33rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 33) - Osaka and Kyoto, Japan - 2025

https://doi.org/10.24928/2025/0113

Daily Batch Size of Design – Proposal for the Sizing of Design Batches

Eelon Lappalainen1, Hisham Abou-Ibrahim2, Jyrki Oraskari3, Olli Seppänen4, Umer Majid5 & Markus Derry6

1Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Finland, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-7573-344X
2Assistant Professor, American University of Beirut, Lebanon, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0003-4261-9322
3Postdoctoral Researcher, RWTH Aachen University, Germany, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-4723-3878
4Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Finland, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002-2008-5924
5MSc Student, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Finland, [email protected], orcid.org/0009-0002-8521-0981
6Doctoral Researcher, Business Developer, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Finland, [email protected]

Abstract

Lean construction techniques have effectively minimized batch sizes and lead times in construction production. However, the reduction of design batch sizes has focused on planning smaller tasks and has been quantified through the assessment of design hours, information packages, or design tasks. This work seeks to propose a practical method for determining batch size in design while simplifying and grounding ongoing theoretical discussions on the subject. The employed research methodology is a case study of four Finnish construction projects utilizing software created by researchers to estimate design batch sizes from industry foundation class (IFC) files. The primary outcome of the project is to demonstrate a method for visualizing the design batch size concerning added, removed, and updated building information model (BIM) components. The results indicate considerable diversity in design batch sizes and design data exchange cycles across different design disciplines and projects. This paper offers practitioners and academics a method to visualize previously concealed design batch sizes, facilitating batch size analysis as an initial step toward lowering these sizes.

Keywords

Lean construction, design, batch size, building information model.

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Reference in APA 7th edition format:

Lappalainen, E., Abou-Ibrahim, H., Oraskari, J., Seppänen, O., Majid, U. & Derry, M.. (2025). Daily Batch Size of Design – Proposal for the Sizing of Design Batches. In Seppänen, O., Koskela, L., & Murata , K. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 33) (pp. 1011–1022). https://doi.org/10.24928/2025/0113

Shortened reference for use in IGLC papers:

Lappalainen, E., Abou-Ibrahim, H., Oraskari, J., Seppänen, O., Majid, U. & Derry, M.. (2025). Daily Batch Size of Design – Proposal for the Sizing of Design Batches. IGLC33. https://doi.org/10.24928/2025/0113

 

Founded in 1993, the IGLC is an international network of researchers from practice and academia in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) who feel that the practice, education, and research of the AEC industry have to be radically renewed in order to respond to the global challenges ahead.

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