https://doi.org/10.24928/2020/0040

Empirical Assessment of the Impact of VDC and Lean on Environment and Waste in Masonry Operations

Musab Maraqa¹, Rafael Sacks² & Sabrina Spatari³

¹MSc Graduate Student, Faculty of Civil and Enviromental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, +972 58 670 2922, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002- 7756-2787.
²Professor, Faculty of Civil and Enviromental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, +972 4 829 3190, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-9427-5053.
³Associate Professor, Faculty of Civil and Enviromental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, +972 54 668 4373, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-7243- 9993.

Abstract

Lean principles aim to improve construction through focus on value and waste elimination, which benefits environmental performance by reducing life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improving other environmental metrics. Although prior research identified relationships between Lean, BIM and sustainability, most studies were qualitative assessments of the value of lean and VDC management. In this study we measured the impact of Lean and VDC on waste in operations, and on GHG emissions, of masonry partitions. Researchers observed workers and classified their activities as value-adding or non-value-adding. Data from three different projects that include combinations of Lean and VDC implementation were used to estimate the efficiency of operations in comparison to earlier construction projects from 2007 to 2014 that implemented the same methods. The results were eye-opening: implementing Lean principles and VDC raised the proportion of value–adding activities to 68.4%, compared to only 35.8% in traditional management. Moreover, Lean and VDC methods contributed to reduce wasted global warming potential (GWP) from 169 kg CO2e/m3 of partition built to 112 kg CO2e/m3 , an environmental improvement of 34%. Lean and VDC are dominant management approaches in reducing waste and improving sustainability.

Keywords

Lean construction, masonry walls, Virtual Design and Construction (VDC), sustainability, waste

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Reference

Maraqa, M. , Sacks, R. & Spatari, S. 2020. Empirical Assessment of the Impact of VDC and Lean on Environment and Waste in Masonry Operations , Proc. 28th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) , 985-996. doi.org/10.24928/2020/0040

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