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15th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction - East Lansing, Michigan, USA - 2007

Managing Variability In-House Production

Haitao Yu¹, Tarry Tweed², Mohamed Al-Hussein³ & Reza Nasseri⁴

¹Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2W2, Canada, Phone +1 780/492-9131, FAX 780/492-0249, [email protected]
²General Manager, Landmark Master Builder Inc., 9765-54 Ave. Edmonton, Alberta, T6E 5J4, Canada, Phone +1 780/702-8273, FAX 780/436-4773, [email protected]
³Assistant professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2W2, Canada Phone +1 780/492-0599, FAX 780/492-0249, [email protected]
⁴President, Landmark Master Builder Inc., 9765-54 Ave. Edmonton, Alberta, T6E 5J4, Canada, Phone +1 780/702-8273, FAX 780/436-4773, [email protected]

Abstract

The differences between construction and manufacturing are well known. There have been many arguments on whether lean production model is relevant to construction and what strategy should be taken for construction enterprises to pursue lean transformation. A central issue here is how to deal with high variability in construction process. This paper presents a collaborating research performed by the University of Alberta and a local homebuilder. An analysis of historical production data confirms that the current house production flow is extremely variable, particularly at the beginning of the production process. The ripple effects of a change in production conditions can cause serious problems in scheduling and lead to big variation in construction operation durations. Based on a comparative study of home building and auto manufacturing, a comprehensive approach is proposed to reduce and manage the variability in house production through the resolution of particularities.

Keywords

House production, Construction particularities, Variability, Residential construction, Strategy.

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