23rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction - Perth, Australia - 2015

Analysis of Definitions and Quantification of Waste in Construction

Michael Denzer1, Nils Muenzl2, Felix A. Sonnabend3 & Shervin Haghsheno4

1Research Fellow, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, +49 721 608 45476, [email protected]
2Research Fellow, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, +49 721 608 44124, [email protected]
3B.Sc. Student, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, +49 721 608 43650, [email protected]
4Professor, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, +49 721 608 42646, [email protected]

Abstract

Waste avoidance is an essential idea of the Lean philosophy, as this approach significantly contributes to maximize value from the customer’s perspective. Waste occurs in diverse forms, depending on the types of industry and of working processes. Elimination or reduction of waste to a certain extent requires the ability to identify waste and to make it transparent to the parties, involved in the working process. Based on a comprehensive literature review, existing fundamental and independently developed definitions of waste in Lean Management in general as well as in Lean Construction are presented and compared to each other. A systematic overview of waste definitions is developed. Within this context three specific characteristics are assigned to particular definitions. Furthermore, case studies and empirical studies from literature are presented, which focus on the identification and quantification of waste of time in the value chain of construction processes. Arguments, showing that different waste of time studies are not comparable, are brought forward.

Keywords

Waste; lean construction; definition of waste; waste of work-time; theory

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Reference

Denzer, M. , Muenzl, N. , Sonnabend, F. A. & Haghsheno, S. 2015. Analysis of Definitions and Quantification of Waste in Construction, 23rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction , 723-732. doi.org/

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