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

WIP Design in a Construction Project Using Takt Time Planning

Mazen Faloughi1, Meeli Linnik2, Dan Murphy3 & Adam G. Frandson4

1Graduate Student, Civil and Envir. Engrg. Dep.t, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, [email protected]
2Production Engineer, The Boldt Company, The Replacement Hospital at St. Luke’s Campus Project, 555 San Jose Ave, San Francisco, CA, USA, [email protected]
3Production Manager, The Boldt Company, The Replacement Hospital at St. Luke’s Campus Project, 555 San Jose Ave, San Francisco, CA, USA, [email protected]
4PhD Student, Civil and Envir. Engrg. Dept., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, [email protected]

Abstract

Work in process (WIP) is a well understood and used metric in the management of manufacturing processes. However, this is not the case when it comes to production planning in non-repetitive construction projects. Moreover, there are different understandings of WIP depending on the management personnel using it (financial managers vs. production planners for example). The aim of this paper is to study how WIP can be defined in the context of a construction project so that it can easily be identified, visualized, and managed without having to resort to simulation models or advanced software tools. The authors present a case study where Takt time thinking is used to identify and handle different types of WIP and improve construction workflow. The challenge is to minimize both ‘work waiting on workers’ and ‘workers waiting on work’ by determining suitable work area sizes, and having an adequate work backlog. The case study shows how in some cases, areas are separated and sized so that WIP between tasks can be reduced, and in others

Keywords

Takt time planning, WIP, production system design.

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Reference

Faloughi, M. , Linnik, M. , Murphy, D. & Frandson, A. G. 2015. WIP Design in a Construction Project Using Takt Time Planning, 23rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction , 163-172. doi.org/

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