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29th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) - Lima, Peru - 2021

https://doi.org/10.24928/2021/0183

Slack in Construction - Part 1: Core Concepts

Carlos Formoso¹, Iris D. Tommelein², Tarcisio Abreu Saurin³, Lauri Koskela⁴, Marcus Fireman⁵, Karina Barth⁶, Fernanda Bataglin⁷, Daniela Viana⁸, Rafael Coelho⁹, Vishesh Singh¹⁰, Carolina Zani¹¹, Natália Ransolin¹² & Claudia Disconzi¹³

¹Professor, Building Innovation Research Unit (NORIE), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-4772-3746
²Professor, Civil and Envir. Engrg. Dept., Director, Project Production Systems Laboratory (P2SL), University of California, Berkeley, CA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-9941-659
³Associate Professor, Industrial Engineering and Transportation Department, UFRGS, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-2929-5888
⁴Professor of Construction and Project Management, School of Art, Design and Architecture. University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, UK, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-4449- 2281
⁵PhD Student, Postgraduate Program in Civil Eng.: Construction and Infrastructure, UFRGS, Porto Alegre 90035-190, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-5843-4715
⁶PhD Student, Postgraduate Program in Civil Eng.: Construction and Infrastructure, UFRGS, Porto Alegre 90035-190, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-5843-4715
⁷PhD Student, Postgraduate Program in Civil Eng.: Construction and Infrastructure, UFRGS, Porto Alegre 90035-190, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-5843-4715
⁸Adjunct Professor, Interdisciplinary Department, NORIE, UFRGS, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-8958-4708
⁹Graduate Student, Civil and Envir. Eng. Dept., University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-3298-3622
¹⁰Graduate Student, Civil and Envir. Eng. Dept., University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-6999-9727
¹¹MSc Student, Postgraduate Program in Production Eng. UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-2649-2432
¹²PhD Candidate, Postgraduate Program in Civil Eng.: Construction and Infrastructure, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-7128-8000
¹³PhD Candidate, Postgraduate Program in Industrial Eng:, UFRGS, Porto Alegre 90035-190, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-4224-5167

Abstract

Construction projects are known to be complex, due to being subject to uncertainty and variability. The use of buffers to protect them from the detrimental impact of variability has been well-researched. A key managerial choice is not whether or not to buffer variability, but rather how to define the necessary combination of buffers. Slack is a concept related to buffers but has been used in the literature to describe a broader range of strategies for coping with complexity. It allows an organisation to adapt to internal pressures for adjustment or to external pressures for change in policy. This paper aims to further develop the concept of slack and to unveil its relationships with other concepts and ideas that are partly overlapping such as buffers, resilience, robustness, flexibility, and redundancy. A concept map was devised in order to articulate the nature of the slack concept. This paper explores in detail this concept map and proposes a conceptual role for slack in the realm of Lean.

Keywords

Slack, buffer, complexity, variability, uncertainty, concept map, waste

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