Indian construction sites presently and there
are several challenges in securing permission to study and
measure waste in Indian construction sites.
3. Project with access to secondary data, such as bill of quanti-
ties (to cross validate the material required and material pur-
chased) and the invoices of material purchases.
Data collection
A direct measurement and on-site volumetric estimation tech-
nique from stockpiled waste, as conducted by Lau et al. (2008),
was adopted in this study to calculate actual waste volume.
Heaped waste is reduced/categorised into one of the appropriate
standard mathematical shapes, such as rectangular prism or rec-
tangular base pyramid depending on the stockpile shape and vol-
ume formulae has been used with appropriate corrections to
estimate on-site waste volume.
Primary materials used in Indian construction are concrete,
steel reinforcement, cement mortar, brick, asphalt sheet and floor-
ing materials like tiles, granites and marbles. In the chosen project,
concrete was used in the following elements or construction pro-
cess: Piling, raft footing, column, retaining wall, slab, beam, sun-
shade, loft, sunken filling and weathering course. Reinforcement
steel was used in roof slab, beam, column, piling, raft footing and
retaining wall. Asphalt sheets were used during raft footing con-
struction as water proofing members to prevent reinforcement bars
from corrosion. Bricks were used for external wall, sump internal
wall, partition wall and parapet wall construction. Flooring com-
prised of materials, such as marbles, granite and tile works.
Waste Management & Research 37(8)
The period of field observation was 9 months, which included
on-site observation and process mapping using a VSM approach
with at least one visit to the site each week. To identify the causes
of waste generated on site and waste minimisation strategies,
field monitoring and interviews with various participants of the
projects, such as project manager, site engineers and site supervi-
sors, were conducted. A total of 16 interviews, each ranging
between 45 min to 1 h were conducted with the case project par-
ticipants to identify causes of waste generation and strategies for
mitigation. The qualitative data has been analysed using an open
coding technique to understand causes of waste generation and
categorise strategies advocated (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Later,
an axial coding technique was employed to map the causes onto
the sources of waste framework and associate the minimisation
strategies with the lean construction philosophies and principles.
The waste generated in the process of construction was
depicted using the lean tool VSM. Since the case project did not
implement lean principles/waste reduction strategies, material
waste evolved during the process of construction. The quantum
of waste generated and the causes of generation of waste in the
process of construction are explained. The benefits of using lean
principles in the management of waste in the construction pro-
cess has been discussed in the following sections.
Results and discussion
VSM
The current state map shows the processes involved and the evo-
lution of material waste generation at the project site (refer to
Figure 2). The current state map has been developed for all the
construction activities, including foundation, structural work and
finishing. Waste generated in each process has been depicted in
the current state map. As the mapping process involved both
direct observation and discussions with the site personnel, it
helped us understand the causes of waste generation in each of
the construction processes.
The causes of waste generation in the project site studied
could be broadly summarised as the following: Poor workman-
ship of the labourers, improper storage of materials, improper
handling of materials, inadequate planning by the responsible
personnel, errors in ordering and shipping, design and detailing
Vilventhan et al. 819

Table 1. Sources of waste generated in the construction site.

Classification of material wastes on site Sources of waste

Design Procurement Handling of materials Operation Residual

Reinforcement • •
Concrete • • • • •
Cement mortar • •
Bricks • •
Flooring tiles • • •
Asphalt sheet • •

Table 2. Details of waste generated in the project site.

Material Process description Purchased quantity Wasted quantity Material wastage Total wasted quantity
(m3 or *m2) (m3 or *m2) ratio (%) in project

kg %
Reinforcement Pile foundation 12.56 1.06 5.4 50,946.5 5.87
steel Pile cap 30.77 1.46
Raft foundation 2.05 0.08
Slab and Beam 60.01 2.89
Column 14.56 1.00
Concrete Reinforcement cement 4769.75 215.12 4.3 497,927 57.37
concrete
Plain cement concrete 80.71 0.67
Brick jelly concrete 190.00 0.70
Brick (burnt clay) Internal wall 1340.00 70.62 3.6 181,355 20.89
External wall 650.00 24.83
Cement mortar Brick masonry 682.12 5.66 2.0 114,370 13.18
Plastering 503.37 17.77
Foundation 26.00 0.16
Granite flooring 7.05 0.07
Tile flooring 746.33 4.55
Marble flooring 7.05 0.03
Granular flooring 650.71 24.66
Asphalt sheet Water proofing 1300* 35.49* 2.7 106.5 0.01
Flooring Marble flooring 100.00* 3.82* 7.2 23,277.7 2.68
materials Granite flooring 100.00* 5.28*
Tile flooring 15,802.19* 1144.08*
Total quantity of waste generated in kg 867,982.7 100
Waste generation rate in kg m−2 66.26

Starred items (*) are reported in the units of m2.

Material wastage ratio is calculated as wasted quantity relative to purchased quantity.

mistakes, and leftover material scraps originated from resizing
materials to fit the design. These reasons were mapped into the
sources of waste framework (proposed by Gavilan and Bernold,
1994) consisting of the following categories: Design, procure-
ment, handling of materials, operation and residual as shown in
Table 1. The analysis indicated that a large proportion of material
waste occurred owing to improper handling of materials and left-
over material scraps in the project studied.
The amounts of waste generated in the case of major materials
are shown in Table 2. Volumetric estimations conducted at the
site have been converted to waste quantity in kilograms using the
appropriate material densities of each material. The total quantity
of waste generated at the site was found to be 66.26 kg m−2. Waste
composition in the form of percentages has also been shown in
Table 2. It can be inferred that concrete contributes a large por-
tion of waste at about 57.37% of the total waste produced on site.
While the material wastage ratio of concrete is only about 4.3%,
the actual quantity of wastage is still huge and could have been
avoided if adequate measures have been taken, which will be dis-
cussed in the coming sections.
Waste generated during the construction
of foundation
Concrete waste formed a major part of wastes that occurred
during the construction of the foundation. For instance, during
820
Figure 3. Concrete waste on site.
Figure 4. Steel waste on site.
pile concreting, to maintain a uniform pile length of 15 m, a por-
tion of approximately 3 m in each pile was cut (total length of
pile that was cast is 18 m and design length of pile up to pile cap
is 15 m) and discarded on site, as shown in Figure 3, leading to
wastage of concrete. A portion of the activities in casting, cut-
ting and handling the wastes could be visualised as non-value
adding and resources, such as time, material and labour, were
unnecessarily spent. During concreting for the raft slab, level-
ling operations of plain cement concrete (PCC) surfaces were
not found to be proper and uneven PCC surface led to wastage
of reinforced cement concrete (RCC) poured above it. Asphalt
sheets were also wasted to some extent owing to improper han-
dling on site. PCC was used to cover the asphalt sheet layer
before laying the reinforcement cage over the surface.
It is observed from the case analysis that sources of waste in
the construction of the foundation was owing to improper design
and improper handling of materials. For work standardisation, a
lean technique could have been adopted for the minimisation of
material waste in the construction. Standardisation in design, use
of modular designs and standard procedures could be incorpo-
rated at the organisational level in order to minimise material
waste on site owing to improper design and material handling.
Waste Management & Research 37(8)
Waste generated during the construction
of structural elements
Construction of structural elements includes the construction of
columns, beams and roof slab. Concrete wastage in these pro-
cesses were primarily because of the excess quantity that remained
on-site owing to errors in estimation of requirement. The site per-
sonnel over-ordered the concrete quantity owing to his lack of
judgement and improper planning skills, which lead to wastage of
concrete. Both fresh concrete and brick jelly concrete were wasted
in the site. Apart from over-ordering waste, leakages in formwork
and rework owing to poor concrete placement were also observed,
leading to concrete wastages. Sometimes, overfilling of form-
works leads to skimming operations on site, that is, levelling the
concrete surface generates wastes.
Steel reinforcement waste was generated during cutting of pro-
cured steel rods as per the required design length and produced
short unusable pieces. These cut pieces generally ended up as
waste in the storage place (Figure 4) and rusting of steel bars was
also observed to contribute to waste. The total steel waste was
about 50 t. While these steel rods are discarded from getting uti-
lised in this project, they usually end up being sold to scrap dealers
Vilventhan et al. 821

Figure 5. Brick waste on site.

and are never landfilled or disposed in unauthorised locations in

Indian cities. Excess of cement mortar arising because of improper
judgement of required quantity by construction personnel and
improper handling were generally disposed in the site. Spillage
during transportation of mortar using wheelbarrows on uneven
road surfaces in the site increases wastage. Labour’s attitude also
plays a major role in influencing careful handling of materials.
Cement mortar wastage amounts to about 114 t in the whole pro-
ject, forming 13.18% of the total waste from the project.
From the case analysis, it was also found that excessive ordering Figure 6. Tile waste on site.
and storing was the main cause of waste in the construction of struc-
tural elements. If the lean principle JIT was incorporated, steel
waste and concrete material waste could have been avoided.
Resources that are required are recommended to be made available
only at the time of execution or production (Ballard et al., 2002).
Wastages owing to improper storage of materials, over-ordering
and other downstream effects of these sources could be eliminated.

Waste generated during the finishing

activities
The finishing activities involve laying weathering course and
flooring materials. Brick jelly concrete was used as weathering
course material. Incorrect estimations of required quantity
resulted in excess or shortage of material at times. Moreover, bro-
ken bricks during handling were not properly segregated and
stored on site (Figure 5). If they had been segregated and stored,
they could have been consumed during laying of bricks in the
corners of the wall. Lack of such planning leads to the consump-
tion of unbroken bricks as they were cut for usage on the corners
of the wall. This activity of breaking again, as well as improper
handling during transportation, resulted in considerable wastage.
Breakage of brick walls for installing services, such as electrical
wirings and plumbing, also leads to a considerable amount of
brick waste. Brick wastage amounts to about 20.89% of the total
material waste generated in the project.
Flooring materials are usually procured based on the measure-
ment indicated in the initial drawings. If there had been any
change in designs later, wastages during installation might
Figure 7. Use of 5S principle in stacking of bricks for
construction.
become high. In such cases of revisions, the tile would be cut to
match the floor size leading to wastage. However, a major amount
of tile wastage in this project occurred because of improper han-
dling on site and little quantity because of resizing to match the
floor size. Tile waste scattered on site is shown in Figure 6.
The use of 5S (sort, set in order, shine, standardise, sustain)
lean principles (refer to Figure7) would considerably reduce the
waste owing to improper handling. As shown in Figure 7, bricks
stacked based on the required quantity on each floor will help in
efficient usage of bricks, reduce breakage and thereby minimise
brick wastages. The effective implementation of the 5S purely
depends on the workers’ commitment. The need for sense of
responsibility and commitment has also been reported in C&D
waste literature (Li and Yang, 2014; Teo and Loosemore, 2001).
822
Figure 8. Lean strategic framework for waste minimisation
on site.
Thus, lean tools and principles would augment waste minimi-
sation strategies in the minimisation of the material waste on site.
Hence a lean strategic framework has been proposed for con-
struction waste management. The application of these lean tools
and principles for waste minimisation is discussed in the follow-
ing section.
Lean strategic framework for waste
minimisation on site
Lean construction principles and practises would prove to be highly
useful as they can complement C&D waste literature in providing a
structured framework for waste minimisation as discussed in the
earlier sections. A lean strategic framework (Figure 8) has been pro-
posed for identification and minimisation of waste generation
through incorporating lean construction principles and practises.
Construction companies should be aware of the magnitude of waste
generated at their sites to understand the focus areas for improve-
ment initiatives. A combination of tools, such as sources of waste
framework and estimation methods from C&D waste literature,
along with the process lens of VSM, a tool from lean construction
literature, would be beneficial in improving quantification and
assessing causes of waste generation. The need for contractors to
maintain records on the actual delivery, storage and consumption of
materials need not be overstated. Awareness of the current state
helps in determining effective strategies to improve the future state.
The 5S lean tool is one of the most commonly adopted tools
in all manufacturing units and is reported to be highly relevant
for the construction industry as well. It helps to visualise the ben-
efits of lean in a short period of time (Yu et al., 2011). Application
of 5S would result in a neat and clean workspace. The 5S implies,
‘first Sort out the tools, materials needed and not needed, Set in
order or organise the sorted-out items, Shine or clean the area
regularly, Standardise the work routine, Sustain the changes
made by creating responsibility among workers’.
Meetings on site should incorporate 5S knowledge to the
workers, and monitoring of the 5S needs to be conducted regu-
larly till it becomes inculcated in routine practise. The 5S advo-
cates due consideration of workers’ opinion as they are the ones
better situated to make work easier, without any confusions and
Waste Management & Research 37(8)
Figure 9. Stacking of plywood on site.
Figure 10. Stacking of bricks on site.
delays. Moreover, in the case of construction, basic materials
(sand, cement, bricks and reinforcement) and tools are dis-
tinctly identifiable. Hence, application of 5S will help in defin-
ing the way of storing and handling of materials and tools on
site. The materials, such as bricks, tiles, marble, steel, cement
bags and plywood, could be placed in an orderly manner (refer
to Figures 9 and 10). For example, instead of disposing of all
the plywood wastes in a random manner, those that are of
acceptable quality for reuse are carefully segregated and stacked
separately for facilitating reuse (Figure 9). Sand can be heaped
in a conical shape and covered when not in use, to prevent being
carried away by external factors and thereby control wastage.
Several other strategies mentioned in C&D waste literature that
falls under this lean principle includes proper planning, collec-
tion and on-site sorting of waste materials, and 3R (reduce,
reuse and recycle) activities for continuous improvement (Ajayi
et al., 2017; Poon et al., 2004b; Yuan et al., 2013).
The next tool, JIT ordering was developed with the idea that
keeping inventories are not beneficial and should be consid-
ered as waste if JIT is practised effectively in construction
sites. Reductions in the amounts of stockpiled materials have
been reported to reduce pollution, resource consumption, time
savings and cost savings (Ballard et al., 2002; LCI, 2014). A
good logistics agreement with suppliers, and appropriate order-
ing to minimise cutting wastes, could also contribute to waste
minimisation.
The next tool, work standardisation, contributes to consistency
in quality and shifts focus from a people-centric to a process-centric
approach (Yu et al., 2011). Work standardisation considers task
Vilventhan et al.
Figure 11. Storage yards for material wastes on site.
time and work sequence to establish work standards. Standard
worksheets can be used to determine the task sequence, workforce
requirements, materials used and quantity of material wasted on
site. To serve as guidelines for planning material requirements,
Builders Association of India have released databases containing
information, such as adequacy of cement, reinforcement steel and
other common building materials, for various works packages that
ensures a minimum standard in the performance with regard to
strength, density, etc. Such initiatives and awareness of the informa-
tion needs to be publicised among contractors to have a widespread
impact in the construction industry. The use of prefabricated ele-
ments, modular designs and use of recycled materials could all be
standardised as part of standard procedures at the organisational
level (Wang et al., 2015).
Standard waste management plans to be adopted in all pro-
ject sites could be enforced at the organisational level (Tam,
2008). Separate storage yards for storing the different types of
material wastes can be provided on site, as shown in Figure 11.
The worksheet will enable the site personnel to calculate and
plan for the activity to be performed. Benchmarked indices
could represent the expected work performance for each activ-
ity. Adoption of tools, such as BIM, could be made as a part of
a standardised design process to improve waste management
(Cheng and Ma, 2013).
Visual representation, such as usage of three-dimensional
architectural designs, and structural models would improve
communication and help stakeholders visualise the exact
requirements. Mid-level managers might be assigned with roles
to monitor variations, investigate the root causes, ensure imme-
diate remedy steps and re-establish work standardisation. Thus,
integrating lean construction principles with construction waste
management literature has a huge potential for significant waste
minimisation.
823
Conclusion, limitations and future
scope
A waste generation rate of 66.26 kg m−2 was identified from a
building construction case study. Concrete, cement mortar and
brick waste represented almost 90% of the total construction
waste. Lack of on-site waste management planning has been
observed to be one of the primary causes of waste generation.
The findings are from a single case study and therefore should be
treated with caution in terms of their generalisability. The appli-
cation and benefits of lean tools for waste minimisation has been
discussed. A lean strategic framework has been developed show-
ing synergistic benefits to be gained in combining lean construc-
tion literature with the C&D waste literature. The developed
framework is generic, which can be applied to any type of con-
struction projects.
This article contributes to lean/waste management research in
two ways. First, using VSM, this article measures and quantifies
the construction material waste generated in the process of con-
struction. Second, it demonstrates waste minimisation potential
of integrating lean principles and waste reduction strategies
through a lean strategic framework. This research is useful to
practitioners because they can implement the lean practises to
minimise construction waste and use VSM to visually map the
waste generation on site.
There are several limitations that are to be noted in this study.
While it is argued that borrowing lean construction principles are
beneficial, actual implementation of those strategies have not
been shown on site owing to difficulties in securing permissions
for implementation. However, examples of lean tools implemen-
tation referred to from other Indian sites add merit to the discus-
sion. Moreover, it is not meant that only the three lean construction
principles that are discussed in this article have high potential to
824
contribute to construction process improvement and waste mini-
misation. The relevance and merits of all the other lean construc-
tion principles in contributing to C&D waste minimisation and
better management could be undertaken in the future studies and
the framework could be enhanced to make it more holistic.
Objective evaluation of the synergy obtained in combining the
two distinct bodies of literature and actual implementation of
those principles and strategies on sites through action research
methods could be valuable topics for research in the future
studies.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Aneetha Vilventhan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5614-3500
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