14th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction - Santiago, Chile - 2006

Actions to Implement Continuous Flow in the Assembly of Pre-Fabricated Concrete Structure

Iamara Rossi Bulhões1, Flavio Augusto Picchi2 & Alex T. Folch3

1PhD student, Architecture and Construction Department, School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urban Design, Univ. of Campinas, Campinas/SP, Brazil, [email protected].
2Professor, Architecture and Construction Department, School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urban Design, and Director, Lean Institute Brazil. Av. Albert Einstein, 951, Caixa Postal 6021, Univ. of Campinas, Campinas/SP, Brazil, CEP 13084-971, Phone +55 19/3788-2082, [email protected]
3Civil Eng., Technology and Quality Director, MUNTE Industrialized Constructions, Ltda. , [email protected].

Abstract

Most production systems in the construction industry have a large number of interruptions in the work of gangs, resulting in waste and under-utilization of resources. Such interruptions are typically caused by variability in the production system and lack of synchronization of processes. This paper discusses the implementation of continuous flow in the process of assembling the pre-fabricated concrete structure of an industrial building, located in the State of S Paulo, Brazil. The implementation process was mostly based on Lean Thinking principles, involving tools for creating continuous flow. Action-research was the research strategy adopted for developing this study, which was divided into two main stages: (a) implementation of production control for making the production system minimally stable; (b) implementation of a proposed assembling sequence and rhythm, based on a small batch repetitive cycle. The implementation was successful in terms of reducing the cycle time, improving the productivity in the assembling process, reducing waste in the utilization of cranes, and, specially, increasing stability of the assembly process.

Keywords

Continuous flow, pre-fabrication, Lean Thinking, small batch, increasing stability

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Reference

Bulhões, I. R. , Picchi, F. A. & Folch, A. T. 2006. Actions to Implement Continuous Flow in the Assembly of Pre-Fabricated Concrete Structure, 14th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction , 407-419. doi.org/

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