The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-4166.htm

Prospect of
Prospect of lean practices towards lean practices
construction supply chain
management trends
Phuoc Luong Le and Nguyen Thi Duc Nguyen 557
Department of Production and Operations Management, School of Industrial
Management, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT), Vietnam Received 6 June 2020
Revised 27 November 2020
National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Accepted 26 May 2021

Abstract
Purpose – To deal with the present situation and recover after the COVID-19 pandemic, construction firms
are required to recognise the trends in construction supply chain management (CSCM) for the upcoming years
and determine the appropriate practices towards the trends for the improvement of construction activities in
terms of strategy, tactic and operations. This paper aims to recognise key trends in CSCM and uses these
trends as strategic criteria for the evaluation and prioritisation of lean construction (LC) tools at different
project phases including design and architectural engineering, planning and control, on-site construction and
safety management.
Design/methodology/approach – The integrated analytic hierarchy process–Delphi method is used to
collect and analyse the data from construction experts to evaluate the importance levels of the CSCM trends
and recommend the appropriate tools for LC practices to improve project performances.
Findings – Seven key CSCM trends are identified: lean supply chain management (SCM), supply chain (SC)
integration, SC standardisation, SC problem-solving, SC information-sharing, SC flexibility and SC
sustainability. Based on these trends, a set of prioritised lean tools are suggested for LC practices, in which
“virtual design construction” (VDC) and “last planner system” are considered as the central tools. These two
LC practices can be integrated with other effective tools to support the strategic, tactical and operational
targets in construction supply chain (CSC) projects.
Research limitations/implications – This study gives the managerial implications by developing an
application framework of LC practices for CSC projects. The framework promotes “VDC” as a strategic tool
for the phase of design and architectural engineering and considers “last planner system” as the central LC
practice for the phase of project planning and control. The framework also focuses on the improvement of
efficiency in construction operations by taking into account the aspects of on-site collaboration, problem-
solving, improvement and safety.
Originality/value – Up to date, there is still a lack of researches in classifying and prioritising the
significant LC tools for each project phase to deal with CSC issues in both breadth and depth. Thus, this study
is performed to provide construction managers with the awareness of CSCM trends on which they can focus
to have strategic criteria for selecting LC practices to improve CSC performances.
Keywords Supply chain management, Lean tools, Construction supply chain management trends,
Lean construction practices
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
In the construction industry, there exist problems of defective design, poor quality, inferior
working conditions and low safety arrangements, which cause variation, non-value-added International Journal of Lean Six
Sigma
Vol. 13 No. 3, 2022
pp. 557-593
Authors would like to thank Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT), VNU-HCM for © Emerald Publishing Limited
2040-4166
the support of time and facilities for this study. DOI 10.1108/IJLSS-06-2020-0071
IJLSS activities and wastes (van den Bos et al., 2014; Khanh and Kim, 2016). They are caused by
13,3 the lack of effort in creating the flow of involved activities for the transformation process, in
which materials are transformed into a tangible construction. The need for change in
construction practices has been discussed for years and attracted the attention of many
scholars and practitioners. This requires a change in the way the industry primarily
operates and a consistent focus on the management of the entire construction process (Alves
558 et al., 2012; Albalkhy and Sweis, 2020).
When the construction is performed with the considerations of maximising value and
minimising waste, it is known as lean construction (LC). While traditional construction is
schedule-based, considers the project as a set of activities and ignores the flow within and
between delivery-focused activities, LC concentrates on flow and value generation
(Sarhan et al., 2019; Bygballe et al., 2018). The flow dimension investigates the tasks’
interdependency through the whole project process, and then reduces waste as a
managerial objective. The value generation focuses on customers’ satisfaction, including
internal customers, which aims to improve the integration and information flow between
project participants. As a result, it reduces waste and drives behaviour towards the final
product and end-user value (Dakhli et al., 2016; Carvajal-Arango et al., 2019). Lean
practices enhance traditional construction management by improving project definition,
scoping, scheduling, cost estimation, procurement, control and leadership (Al-Aomar,
2012a). For more than 20 years, LC has been approved as one of the most promising
approaches to improve construction performances. LC is today considered as an
important strategy to deal with the perceived deficiencies of the construction industry
(Bygballe et al., 2018; Tezel et al., 2020).
Recently, the supply chain management (SCM) application leverages the construction
transformation from physical inventories to information flows, and from short-term
transactions to long-term collaboration (Papadonikolaki et al., 2016). Over the past decades,
previous studies have shown an increasing interest in both the concepts of SCM and LC
(Koskela et al., 2020), as well as provided beneficial evidence for the integration of the two
concepts in the construction industry (Le et al., 2020). Lean view supports the application of
SCM with more benefits because it takes a more comprehensive and integrative stance
towards the supply chain (SC) as a collective organisation (Belhadi et al., 2019; Koskela et al.,
2020). The integration of LC and SCM has significantly smoothened the workflow during
the whole construction supply chain (CSC). As a result, there are greater opportunities to
eliminate waste and add more value. SCM application creates harmonious working
relationships between SC participants, which improves the efficiency of LC practices (Meng,
2019; Haddud and Khare, 2020).
As such, it is meaningful to note that both SCM and LC facilitate SC integration which
promotes collaboration among relevant construction actors (Eriksson, 2010; Le et al., 2020).
LC practices have significant contributions to SCM application in the construction industry
in terms of SC integration improvement and SC efficiency enhancement (Koskela et al., 2020;
Meng, 2019). In spite of the expected benefits of LC and SCM integration, the concurrent
application of LC and SCM has not yet fully explored in the industry (Eriksson, 2010; Le
et al., 2020). In the scope of LC practices, there is a need for more empirical studies that
concentrate on categorisation and prioritisation of tools for LC practices at different project
phases (Ansah and Sorooshian, 2017; Babalola et al., 2019). This plays an important role in
providing suitable instructions for construction managers to implement lean tools during
the project. Especially, there is a lack of studies that explore the prospect of LC practices
towards construction supply chain management (CSCM) trends in the upcoming years. It is
worthy to explore the trends of CSCM to have managerial recommendations for project Prospect of
managers to improve their project performances (Le et al., 2019). lean practices
In current practice, under COVID-19 pandemic, the role of the construction industry
matters more than ever. Under the pressure of constructing hospitals in just a few days
for lifesaving, the industry has played a vital role in responding to the crisis. However,
the industry has also suffered from the pandemic since construction sites in many
countries have been closed. Most of the sites are still open facing the problems of
disrupted SC and operational restrictions (McKinsey, 2020). The restraints of economic 559
activities cause a decrease in demand for new commercial or industrial facilities. Loss of
income and lack of consumer confidence have negative impacts on housing demands.
The pandemic also has an undesirable influence on supply when some building materials
SCs have suffered from the interruption and suspension of production and distribution
(Casady and Baxter, 2020; McKinsey, 2020). To deal with the present conditions and
recover after the pandemic, construction firms are required to accelerate new ways of
running their business. To do so, construction managers and practitioners are required to
recognise the trends in CSCM for the upcoming years and determine the appropriate
practices to recover and continue the construction activities in terms of strategy, tactic
and operations.
Thus, to meet practical requirements targeting issues in the construction industry in the
post-pandemic times and fill the research gaps, this study is conducted to contribute to the
knowledge body by:

recognising the important trends in CSCM for the next five years;

using these trends as strategic criteria for the evaluation and prioritisation of LC
tools at different project phases; and

recommending the framework for LC practices at different project phases to support
the CSCM trends.

The results of this study help construction managers and practitioners to answer the
question “how to prioritise and integrate different tools for LC practices at different project
phases to improve their project efficiency regarding the important trends of CSCM?”
The succeeding sections are organised as follows. After Section 1 presents the
introduction, Section 2 discusses the extant literature on areas including CSCM trends, LC
practices with tools for different phases and the integration of SCM and LC practices.
Section 3 presents the research method including the background and theoretical foundation
of analytic hierarchy process (AHP)–Delphi approach. Section 4 presents the results and
sensitive analysis. Section 5 focuses on the results discussion and implications for managers
and practitioners. Finally, conclusions are presented in Section 6.

2. Literature review
2.1 Construction supply chain management trends
2.1.1 Trend in applying lean supply chain management. CSCM aims to manage complex
systems in which performances rely on hundreds of decisions made by multiple
independent firms. In a CSC project, clients, consultants, contractors, designers,
subcontractors and suppliers are the key actors connected by interfaces of knowledge
transfer, information exchange, financial and contractual relationships (Le et al., 2019).
These SC actors usually concentrate on their benefits and lack the SC collaboration that
causes many problems in delays, errors and duplications in construction project
management (Meng, 2019; Le et al., 2020). Thus, lean construction supply chain
IJLSS management (LCSCM) is suggested as an important managerial trend to enhance
13,3 construction efficiency (Eriksson, 2010; Koskela et al., 2020). LCSCM, which leverages the
efficiency in process flow and waste elimination, improves common understanding and
alignment between participants in CSC network. SC actors become more involved and
intrinsically encouraged to take over projects and find joint opportunities for improvement.
Applying LCSCM, teamwork is promoted to enhance mutual commitment (Koskela et al.,
560 2020).
2.1.2 Trends in integrating supply chain (further external integration, role of supply
chain drivers, long-term trust). By observation, the integration in CSC has recently been
limited and at a slower speed, in comparison to that in other industries (Bankvall et al., 2010).
Facing with the competitive forces, CSCM practices should go towards the trend of more
external integration by involving the more participation of SC actors. This includes supplier
integration, contractor integration, designer integration, owner integration and so on. Based
on SC integration, the risk of non-compliance among the SC participants can be reduced and
the productivity of construction design and operations can also be increased (Bankvall et al.,
2010). Meanwhile, the role of the general contractor should be promoted as SC driver that
coordinates across the CSC network to elevate the external integration (Le et al., 2019). The
focal coordination of SC drivers positively impacts not only operational performances but
also SC participants’ trust (Liu et al., 2017). As a result, the long-term trust and transparency
among SC participants can be achieved through integrating the relevant SC actors and
promoting the role of SC coordinators in construction projects.
2.1.3 Trends in supply chain collaboration (full information exchange, common
performance measurements, risk sharing, sustainability). The other trend in CSCM
application is the full information sharing among SC actors which facilitates the creation of
a communication environment across the SC network. As a result, SC actors can obtain
greater predictions of their partners’ actions, a better understanding of SC expectations and
a better demonstration of the desire for help (Lönngren et al., 2010). Accordingly, common
performance measurements and feedback systems can be developed for the whole CSC
network, once SC actors perform full information exchange and long-term trust (Meng et al.,
2011). These systems leverage collaboration and risk-sharing among SC actors to obtain
common goals. For the long-term competition, CSCM application goes towards
sustainability by building the green and resilient SC network. This CSCM trend encourages
the use of SCM philosophy to take into account health and safety management, overall life
cycle costs and savings, employee training and development, commitment to corporate
social responsibility, commitment of owners to the sustainability agenda and environmental
issues (Sarhan et al., 2019).
2.1.4 Trends in technology application (flexibility, advanced technologies). To achieve the
flexibility to respond more quickly to SC demand and opportunities, companies apply the
technologies of virtual design and construction, especially building information modelling
(BIM) which has made a significant breakthrough in information management of the whole
construction life cycle from design phase to operation phase. BIM embraces a rich data
source of building models; hence, it provides critical information associated with both
product and process across the whole project (Eastman et al., 2011; Dave et al., 2016). The
emerging trend in BIM application is its flexibility for modelling diversified issues of CSC
projects. The nD models, which allow dynamic and virtual analysis of different issues
(scheduling, costing, stability, sustainability, maintainability, safety and so on), support SC
participants to extract the crucial data for decision-making to achieve cohesive and efficient
performances (Ding et al., 2014). Besides, the advanced technologies, such as the Internet of
Things (cloud computing, bluetooth, wireless local area network, global positioning system,
radio frequency identification and so on), are used to collect, analyse and transfer data to Prospect of
business intelligence tools and planning systems to support construction quality control, lean practices
delivery and forecasting (Dave et al., 2016). The advanced technologies have gradually
improved the outcomes of construction projects as they significantly enhance the design and
construction processes.
2.1.5 Trends in construction execution (process standardisation, problem-solving, further
outsourcing). Besides, standardisation and alignment of process, information, information 561
technology infrastructure among SC actors play important role in the improvement of SC
collaboration as it facilitates data sharing among them (Liu et al., 2017, Siebelink et al., 2018).
The other trend in construction execution is to generate a collective problem-solving culture
among SC actors which encourages the problem prediction and recognition at the very early
stage of projects (Meng et al., 2011). Recently, using further outsourcing with third-party
logistics is also an emerging trend in the industry to improve construction logistics
performances (Liu et al., 2017, Le et al., 2019). The third-party logistics solution generates an
interface between the construction site and the upstream SC and supports relevant SC actors
to participate actively in the integration of the CSC network (Ekeskär and Rudberg, 2016).
Table 1 presents the overview of CSCM trends in the industry which is summarised on
the literature review. Although the CSCM trends can be synthesised from previous studies
through the above literature review, there is a dearth of researches focusing on identifying
and prioritising the CSCM trends for the upcoming years. In practice, construction
companies need to refer to these trends to prepare their strategic plans aiming at gaining
competitive advantages.

Construction supply chain management trends Authors

Lean construction supply chain management to Eriksson (2010); Meng (2019); Koskela et al.
improve construction project performances (2020)
Further external integration of activities among Bankvall et al. (2010); Meng et al. (2011); Le et al.
supply chain actors (2019)
Role of supply chain drivers for logistics Ekeskär and Rudberg (2016); Sundquist et al.
coordination (2018); Le et al. (2019)
Long-term trust and transparency among Liu et al. (2017); Thunberg and Fredriksson
supply chain actors (2018)
Full information exchange among supply chain Lönngren et al. (2010); Liu et al. (2017); Thunberg
actors and Fredriksson (2018)
Common performance measurements and Meng et al. (2011); Le et al. (2019)
feedback systems for supply chain actors
Risk sharing across the supply chain Aloini et al. (2012); Mohammaddust et al. (2017);
Liu et al. (2017);
Sustainable and green construction supply Sarhan et al. (2019); Carvajal-Arango et al. (2019)
chain management
Flexibility to respond more quickly to SC Ding et al. (2014); Dave et al. (2016); Le et al.
demand and opportunities (2019)
Advanced technologies for supply chain Dave et al. (2016); Le et al. (2019); Deng et al.
integration (2019)
Process standardisation and alignment among Liu et al. (2017); Siebelink et al. (2018)
Table 1.
supply chain actors
Problem-solving focused culture across the Liu et al. (2017); Le et al. (2019) Construction supply
supply chain chain management
Further outsourcing and third-party logistics to Ekeskär and Rudberg (2016); Sundquist et al. trends summarised
improve construction logistics (2018) on literature review
IJLSS 2.2 Lean tools for construction practices
13,3 LC practices have been regarded as the means through which lean approach is applied for
the phases of planning, design, and construction operations (Babalola et al., 2019). LC
practices include a set of tools that can be applied to boost the project management process
(Ansah and Sorooshian, 2017). These LC tools can be implemented either as stand-alone
practices (using a single tool for a specific target) or as integrated practices (combining
562 multiple tools for project strategies) (Babalola et al., 2019; Aslam et al., 2020a). The
categorisation of LC practices needs to base on the project phases, which include the key
activities of design, planning and control, construction execution and safety management.
Babalola et al. (2019) suggest the tools for LC practices should be categorised into four main
groups, which are based on the following areas of their possible application:
(1) design and engineering practices;
(2) planning and control practices;
(3) construction and site management practices; and
(4) health and safety management practices.

LC practices are used in various ways, such as managing a whole construction project or
just using tools to standardise processes of a specific project phase. Table 2 summarises the
most used tools for LC practices suggested by recent scholars for the industry.
2.2.1 Lean tools for design and engineering practices. The first phase of a construction
project is design and architectural engineering. It is meaningful for construction managers
to select efficient tools for LC practices in this phase. Among the tools is the virtual design
construction (VDC), which is defined as a set of computer-aided design and simulation tools
for error testing in the construction design and modelling, and directly transferring the final
designs to the construction prefabrication and operations (Babalola et al., 2019). Recently,
BIM is the central tool for VDC practice, which can provide nD models (3D building models
and the expanses with scheduling, budgeting, sustainability and so on), and perform the
simulations throughout design processes (Eastman et al., 2011). As shown in Table 2, the
other tools which are also suggested for design and architectural engineering practices are
design structure matrix, prefabrication and modularisation, detailed briefing, design
workshops, integrated project delivery, target value design, standardisation, concurrent
engineering, construction process analysis, team preparation, smart goal and Jidoka
(Babalola et al., 2019; Aslam et al., 2020b). Among these tools, integrated project delivery is a
project delivery tool focusing on integrating SC actors’ roles and relations contractually to
enhance project outcomes (Cho and Ballard, 2011). Integrated project delivery practice
leverages the early participation of key SC actors for collaborative decision-making and
control. Thus, SC actors can jointly develop and validate project goals. This supports the
risk-sharing and liability waivers among key SC participants (Babalola et al., 2019). The
purpose of integrated project delivery practice is to solve current problems in CSC projects
such as low productivity, high inefficiency and rework, excessive cost and duration and
fragmented information management and exchange (Roy et al., 2018). Meanwhile,
concurrent engineering is commonly considered as a systematic approach that facilitates
collaborative information sharing among SC actors to produce an integrated and concurrent
design of products and its related processes (Shouke et al., 2010). Concurrent engineering
practice ensures the important decisions of construction processes are made by concurrent
engineering teams who integrate products with their whole cycle process to achieve the
efficiency in time, quality and cost of the products. The empirical evidence shows that
concurrent engineering practice can leverage the collaborative working environment, which
Tools for
lean Tsao Salem Johansen Rahman Andersen Muhammad Aziz and Salvatirerra Erol Ansah and Sarhan Babalola Aslam
construction et al. et al. and Walter et al. Al-Aomar et al. et al. Hafez Ogunbiyi Seppanem et al. et al. Sorooshian et al. Li et al. et al. et al.
practices (2004) (2005) (2007) (2012) (2012b) (2012) (2013) (2013) (2014) et al. (2015) (2015) (2017) (2017) (2017) (2017) (2019) (2020a,b)

Design and engineering practices

1 Virtual design x x x x x x x
construction
2 Design structure x x x x
matrix
3 Prefabrication and x x x x
modularisation
4 Detailed briefing x x x
5 Design workshops x x x x
6 Integrated project x x x x
delivery
7 Target value design x x x
8 Standardisation x x x x x x
9 Concurrent x x x x x x x x
engineering
10 Construction process x x
analysis
11 Team preparation x x x
12 Smart goal x
13 Jidoka x x

Planning and control practices

1 Last planner system x x x x x x x x x x x x
2 Work structuring x x x x x x
and scheduling
3 Location-based x x x x
management system
4 Benchmarking x x x
5 6 Sigma x x x x x x
6 Value stream x x x x x x x x
mapping
7 Daily cluster or x x x x x x x x x x
huddle meeting
8 Pull scheduling/ x x x x x x
planning

(continued)

practices
construction
lean practices

Table 2.
563
Prospect of

used tools for lean

Summary of the most
 13,3

564
IJLSS

Table 2.
Tools for
lean Tsao Salem Johansen Rahman Andersen Muhammad Aziz and Salvatirerra Erol Ansah and Sarhan Babalola Aslam
construction et al. et al. and Walter et al. Al-Aomar et al. et al. Hafez Ogunbiyi Seppanem et al. et al. Sorooshian et al. Li et al. et al. et al.
practices (2004) (2005) (2007) (2012) (2012b) (2012) (2013) (2013) (2014) et al. (2015) (2015) (2017) (2017) (2017) (2017) (2019) (2020a,b)

9 Error proofing (Poka- x x x x

yoke)
10 Bottom neck analysis x x
11 Line balancing x x x
12 Continuous flow x x x x
13 Multi-process x
handling
14 FIFO line x x

Construction and site management practices

1 Gemba walk/Muda x x x x x
walk
2 Total productive x x x x x x x
maintenance
3 Kanban system/pull x x x x x x
system
4 5S on-site x x x x x x x x
management
5 First run study x x x x x x x
6 Kaizen x x x x x x
7 Teamwork and x x x x x x x
partnering
8 Total quality x x x x x x x x
management
9 Just-in-time (JIT) x x x x x x x x x x x x
10 Visualisation x x x x x x x x x x x
management
11 Conference x x x x
management
12 Quality function x x x x
deployment
13 PDCA x x
14 Statistical process x x
control

(continued)
Tools for
lean Tsao Salem Johansen Rahman Andersen Muhammad Aziz and Salvatirerra Erol Ansah and Sarhan Babalola Aslam
construction et al. et al. and Walter et al. Al-Aomar et al. et al. Hafez Ogunbiyi Seppanem et al. et al. Sorooshian et al. Li et al. et al. et al.
practices (2004) (2005) (2007) (2012) (2012b) (2012) (2013) (2013) (2014) et al. (2015) (2015) (2017) (2017) (2017) (2017) (2019) (2020a,b)

15 7 basic tools x x x
16 5 whys x x x X
17 Failure mode and x X
effects analysis
18 Time and motion X
study
19 Suggestion scheme X
20 Setting up reduction x X
21 Check-points and x X
control points

Health and safety management practices

1 Fail-safe for quality x x x x x X
and safety
2 Plan of conditions x x x x x X
and work
environment
3 Health and safety x x x X
improvement
management
lean practices

Table 2.
565
Prospect of
IJLSS facilitates the reduction in the turnaround time and eliminates errors in the entire project
13,3 delivery process (Babalola et al., 2019). In a similar approach, design workshops can be
formulated on construction sites for designers to discuss and analyse the entire design and
its process. Design workshops can help to remove difficulties and leverage creative ideas for
design solutions (Babalola et al., 2019). At design workshops, relevant client stakeholders
(funder, representatives of end-users and authorities) can also meet the design team
566 (architects and engineers). This helps to incorporate client values into the conceptual design
of construction projects (Thyssen et al., 2010). Besides, standardisation focuses on
establishing the dimensions, criteria and standards for project components together with
relevant operations in the project (Babalola et al., 2019). Meanwhile, prefabrication and
modularisation simplify the product design of prefabricated components by partitioning
them into chunks of equal repeated modules. These tools help to improve operational
performances, leverage the customisation in project design and eliminate wastes in
construction projects (Rocha and Kemmer, 2018).
2.2.2 Lean tools for planning and control practices. As shown in Table 2, lean tools for
planning and control practices suggested by previous studies are last planner system, work
structuring and scheduling, location-based management system, benchmarking, 6 sigma,
value stream mapping (VSM), daily cluster or huddle meeting, pull scheduling/planning,
error proofing (Poka-yoke), bottom neck analysis, line balancing, continuous flow, multi-
process handling and FIFO line (Ansah and Sorooshian, 2017; Babalola et al., 2019; Aslam
et al., 2020b). Among these tools, last planner system, which is considered as an efficient
lean tool for construction planning and control improvement, facilitates the collaborations of
SC actors to formulise effective coordination, construction planning and project delivery
(Perez and Ghosh, 2018). The last planner system integrates the following main components:

master schedule sets the standards for project delivery and meeting milestones;

phase schedule allocates the tasks within a specific timeframe using a collaborative
reverse scheduling approach;

look-ahead schedule uses constraint analyses and collaborative task design to
produce the schedule for upcoming four to eight weeks; and

weekly work plan uses the look-ahead schedule for weekly work planning and
review (AlSehaimi et al., 2014).

The other tool for planning and control practices, such as VSM, represents the current state
of the process and helps to make essential improvements for the future state. VSM improves
productivity through process modification, elimination of unnecessary activity, and activity
improvement (Ramani and KSD, 2019). Meanwhile, a good suggestion for construction
project control is 6 sigma, which focuses on finding the root causes and corrective actions.
Owing to the characteristics of the construction industry, 6 sigma is not thoroughly applied
to have all procedures at 6 sigma levels, but it aims to enhance the construction processes
through cost reduction and higher customer services (Siddiqui et al., 2016; da Silva et al.,
2018; Panayiotou and Stergiou, 2020). The other lean tool for work variability reduction is
work structuring and scheduling because it helps to break down the construction work
process into separate and sequential small parts (Al-Aomar, 2012a). Meanwhile,
benchmarking sets criteria for competition and motivation between construction teams
through dividing construction works into sections. The sections are established with
encouragement packages and assigned to different construction teams (Babalola et al., 2019).
Whereas daily cluster or huddle meeting leverages team problem-solving through arranging
the meeting of all construction workers with the project manager to discuss relevant issues; Prospect of
thus, it enhances the communication between relevant actors (Aslam et al., 2020b). lean practices
2.2.3 Lean tools for construction and site management practices. As synthesised in
Table 2, previous studies suggested 21 tools for construction and site management
including Gemba walk/Muda walk, total productive maintenance, Kanban system/pull
system, 5S on-site management, first run study, kaizen, teamwork and partnering, total
quality management, just-in-time, visualisation management, conference management,
quality function deployment, PDCA, statistical process control, 7 basic tools, 5 whys, failure 567
mode and effects analysis, time and motion study, suggestion scheme, setting up reduction,
check-points and control points (Ansah and Sorooshian, 2017; Babalola et al., 2019; Aslam
et al., 2020b). Among these tools, conference management and teamwork and partnering are
the two tools aiming at promoting the collaboration of relevant actors on the site. While
conference management helps to conduct conferences or workshops of operational
coordination and training, teamwork and partnering leverage the collaboration of all
relevant actors such as clients, designers, planners, contractors and suppliers to smoothen
the construction operations on the site (Johansen and Walter, 2007; Babalola et al., 2019). For
problem-solving on the construction site, Gemba walk is suggested as a lean tool to
interrogate the problem sources to discover the causes of the problem and solve it (Ansah
and Sorooshian, 2017). As an alternative, total quality management can be used to identify
and evaluate possible problems, develop and implement new solutions and assess results
(Babalola et al., 2019). Besides, first run study is useful for modelling important construction
operations and improving them. The study includes the examination of errors and the
creation of alternative methods to prevent or mitigate them. Meanwhile, kaizen and 5S on-
site management facilitate continuous improvement of construction site processes and
activities through achieving good conditions for construction sites (Aslam et al., 2020b).
2.2.4 Lean tools for health and safety management practices. As presented in Table 2,
previous studies suggested three tools for health and safety management including fail-safe
for quality and safety, plan of conditions and work environment, health and safety
improvement management (Ansah and Sorooshian, 2017; Babalola et al., 2019). These tools
help increase the safety on site and ensure the safety of all employees on the construction
site by predicting potential risks and taking actions to prevent them. As a result, they
support defect control, process variabilities reduction and safety insurance (Babalola et al.,
2019; Aslam et al., 2020b).
Although previous studies made significant contributions to the application of lean tools
in construction practices, most of them are found to focus on implementing a single tool or a
group of tools to improve construction activities. Studies focusing on evaluating and
ranking LC tools, which are important to be used in different construction phases (design
and engineering; planning and control; construction and site management practices; health
and safety management practices), are still in short supply.

2.3 Integration of lean practices and construction supply chain management

Construction projects currently face challenges in productivity improvement and waste
reduction to achieve higher competitive capability. LC practices focus on the improvement
of the dimensions: quality, cost, time, safety and organisation management (Li et al., 2019).
LC tools have been used on different functionalities to target specific objectives of
construction projects. The LC tools, for example, last planner system and VDC, are the most
implemented lean practices, which aim at different economic, social and environmental
benefits (Babalola et al., 2019). Besides, LC practices help to reduce the process variability,
maintain material flow, leverage continuous improvements, have better visualisation and
IJLSS customer focus, improve communication and so on (Aslam et al., 2020b). Thus, LC practices
13,3 play critical role in improving CSC performance and ensuring project success.
Owing to the characteristics of CSC projects, there still exists either the non-collaboration
between project parties or the short-term collaboration between SC actors in a single project.
Therefore, scholars suggest the application of LC practices to facilitate long-term
collaboration between SC actors in a continuous series of projects (Eriksson, 2010; Koskela
568 et al., 2020; Meng, 2019). The selection of the appropriate LC tools for each phase of a
construction project can help managers to solve the existing problems related to CSC issues,
such as SC risks, SC standardisation or SC integration. LC practices can be enhanced by
synergising with long-term SC collaboration which accelerates lean transformation and
achieves not only short-term business objectives but also long-term competitive advantage
(Meng, 2019; Eriksson, 2010). Effective tools and approaches are exploited for LCSCM
application to increase value and eliminate waste, such as last planner system, BIM, long-
term relationship building, continuous improvement, risk-sharing based on mutual trust,
respect and learning (Meng, 2019; Eriksson, 2010; Koskela et al., 2020). SC risks, which make
the possible delays in materials supply as well as cause the overcapacity or shortage for
warehouses, call for the implementation of LCSCM to be eliminated (Panova and Hilletofth,
2018). Applying lean thinking and appropriate lean practices can help organisations
enhance value creation in SCs (Shamah, 2013; Haddud and Khare, 2020). A large amount of
non-value-added activities are executed across the SC network. Lean practices facilitate the
elimination of waste activities throughout the SCM processes and leverage the improvement
of quality and speed and customer satisfaction (Raval et al., 2018; Almutairi et al., 2020).
It is obviously stated that LC practices can help to solve critical problems in the
construction industry, for example, wastes in material flow and process flow, duration
delays, poor safety, cost overruns, low efficiency and customer dissatisfaction (van den Bos
et al., 2014; Bygballe et al., 2018; Tezel et al., 2020). LC practices also help to improve SC
issues, such as SC integration, SC problem-solving, SC risk-sharing and so on (Eriksson,
2010; Koskela et al., 2020; Meng, 2019). However, up to date, there is still a lack of researches
in classifying and prioritising the significant LC tools for each project phase to deal with
CSC issues in both breadth and depth. Especially when CSC issues are considered for the
upcoming years as the CSCM trends, it calls for an exploratory study that focuses on
recognising and weighting the LC tools to achieve SC efficiency.

2.4 Research gaps

As presented above, recent works of literature have attempted to apply various lean tools
and SCM concepts in the construction industry to improve construction activities. In spite of
their significant contributions to the knowledge body of lean SCM, the existing studies are
found to have the following limitations:

Construction companies need to recognise the upcoming CSCM trends to develop
strategies aiming to improve their performances and gain competitive advantages.
However, recent studies only focus on applying the concepts of SCM in the
construction industry. There is a dearth of researches identifying and prioritising
the importance of CSCM trends for the upcoming years.

Construction companies also need to identify which lean tools should be
implemented in different construction phases (design and engineering; planning and
control; construction and site management practices; health and safety management
practices). However, recent researches mostly concentrate on applying a single lean
tool or a group of lean tools to improve construction operations. Studies focusing on
 evaluating and ranking LC tools for various construction phases are still in short Prospect of
supply. lean practices

Combining the two needs above, construction companies necessitate knowing which
lean tools should be applied for different construction phases regarding the
upcoming CSCM trends. Nevertheless, up to date, there is a lack of researches
focusing on identifying and prioritising the importance of lean tools for each
construction phase to deal with forthcoming CSCM trends. 569
Therefore, to fill the research gaps as well as meet the practical requirements of applying
lean and SCM in the construction industry, this paper aims at the following objectives:

Objective 1: Recognising and ranking the importance of CSCM trends for the next
five years.

Objective 2: Using these CSCM trends as strategic criteria for the evaluation and
prioritisation of lean tools at different construction phases.

Objective 3: Recommending the framework for lean practices at different
construction phases to deal with the CSCM trends.

This study contributes to the literature with some features. Firstly, it provides
construction managers and practitioners with the awareness of CSCM trends so that
they can catch up with the trends to have strategic criteria for the improvement of CSC
performances. Secondly, it draws a picture of the LC application in which appropriate
tools are suggested for all the project phases to deal with the identified trends in
CSCM.

3. Research method
3.1 Integrated analytic hierarchy process–Delphi approach
3.1.1 Delphi method. Because of lacking studies that explore the prospect of LC practices
towards CSCM trends, it is worthy to listen to experts from institutions and businesses to
build up initial theories for the field (Akkermans et al., 2003). The Delphi method is chosen
because it facilitates a structured group communication in which experts are individually
allowed to deal with complex issues effectively (Linstone and Turoff, 1975). In conjunction
with building exploratory theories, the Delphi method can be well applied for
interdisciplinary problems that call for analyses of new or future trends (Akkermans et al.,
1999). This method, which motivates individual opinions for group communication, has
significant advantages. Firstly, participants are encouraged to produce more ideas and
share them with the group (Okoli and Pawlowski, 2004). Secondly, individual viewpoints are
shared without being biased by others (Akkermans et al., 1999). Thirdly, the overall result of
the group communication process is not controlled by any individuals (Akkermans et al.,
1999). Finally, the method is suitable to broaden understandings of the specific area in case
problems cannot be recognised by other analytical methods (Hallowell and Gambatese,
2010). As such, the Delphi method is regarded as appropriate for the research context of this
study.
3.1.2 Expert selection for Delphi process. To avoid individual biases influencing the final
result of group communication, a Delphi study necessitates a group size of at least 20
participants (Akkermans et al., 2003). In this study, both academic researchers from
universities and practitioners from the construction industry, who experience in researching
and practicing LC and SCM, were invited to contribute to the Delphi process. These
participants were chosen on the subsequent criteria as follows:
IJLSS
having at least four-year experience;
13,3
having wide knowledge in LC and SCM application; and

being willing to join this research.

Academic participants, who are professors and researchers, were chosen from different
Canadian universities and institutions. Construction practitioners were initially chosen from
570 a Canadian government website (www.statcan.gc.ca) that provides statistics and information
on all Canadian construction companies. Based on the data, invitation letters were sent, in
October 2019, to firms in Quebec and Ontario to participate in the research. The invitation
letters included the descriptions of the study purposes and the relevant concepts of LC and
SCM practices in the construction industry. In a total of 120 invited companies, only 20
representatives of the firms decided to participate. The rejection reasons are as follows:

neither practicing lean nor having knowledge in SCM; or

lacking time to participate.

As a result, there were eight academic researchers and 20 construction practitioners

accepting to be members of the Delphi research process. As such, random sampling was
applied to these two types of participants with rounded probabilities of 28% and 72%,
respectively. The greater quantity of practitioners was selected as this is an exploratory
study in the construction industry where the invited managers and engineers used the
expertise in LC and SCM to improve their project performances. The details of these
participants are presented in Table 3.
3.1.3 Delphi process. In this study, the Delphi process was conducted through the
following five rounds:
(1) clarifying the terms of SCM and LC practices in the construction industry to ensure
all participants to comprehend correctly the terminology;
(2) identifying key trends for CSCM in five upcoming years;
(3) evaluate the weights of key CSCM trends;
(4) evaluate the weights of lean tools using CSCM trends as strategic criteria; and
(5) result discussion to listen to the experts’ ideas about the results.

In this study, Delphi method is integrated with AHP to explore new concepts (CSCM trends,
lean tools for different construction phases) and evaluate their importance through expert
interviews with semi-structured evaluation sheets. Thus, the details of the five above-
mentioned rounds are presented in Section 3.2.

No. of No. of experience

Position participants years (average) Specialisation

Professors 4 10 Construction engineering and management

Researchers (PhD 4 4 Lean and SCM application in construction
candidates and postdocs)
Project managers 10 12 Project managers using lean practices
Table 3. Designers and 5 10 Designers and architectural engineers using
Background of architectural engineers lean practices
participants Site engineers 5 10 Site engineers using lean practices
3.1.4 Delphi integrated with analytic hierarchy process. In this study, Delphi method was Prospect of
used to identify the key CSCM trends which are used as multiple strategic criteria for lean practices
evaluating the lean tools used for different construction phases. Thus, along with Delphi
method, this study needs a multi-criteria decision-making technique to rank the importance
of lean tools. One of the widely used multi-criteria decision-making techniques is the AHP
which facilitates the evaluation of the items and ranking through ratio-scale pairwise
comparisons (Jayakumar et al., 2010). The AHP technique is widely used to enable decision-
571
making by organising perceptions and judgements into a multilevel hierarchical structure
that shows the forces influencing a decision. AHP has been one of the most widely applied
multi-criteria decision-making techniques to solve multi-criteria problems in many areas
(Kabir and Sumi, 2010; Bhattacharya et al., 2010). Thus, in this study, the Delphi method is
combined with the AHP technique to achieve the research objectives. In construction
management, the integrated AHP–Delphi has been used by many scholars such as Gunhan
and Arditi (2005) who applied AHP–Delphi for international expansion decision for
construction companies; Pan (2008) used AHP–Delphi for selecting the suitable bridge
construction method; Vidal et al. (2011) used AHP–Delphi for evaluating the complexity of
projects; Eshtehardian et al. (2013) used AHP–Delphi for effective supplier selection in
construction and civil engineering companies; Luzon and El-Sayegh (2016) implemented
AHP–Delphi for evaluating supplier selection criteria for oil and gas construction projects;
Darko et al. (2019) concluded that AHP–Delphi integration can deal with different types of
decisions and has been widely applied in construction management researches over the past
two decades.
Using AHP technique, it is essential to ensure that the expert opinions are full of
proficiency, harmony and carefulness (Kabir and Sumi, 2010; Bhattacharya et al., 2010). In
this study, we invited experts to join a five-round conference as mentioned below (Section
3.2) instead of sending questionnaires to them by post or email. For each round, the
consistency evaluations among the experts were performed to achieve the consensus before
moving to the next round. At the end of the conference, the final round was conducted for
results discussion to consider if the consensus among the experts is obtained for the final
results. Therefore, it is possible to state that, in this study, the AHP–Delphi process can
generate reliable and consistent results. That is why we use AHP–Delphi instead of fuzzy
AHP–Delphi. However, in cases of uncertain information/evaluations given by experts, the
fuzzy AHP–Delphi method should be preferred.
AHP was established by Saaty (1980) as a decision-making approach using pairwise
comparisons for multiple criteria. Then, based on the experts’ evaluations, the AHP
technique is used to weight these trends and recognise the most important trends. Using
these trends as strategic criteria for LC practices, the AHP technique continues to be used for
weighting and ranking the lean tools for different project phases. The details of the
integrated AHP–Delphi process are presented in the next section. The computational
procedure of AHP pairwise comparisons is presented as follows: Let n denote the number of
factors or criteria. The pairwise comparison matrix is presented as follows:
0 1
a11 . . . a1n
A ¼ ½aij  ¼ @ . . . . . . . . . Aði; j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; nÞ (1)
an1 . . . ann

where aij indicates the ratio scale of the score given by experts for factors i and j; aij > 0; aij =
1/aji when i = j; aij = 1 when i = j. The average values of aij are calculated as follows:
IJLSS 1X n
Wi ¼ aij ði ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; nÞ (2)
13,3 n j¼1


The weight vector W
T
= (W1,. . ., Wn)T is identified as the normalisation of the vector
W ¼ W1 ; . . . ; Wn as follows:
572 Wi
Wi ¼ ð j ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; nÞ (3)
X
n
Wj
j¼1

To check the consistency of the matrix with a large order number n, a consistency index (CI)
is used. The maximum eigenvalue of the matrix and the CI are calculated as follows:

1X n
ð AW Þi
l max ¼ (4)
n i¼1 Wi

l max  n
CI ¼ (5)
n1

The consistency is guaranteed if the value of CI is adequately small. Because the deviation
of consistency can be caused by random reasons, the consistency ratio (CR) needs to be
identified as follows:

CI
CR ¼ (6)
RI

where RI indicates the random CI. The values of RI = (0.000, 0.000, 0.580, 0.090, 1.120, 1.240,
1.320, 1.410, 1.450, 1.490) are standardized for different indexes n = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10),
respectively. If CR # 0.100, then the consistency level is acceptable; but if CR > 0.100, then
an indication of serious inconsistencies is recommended.
One important requirement of using the integrated AHP–Delphi approach is to ensure
that an individual’s feedback is received rapidly and continuously. The feedback plays an
important role as a basis for further group communications for result consistency
(Akkermans et al., 2003). In this study, the participants are asked to join a conference that is
hosted by the research team in early December 2019. All feedbacks from the participants are
anonymous and the evaluation scores given by experts are processed by the software Expert
Choice to ensure quick data analysis.

3.2 Integrated analytic hierarchy process–Delphi process

At the beginning of the AHP–Delphi process, it is important to construct the research base
which clearly states the research framework, and required information that participants are
asked to provide. Thus, the hosts presented to all participants the goals of the conference
day to make sure that all of them can understand and participate effectively:

Goal 1: Identify and weight key trends for CSCM in five upcoming years.

Goal 2: Evaluate the weights of tools for LC practices using these CSCM trends as
strategic criteria.
To achieve these goals, the conference is conducted with the following rounds: Prospect of
(1) Round 1: Clarify the terms of SCM and LC practices in the construction industry: To lean practices
ensure all participants to comprehend correctly the terminology, the host gave a brief
explanation of SCM and lean application in the industry. Generally, this explanation
was made on the summary of the previous section (literature review) of this paper.
(2) Round 2: Identify key trends for CSCM in five upcoming years: Based on the
literature review, the prepared evaluation sheets consisting of 13 critical trends in 573
CSCM were delivered to the expert panel. The participants were asked to evaluate
the importance levels of these trends impacting their business performances in the
upcoming years. The five-point scale (1: not important, 2: lowly important, 3:
moderately important, 4: highly impact, 5: extremely important) was used for the
evaluations. The experts could also add other trends and evaluate these added
trends if they were considered to be important to the construction industry. The
feedback from the experts, which was based on individual and anonymous manners,
leveraged the diversity of feedback content and avoids biases caused by group
discussion (McGrath, 1984). The evaluations from all experts were then collected and
calculated for the statistical values: frequencies, means and deviations. To achieve
the evaluation consensus, the interquartile deviation (IQD) was used for this round
following the instructions of Rayens and Hahn (2000). The IQD presents the
difference between the 75th and 25th percentiles. The smaller values of IQD indicate
the greater extents of consensus. For the five-point scaled assessments, an IQD of
1.000 or less is considered as an indicator of consensus (von der Gracht, 2012). The
result of this round is shown in Table 4 which shows that the IQDs of the
evaluations for all SCM trends are less than 1.000. This indicates that the evaluations
from all panel experts achieve the consensus. The trends, with means being less than
the average score (2.5 out of 5), are removed as they are considered as unimportant
trends for the construction industry. As a result, there are seven trends of CSCM
remained for the next round (shown in Table 4).
(3) Round 3: Evaluate the weights of key CSCM trends: AHP was used to weight and
rank the relevant factors. The AHP hierarchical structure used for this study is
presented in Figure 1. As a starting point for the AHP process, in this round, the
experts were asked to perform the pairwise comparisons of importance levels for the
seven identified trends of CSCM. The pairwise comparisons were conducted through
using a nine-point scale of Saaty (1980) as follows: 1 (equal importance: both
elements have equal contribution in the objective); 3 (moderate importance: the
moderate advantage of the one element compared to the other); 5 (strong importance:
strong favouring of one element compared to the other); 7 (very strong and proven
importance: one element is strongly favoured and has domination in practice,
compared to the other element); 9 (extreme importance: one element is favoured in
comparison with the other based on strongly proved evidence and facts); 2, 4, 6, 8
(intermediate values). Data received from experts are processed by the software
Expert Choice for AHP analysis. The weights and rankings of the CSCM trends are
presented in Table 5, which shows that the consistency ratio (CR = 0.030) is less than
0.100 ensuring consistency among participants’ evaluations.
(4) Round 4: Evaluate the weights of lean tools using CSCM trends as strategic
criteria: Based on the literature review of LC practices, the prepared evaluation
sheets consisting of 32 efficient tools for LC practices were sent to the experts.
Although the literature review reports many possible lean tools for the
IJLSS Trends Descriptions Mean IQD Removed
13,3
#1 Lean SCM Lean construction supply chain 4.280 0.500 No
management to improve construction
performances
#2 SC integration Further external integration of 4.170 1.000 No
activities among supply chain actors
574 #3 SC standardisation Process standardisation and 4.090 0.000 No
alignment among supply chain actors
#4 SC problem-solving Problem-solving focused culture 3.700 0.500 No
across the supply chain
#5 SC information Full information exchange among 3.450 0.000 No
supply chain actors
#6 SC flexibility Flexibility to meet complicated 3.060 0.000 No
supply chain demands
#7 SC sustainability Sustainable and green construction 2.800 0.500 No
supply chain
#8 SC driver Role of supply chain driver for 2.390 0.000 Yes
logistics coordination
#9 SC technology Advanced technologies for supply 2.320 0.000 Yes
chain management
#10 SC trust Long-term trust and transparency 2.300 0.500 Yes
among supply chain actors
#11 SC risk Risk-sharing among supply chain 2.280 0.000 Yes
actors
#12 TPL Further outsourcing and third-party 2.250 1.000 Yes
Table 4.
logistics to improve construction
Evaluations of logistics
construction supply #13 SC measurement Common performance measurements 2.200 0.000 Yes
chain management and feedback systems for supply
trends chain actors

Figure 1.
AHP hierarchical
structure used for this
study
 construction industry; however, in this study, only 32 lean tools (which are Prospect of
grouped into four categories: design and engineering; planning and control; lean practices
construction and site management; and health and safety management) were
selected for evaluations because they are approved by previous scholars as
productive practices for the industry (Babalola et al., 2019). Owing to the
fragmented and project-based nature of the construction industry, which is
different from the manufacturing sector, the preliminary selection of these lean
tools for the experts’ evaluations is necessary to eliminate the inappropriate tools. 575
In this round, the experts were invited to perform the pairwise comparisons of
importance levels for the 32 lean tools contributing to each CSCM trend. As such,
the seven identified trends were used as seven strategic criteria for lean tool
comparisons. The pairwise comparisons were also conducted through using a
nine-point scale of Saaty (1980) as follows:

Data received from experts were also processed by the software Expert Choice
for AHP analysis. The weights of all lean tools contributing to each CSCM
trend were computed through the pairwise comparison process. The result of
AHP analysis, as presented in Table 6, shows that the CR for all CSCM trends
(lean SC: 0.018; SC integration: 0.035; SC standardisation: 0.029; SC problem-
solving: 0.055; SC information: 0.038; SC flexibility: 0.019; SC sustainability:
0.014) are less than 0.100 ensuring the consistency among experts’ evaluations.

The AHP result was presented to the expert panel for approval. The consensus
for this round was guaranteed by a qualitative technique called “post-group
consensus”. This technique recognises the extent to which every panel member,
after this round, has individually agreed with the aggregate result from the
panel (von der Gracht, 2012). All panel members, who were individually asked
to justify the result, agreed with the result.
(5) Round 5: Result discussion: This final round was conducted to listen to the
experts’ ideas about the results, especially their discussions about the roles of
efficient lean tools for the performance improvement in CSCM for upcoming years.
Their ideas were used as the base for the managerial implications for construction
managers in lean applications.

4. Research results
4.1 Top seven construction supply chain management trends
The first goal of the AHP–Delphi workshop (rounds 1–3) is to identify and weight key
trends for CSCM in five upcoming years. Table 4 presents top seven CSCM trends with the

Trends Weight Ranking

Lean SCM 0.205 1

SC integration 0.195 2
SC standardisation 0.147 3
Table 5.
SC problem-solving 0.146 4
SC information sharing 0.111 5 Weights and ranking
SC flexibility 0.105 6 of construction
SC sustainability 0.091 7 supply chain
CI = 0.040; CR = 0.030 management trends
 13,3

576

trends
IJLSS

Table 6.

contributing to

chain management
construction supply
Weights of lean tools
Category Lean tools Construction supply chain management trends
Lean Overall
SCM SC integration SC standardisation SC problem solving SC information SC flexibility SC sustainability weight
(0.205) (0.195) (0.147) (0.146) (0.111) (0.105) (0.091)

Tools for design Virtual design 0.059 0.074 0.056 0.067 0.086 0.072 0.055 0.067
and engineering construction
Integrated project 0.036 0.086 0.045 0.055 0.073 0.046 0.049 0.056
delivery
Concurrent 0.041 0.076 0.047 0.042 0.072 0.046 0.050 0.054
engineering
Design workshops 0.030 0.054 0.021 0.039 0.052 0.070 0.034 0.042
Design 0.041 0.036 0.077 0.037 0.020 0.012 0.050 0.040
standardisation
Prefabrication and 0.043 0.045 0.042 0.034 0.020 0.020 0.046 0.037
modularisation
Detailed briefing 0.017 0.023 0.010 0.016 0.015 0.070 0.008 0.021
Target value design 0.016 0.021 0.010 0.014 0.015 0.046 0.018 0.019
Design structure 0.017 0.019 0.031 0.012 0.015 0.012 0.009 0.017
matrix
Tools for Last planner system 0.072 0.046 0.065 0.058 0.055 0.030 0.050 0.055
planning and Value stream 0.048 0.046 0.038 0.065 0.027 0.066 0.031 0.047
control mapping
6 Sigma 0.043 0.023 0.030 0.066 0.021 0.044 0.049 0.039
Work structuring and 0.052 0.032 0.058 0.023 0.020 0.028 0.032 0.037
scheduling
Benchmarking 0.016 0.018 0.026 0.035 0.036 0.067 0.018 0.032
Daily cluster or 0.030 0.044 0.028 0.040 0.030 0.017 0.049 0.031
huddle meeting
Location-based 0.022 0.016 0.038 0.013 0.025 0.018 0.012 0.021
management system
Error proofing (Poka- 0.025 0.012 0.021 0.027 0.017 0.011 0.018 0.019
yoke)
(continued)
Category Lean tools Construction supply chain management trends
Lean Overall
SCM SC integration SC standardisation SC problem solving SC information SC flexibility SC sustainability weight
(0.205) (0.195) (0.147) (0.146) (0.111) (0.105) (0.091)

Pull scheduling/ 0.015 0.016 0.010 0.019 0.019 0.017 0.008 0.015
planning
Tools for Conference 0.031 0.039 0.028 0.026 0.075 0.039 0.012 0.035
construction and management
site management Teamwork and 0.030 0.044 0.022 0.030 0.048 0.040 0.012 0.033
partnering
Gemba walk 0.038 0.025 0.038 0.040 0.030 0.017 0.018 0.031
Total quality 0.023 0.040 0.035 0.030 0.020 0.024 0.031 0.030
management
Kaizen 0.024 0.014 0.024 0.044 0.028 0.041 0.048 0.030
First run study 0.030 0.025 0.037 0.029 0.027 0.040 0.018 0.030
5S on-site 0.044 0.021 0.040 0.027 0.016 0.017 0.031 0.030
management
Visualisation tools 0.036 0.010 0.027 0.018 0.013 0.010 0.031 0.021
Total productive 0.023 0.016 0.021 0.016 0.016 0.011 0.012 0.021
maintenance
Just-in-time 0.022 0.014 0.020 0.012 0.019 0.016 0.055 0.017
Kanban system 0.017 0.014 0.010 0.016 0.019 0.011 0.008 0.014
Tools for health Fail safe for quality 0.031 0.025 0.028 0.030 0.046 0.024 0.047 0.031
and safety and safety
Plan of work 0.015 0.012 0.010 0.011 0.013 0.011 0.047 0.015
environment
Health and safety 0.014 0.012 0.009 0.010 0.013 0.011 0.047 0.015
improvement
Total 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
Consistency ratio 0.018 0.035 0.029 0.055 0.038 0.019 0.014
(CR)
lean practices

Table 6.
577
Prospect of
IJLSS highest scores: Lean SCM (trend #1, 4.280), SC integration (trend #2, 4.170), SC
13,3 standardisation (trend #3, 4.090), SC problem-solving (trend #4, 3.700), SC information
(trend #5, 3.450), SC flexibility (trend #6, 3.060) and SC sustainability (trend #7, 2.800).
The weights and ranking of these trends are presented in Table 5.
The experts have the highest consensus that lean SCM has a great opportunity to
enhance the performances of construction projects (trend #1). They believe that lean SCM is
578 one of the central means for on-going transformation in the construction industry, which
leverages delay reduction, cost decrease and quality improvement for building projects.
There is empirical evidence that lean SCM can facilitate the cooperation and information
sharing between SC actors of construction networks. However, to apply the concept of lean
SCM effectively in the construction industry, there is a need for further external integration
among SC actors (trend #2). This means the more involvement and collaboration of SC
actors (general contractors, suppliers, sub-contractors, designers and clients/owners) are
required. Experts state that the SC integration creates an opportunity for the productivity
increase of construction design and execution because all the relevant actors are required to
participate and contribute to the addition in client values from the design phase to the
delivery phase of a building. Normally, CSC actors manage several concurrent projects;
therefore, they tend to concentrate on improving their own business efficiency to achieve
immediate economic advantages instead of enhancing SC performances. As such, the SC
integration is strongly suggested for CSC actors to mitigate the non-compliance risks among
them.
SC standardisation (trend #3) is also the trend that receives a high score from the experts.
Standardisation involves the associated tasks that SC actors need to focus on, such as work
sequencing and process control. The experts claim that construction firms need to
standardise repetitive processes and create efficient methods of quality, time, cost and safety
practices for which the relevant actors can strictly follow. An efficient SC standardisation
also enables the SC actors to take part in the design process and enhance the current SC
standards. To deal with challenges of a CSC with temporary nature and complexity, the
experts support the idea that a problem-solving focused culture needs to be built across the
CSC (trend #4). For this trend, an early cautioning mechanism is established for the entire
CSC network. This mechanism facilitates relevant SC actors to predict and prevent potential
problems before being too late. SC actors are expected to join the cooperative problem-
solving sessions which focus on problem analysis, experiential learning and sharing to
avoid the repetitive problems in construction design and operations. Problem-solving
culture can be formulated by expertise groups who play an active role in facilitating relevant
SC actors to track progress, identify problems and give advice on specific tasks. The other
trend that leverages the application of SCM in the construction industry is the full
information sharing among SC actors (trend #5). In terms of SC information, the experts
suggest that the CSC actors should improve interoperability which is defined as the ability
to exchange information and exploit the exchanged information between two or more
construction firms. Formal and/or informal meetings and workshops can be established for
sharing the learned lessons and innovations which are vital for the continuous improvement
in construction projects.
CSC network is a complexity in which SC performances are determined by hundreds of
decisions from multiple independent firms. Most construction projects face the uncertainties
which require SC flexibility to respond more quickly to demands and opportunities (trend
#6). Flexibility in construction projects reflects the ability in quick response to demand
changes through design flexibility. The experts advise that SC actors should anticipate and
incorporate flexibility into the building design at the early planning phase of construction
projects. When a project develops in the later phase, it can be more difficult for flexibility to Prospect of
be incorporated as strategies. For this trend, BIM can facilitate the design flexibility through lean practices
its expansion from 3D to nD design modelling (for instance, 4 D-scheduling, 5 D-budgeting,
6 D-sustainability). The final trend that the experts recognise for the application of SCM in
the construction industry is SC sustainability (trend #7). SC sustainability aims to solve
environmental issues using methods of emission reduction, energy consumption or non-
sustainable materials reduction. Efficient SC sustainability seeks a solution that balances
the economic, social and environmental dimensions. The experts state that the challenge of 579
today’s construction projects is to minimise the operation and maintenance costs and
improve health and safety for construction workers under the consideration of reducing
resource consumptions and the material and energy wastes.

4.2 Importance levels of lean practices towards construction supply chain management
trends
The second goal of the AHP–Delphi workshop (round 4) is to evaluate the weights of the
tools for lean practices contributing to the identified CSCM trends. Table 6 presents the
weights of all evaluated lean tools which are grouped into the following four categories of
lean practices:
(1) design and engineering;
(2) planning and control;
(3) construction and site management; and
(4) health and safety management.

Based on the results, the experts suggest that the tools, which receive the weight scores of
0.300 or more, are considered as the ones having important contributions to the CSCM
trends.
The most important trend – Lean SCM – focuses on four key elements: customer focus,
continuous improvement, waste minimisation and learning and innovation. Although all the
tools support the lean practices in the construction industry, the experts recognise that some
of them can highly leverage the applications of lean philosophy and SCM to improve the
construction project performances. In the phase of design and engineering practices,
the tools are strongly suggested for lean SCM including VDC (0.059), prefabrication and
modularization (0.043), concurrent engineering (0.041), design standardisation (0.041),
integrated project delivery (0.036) and design workshops (0.030). In the phase of planning
and control practices, the lean tools get the highest scores consisting of last planner system
(0.072), work structuring and scheduling (0.052), VSM (0.048), 6 sigma (0.043) and daily
cluster or huddle meeting (0.030). For the construction operations and site management
practices, the experts suggest the use of the following tools: 5S on-site management (0.044),
Gemba walk (0.038), visualisation tools (0.036), conference management (0.031), teamwork
and partnering (0.030) and first run study (0.030). Finally, the fail-safe for quality and
safety (0.031) is the tool that is useful for health and safety management practice.
For the other CSCM trends (SC integration, SC standardisation, SC problem-solving, SC
information, SC flexibility and SC sustainability), the lean tools receiving the high
evaluations from experts for each project phase are also highlighted in Table 6. It is
meaningful to note that VDC and last planner system are the two critical tools that have the
strongest supports to all of the CSCM trends.
An important objective of this study is to evaluate the weights of lean tools contributing
to seven identified CSCM trends. Thus, an overall evaluation of these lean tools is significant
IJLSS to recommend the managerial implications for construction managers in practicing lean
13,3 tools to enhance construction project performances. Overall, VDC (0.067), integrated project
delivery (0.056), concurrent engineering (0.054) and design workshops (0.042) are the most
important lean tools which highly support all CSCM trends in the phase of design and
engineering. Along with these tools, design standardisation (0.040) and prefabrication and
modularization (0.037) are also the recommended design and engineering tools which
580 enhance the project performances. Meanwhile, last planner system (0.055) and VSM (0.047)
are the strongest lean tools that are highly supportive to all CSCM trends for planning and
control practices. Together with these tools, 6 sigma (0.039), work structuring and
scheduling (0.037), benchmarking (0.032) and daily cluster or huddle meeting (0.031) are
also suggested to be highly appropriate for the phase of planning and control of construction
projects. Besides, conference management (0.035), teamwork and partnering (0.033),
Gemba walk (0.031), total quality management (0.030), kaizen (0.030), first run study
(0.030) and 5S on-site management (0.030) are the tools which are suggested for lean
practices in the phase of construction operations and site management. Finally, to practice
health and safety management in construction projects, fail-safe for quality and safety
(0.031) is the only recommended tool.
Based on the results, Figure 2 is created to present the selection of lean tools for the four
categories of LC practices: design and architectural engineering; planning and control;
construction and site management; and health and safety management. This selection is
based on the overall weights of the lean tools contributing to all the CSCM trends for the
upcoming years.

4.3 Sensitivity analysis

As shown in Table 5, among seven selected trends, the four most important CSCM trends
are lean SCM, SC integration, SC standardisation and SC problem-solving. Thus, we
consider how changes in weights of these trends impact the selection of lean tools for each
construction phase. To do so, for each sensitivity analysis, we focus on one trend to see
which tools should be selected if we set the weight of this trend as 0.5 and the total weight of
the other six trends as 0.5 (each trend weights 0.5/6). For example, as in the first sensitivity

Figure 2.
Priorities of lean tools
contributing to
construction supply
chain management
trends
analysis, we focus on the trend “lean SCM,” we set the weights for seven trends as the Prospect of
following: lean SCM (0.5), SC integration (0.5/6), SC standardisation (0.5/6), SC problem- lean practices
solving (0.5/6), SC information (0.5/6), SC flexibility (0.5/6) and SC sustainability (0.5/6). A
similar application if we focus on other trends: SC integration, SC standardisation and SC
problem-solving. The results of sensitivity analyses are presented in Figures 3 and 4.
As presented in Figure 3, focusing on the trend “lean SCM,” the tools selected for design
and architectural engineering practices are VDC, concurrent engineering, integrated project
delivery, design standardisation, prefabrication and modularization and design workshops. 581
The tools chosen for planning and control practices are last planner system, VSM, work
structuring and scheduling, 6 sigma and daily cluster or huddle meeting. For construction
and site management, the selected tools include 5S on-site management, conference

Figure 3.
Sensitivity analysis
for major trends: lean
SCM trend and SC
integration trend

Figure 4.
Sensitivity analysis
for major trends: SC
standardisation trend
and SC problem-
solving trend
IJLSS management, Gemba walk, teamwork and partnering, first run study and Kaizen. Finally,
13,3 “fail safe for quality and safety” is selected as the tool for health and safety management.
Figures 3 and 4 also present the results of selected tools if we focus on the three trends:
SC integration, SC standardisation and SC problem-solving. Overall, regardless the focused
trends, “VDC,” “last planner system” and “fail safe for quality and safety” are chosen,
respectively, as the most important tools for design and architectural engineering practices,
582 planning and control practices and health and safety management practices. However, there
are differences in tools applied for the different focused trends for construction and site
management practices. On-site construction practices aim at “5S on-site management” and
“conference management” to focus on “lean SCM” trend while “conference management”
and “teamwork and partnering” are the most important tools for the trend “SC integration.”
Towards the trend “SC standardisation,” on-site construction practices leverage “Gemba
walk” and “5S on-site management” as the most useful tools while the trend “SC problem-
solving” prefers the tools “kaizen” and “Gemba walk.”

5. Discussions
5.1 Lean tools recommended for construction practices
5.1.1 Lean tools for design and architectural engineering practices. For the phase of design
and architectural engineering, the experts highly recommend the VDC including BIM. There
are empirical shreds of evidence showing that BIM supports the lean CSM (trend #1)
through reducing the design-development life cycle, decreasing rework and improving the
predictability of investment and life-cycle costs (Le et al., 2020). Well-defined BIM scope and
communications across multiple SC tiers can improve SC actors’ collaborations, which
contribute to SC integration (trend #2) (Papadonikolaki and Wamelink, 2017). BIM can
facilitate the SC standardisation (trend #3) through producing an object structure that uses
recognised codes for all objects of the building. Based on this, the object libraries are
generated to facilitate the data standardisation for design and execution processes (Siebelink
et al., 2018). Besides, BIM-based mechanism, which prevents potential problems occurring in
construction projects, can be established (trend #4). For instance, BIM-based clash
detections can be used for the early phase of design to recognise the probable
constructability problems before the construction operations start (Le et al., 2019). BIM
models can also provide the visualisation that supports the designers in developing project
details and integrating 3D object components from multiple SC actors (trend #5). The
flexibility and expansion of BIM from 3D to nD models can facilitate the modelling of
diversified issues in CSC networks, which respond quickly to the complicated SC demands
and opportunities (trend #6). Using BIM and other tools of VDC can support the SC
sustainability (trend #7) by decreasing the dependency level on fossil fuel and paperwork
from the design to the construction operations, which helps to achieve the efficiency in
energy-based buildings. The results support the reasoning in studies of Grilo and Jardim-
Goncalves (2010); Ding et al. (2014); and Nikakhtar et al. (2015), which confirm that BIM and
other tools of VDC can leverage the information exchange among the SC actors, enhance the
flexibility responding to complicated SC demands and promote the sustainability of
construction projects.
The other tools that the experts highly recommend for design and architectural
engineering practices are integrated project delivery, concurrent engineering and design
workshops. Integrated project delivery practice leverages the early participation of key SC
actors to solve current problems in CSC projects causing low efficiency, high rework,
excessive cost and duration and fragmented information exchange (Roy et al., 2018).
Meanwhile, concurrent engineering facilitates collaborative information sharing among SC
actors to produce an integrated and concurrent design, thus enables the reduction in the Prospect of
turnaround time and reduces errors in the entire project delivery process (Babalola et al., lean practices
2019). In a similar approach, design workshops can remove difficulties and leverage creative
ideas for design solutions (Babalola et al., 2019). Therefore, these lean tools (integrated
project delivery, concurrent engineering and design workshops) are recognised to contribute
to most of the CSCM trends, especially to the facilitation of SC integration (trend #2), the
creation of SC problem-solving interface (trend #4) and the encouragement of SC
583
information sharing (trend #5). Meanwhile, design standardisation and prefabrication and
modularisation are the other tools that the experts also mention for design and architectural
engineering practices in construction projects. These two tools strongly support the trend of
SC standardisation (trend #3). The results support the reasoning in the study of Babalola
et al. (2019), which confirms the important roles of these lean tools for design and
architectural engineering practices.
5.1.2 Lean tools for project planning and control. The central tool for project planning
and control is last planner system which is highly suggested by the experts in the
construction industry. The last planner system integrates the main components: master
schedule, phase schedule, look-ahead schedule, weekly work plan to formulise effective
coordination, construction planning and project delivery. The last planner system is agreed
by the experts to support all important trends of CSCM as it leverages continuous
improvement commitment, plan reliability, variability reduction, cost savings and
facilitation of SC integration. The results support the reasoning in studies of AlSehaimi et al.
(2014); Babalola et al. (2019); and Aslam et al. (2020b), which highly recommend the
application of last planner system for construction project planning and control.
The other tools recommended for construction planning and control are VSM and 6
sigma. With their strengths in visualisation and root cause analysis, VSM and 6 sigma are
also recommended by the experts to support most of the CSCM trends for the upcoming
years. This finding supports the rationale of Ramani and KSD (2019) and Siddiqui et al.
(2016), who focus on VSM and/or 6 sigma to recognise the root causes, enhance productivity,
facilitate cost reduction and achieve higher customer services. Besides, work structuring
and scheduling is recommended for work variability reduction. The experts believe that this
tool strongly supports the trend of SC standardisation for SC actors’ work processes. To
motivate teamwork success in construction projects, the experts also suggest benchmarking
and daily cluster or huddle meeting as these tools leverage team motivation, team
communication and team problem-solving. The results have the common points with the
reasoning in studies of Al-Aomar (2012a); Babalola et al. (2019); and Aslam et al. (2020b),
which promote these tools to enhance the construction processes and improve the teamwork
efficiency for construction projects.
5.1.3 Lean tools for on-site construction and safety management. For construction and
site management, the experts agree to suggest the lean tools that focus on problem-solving
and continuous improvement of construction operations on the site. Conference
management and teamwork and partnering are the two tools aiming at promoting the
collaboration of relevant actors, whereas Gemba walk and total quality management are
suggested as the best practices for problem-solving on the construction site. These practices
focus on leveraging the collaboration of all relevant actors, identifying and evaluating
possible problems, developing and implementing new solutions and assessing results.
These experts’ recommendations match the statements of Johansen and Walter (2007);
Ansah and Sorooshian (2017); and Babalola et al. (2019), who confirm the essential roles of
these tools in collaborating on-site workers and facilitating on-site problem-solving.
IJLSS Focusing on on-site continuous improvement, the experts recommend the following tools:
13,3 first run study, kaizen and 5S on-site management. These tools are considered as very useful
practices for modelling important construction operations and achieving good conditions for
construction site. These experts’ recommendations share the common points with
suggestions of Aslam et al. (2020b), who confirm the essential roles of these tools for
continuous improvement of construction site processes and activities.
584 For on-site safety management, the experts suggest the tool fail-safe for quality and
safety. The result matches the reasonings of Babalola et al. (2019) and Aslam et al. (2020b),
who believe that this practice helps ensure the safety of all employees on the construction
site by predicting potential risks and taking actions to prevent them. The practice of fail-safe
for quality and safety facilitates defect control, process variabilities reduction and safety
insurance.

5.2 Managerial implications

5.2.1 Implications for construction managers. The research results show that VDC,
especially BIM is the strategic tool for the phase of design and architectural engineering.
Whereas, last planner system is the central lean practice for the phase of project planning
and control. The results support the findings of previous studies such as Babalola et al.
(2019) and Aslam et al. (2020b). To propose the implications for construction managers to
practice the lean tools in CSC projects, Figure 5 is created to present the framework for lean
application that construction managers can follow to improve their project performances.
As shown in Figure 5, at the first phase of CSC project (design and architectural
engineering), the other lean tools can be integrated with the main tool, VDC, to achieve the
strategic targets. The seven important trends in CSCM are set as the strategic targets to
ensure the efficiency of lean SCM application for construction projects. As discussed above,
VDC, especially BIM can help relevant SC actors to create productive architectural and
engineering designs through targeting the seven trends. During this phase, the project
manager needs to integrate the early participation of relevant SC actors for efficient
decision-making, such as designers for developing detailed drawings, key suppliers for
assessing the issues related to materials, subcontractors for evaluating potential
constructability problems happening during the project. Thus, the project manager is
recommended to apply one of the three tools: integrated project delivery, concurrent
engineering or design workshops along with VDC to facilitate SC collaboration, trusted
relationship, information sharing and reduction of contracting issues. Besides, decisions of
standardisation and modularisation of project components can considerably impact the
project’s total cost and schedule. Thus, the project manager needs to ask the designers and
subcontractors to have the commitments for the application of the two tools (design
standardisation for the designers and prefabrication and modularisation for the
subcontractors) to achieve the economy of scale for modules manufacturing or get the price
discounts from fabrication firms.
Construction projects rely on teams, in which each team focuses on specific tasks with
their expertise and transfers their product to the next teams to formalise the final product.
Hence, for the phase of project planning and control, the project manager has to take into
account the tactical targets: involving all relevant actors’ expertise for planning and control,
planning safe and reliable workflow and providing the framework for construction teams to
follow. Last planner system is applied as the major tool for construction planning and
control to eliminate impacts of process variabilities and achieve project efficiency through
learning and collaboration among relevant actors. To enhance the process planning and
 Prospect of
lean practices

585

Figure 5.
Framework for lean
practices in
construction supply
chain projects
IJLSS control for construction projects, the project manager is suggested to apply last planner
13,3 system integrated with the following:

VSM to leverage the process visualisation and reduce the non-value-added
activities;

6 sigma to recognise the root causes and reduce process variability; or

work structuring and scheduling to increase work standardisation and reduce
586 process variability.

Besides, the project manager should integrate benchmarking or daily cluster or huddle
meeting with last planner system to plan for team collaboration and problem-solving.
To achieve efficiency for the operations of on-site construction, it requires the following
aspects: on-site collaboration, on-site problem solving, on-site improvement and on-site
safety. The project manager can consider the application of conference management or
teamwork and partnering to facilitate the collaboration and cooperation of relevant
participants on the construction site. Meanwhile, Gemba walk or total quality management
can be recommended for the project manager for on-site problem-solving among the actors
of construction teams. Besides, activities and conditions of the construction site need to be
improved continuously to ensure the operational productivity and safety for construction
teams. Thus, the project manager should focus on implementing the first-run study, kaizen
and 5S independently or together to prevent errors, enhance the on-site conditions and
facilitate continuous improvement. These tools support continuous improvement by
practicing many small changes, which do not require large capital investment and
encourage on-site actors to take ownership of their work, strengthen teamwork, and thereby
advance work motivation. Besides, the project manager can practice the lean tool, fail-safe
for quality and safety, to ensure the construction quality and guarantee the safety of all
employees on the construction site. Once managers apply these tools appropriately, they can
help to achieve cost savings, work quality increase, project time reduction and inventory
and rework reduction.
5.2.2 Implications for construction practitioners. For the phase of design and
architectural engineering, the main contractor, who plays a role as the project manager
and SC driver, is recommended to apply VDC to create productivity in architectural and
engineering designs. The other practitioners, especially the designers are required to join
and share the data related to architectural design and engineering with the project manager
and other relevant actors through VDC system. The designers are responsible for
developing detailed drawings that specify the bill of materials and evaluating potential
constructability problems of buildings. Thus, the design companies have to follow the
application of the tools for design process improvements, such as integrated project
delivery, concurrent engineering or design workshops, which can be alternatively selected
by the project manager. Together with the designers, the participation commitments of
other practitioners such as key suppliers and subcontractors in the design processes are
very important to ensure the constructability of buildings and satisfy the client’s demands.
Usually, for this phase, the practitioners such as key suppliers and subcontractors are not
invited to participate in design processes, thus causing potential problems related to the
materials supply and building’s constructability. As a result, wastes due to delays and
reworks make the cost increase and impact the project schedule. Besides, design companies
need to apply design standardisation to improve the design processes and facilitate the
constructability, whereas the main contractor and subcontractors are required to implement
prefabrication and modularisation to increase the installation productivity of modular Prospect of
components. lean practices
To improve the process planning and control for construction projects, last planner
system is recommended to apply. To achieve the success of using this system, all
practitioners (including main contractor’s workers and subcontractors’ workers) on the
construction site have to plan and control their workload. The practitioners are required to
collaborate to identify which work must be finished and which phase of the project must be
completed before starting the next phase. The practitioner, who controls when the next 587
phase begins, is called the last planner. In a big construction project, each phase of the
project must have a last planner. Therefore, last planner system requires every practitioner
on the construction site to be treated as a stakeholder who tracks and assigns accountability
through entire workflows. The last planners need to analyse the following for their planning
and control:

Percent plan complete: The analysis considers the accomplishment percentage of
weekly tasks. The result helps practitioners recognise what is going wrong during
the week, and determine their adjustments for the next week.

Tasks made ready: Last planners can check if the work schedule is strictly followed.
If there exist fewer tasks to get ready than being planned, then the practitioners
need to explore the root causes of the problems and decide the solutions for the
improvement.

Tasks anticipated: Last planners consider how many tasks are specified for the
forthcoming week. This helps practitioners acknowledge how much work should be
determined week by week. The task anticipation also facilitates the understanding
of what contributes to more efficiency one week or less efficiency in another week.

Finally, the operations of on-site construction require all practitioners to collaborate for
problem-solving, improvement and safety warranty. Thus, teamwork and partnering
should be applied to enhance teamwork efficiency and increase the commitments of all
workers on the construction site. The practitioners need to be trained to report the problems
and identify the root causes of what is going wrong at their workplace through the
application of Gemba walk or total quality management. Besides, all practitioners also need
to participate in the process of continuous improvement by practicing many small changes
in their working area and enhancing the construction site conditions with the instructions of
applying on-site kaizen and 5S. For on-site safety, all practitioners have to be asked to follow
the principles of fail-safe for quality and safety, to guarantee no worker is harmed on the
construction site by predicting potential risks and take measures aiming at preventing the
risks.

6. Conclusions
By using an integrated AHP–Delphi technique, this study recognises seven key CSCM
trends for the upcoming years including lean SCM, SC integration, SC standardisation, SC
problem-solving, SC information sharing, SC flexibility and SC sustainability. Using these
trends as strategic criteria for the evaluation of lean tools, the prioritisation of LC practices is
recommended for construction project phases: design and architectural engineering,
planning and control, on-site construction and safety management.
Based on the results, this study gives the managerial implications for construction
managers and practitioners by developing an application framework of LC practices for CSC
projects. The framework promotes VDC, especially BIM, as the strategic tool for the phase of
IJLSS design and architectural engineering. Meanwhile, the framework considers last planner
13,3 system as the central LC practice for the phase of project planning and control. The
framework also focuses on the improvement of efficiency in construction operations by
taking into account the aspects of on-site collaboration, on-site problem-solving, on-site
improvement and on-site safety.
The prioritisation of LC practices in this study is based on the identified construction
588 SCM trends, which can vary owing to the selection of the expert panel. The experts chosen
for this study are scholars and construction managers in Canada. Although the experts have
experience in global construction projects, their evaluations for construction SCM trends
and lean practices mostly focus on the context of the Canadian construction industry. Thus,
the results of this study are limited to apply to a specific country instead of a global
generalisation. To deal with this limitation, further research is suggested to validate the
construction SCM trends in different contexts such as different countries or different
construction sectors. Besides, the AHP–Delphi approach used in this study does not take
into account the uncertainties in experts’ evaluations; thus, to deal with this limitation,
further research should consider the fuzzy AHP–Delphi method to facilitate a more accurate
description of uncertain and ambiguous knowledge of experts. Finally, the framework for
LC practices in construction SC projects is conceptually based on the research results; thus,
further research is also recommended to validate the application aspects of the framework in
real projects.

References
Akkermans, H., Bogerd, P. and Vos, B. (1999), “Virtuous and vicious cycles on the road towards
international supply chain management”, International Journal of Operations and Production
Management, Vol. 19 Nos 5/6, pp. 565-582.
Akkermans, H.A., Bogerd, P., Yücesan, E. and van Wassenhove, L.N. (2003), “The impact of ERP on
supply chain management: exploratory findings from a European Delphi study”, European
Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 146 No. 2, pp. 284-301.
Al-Aomar, R. (2012a), “A lean construction framework with six sigma rating”, International Journal of
Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 299-314.
Al-Aomar, R. (2012b), “Analysis of lean construction practices at Abu Dhabi construction industry”,
Lean Construction Journal, pp. 105-121, available at: https://www.leanconstruction.org/media/
docs/lcj/2012/LCJ_12_006.pdf (accessed 4 June 2020).
Albalkhy, W. and Sweis, R. (2020), “Barriers to adopting lean construction in the construction industry:
a literature review”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 1-27, doi: 10.1108/
IJLSS-12-2018-0144. (accessed 20 November 2020).
Almutairi, A.M., Salonitis, K. and Al-Ashaab, A. (2020), “A framework for implementing lean principles
in the supply chain management at health-care organizations”, International Journal of Lean Six
Sigma, Vol. 11 No. 3, pp. 463-492.
Aloini, D., Dulmin, R., Mininno, V. and Ponticelli, S. (2012), “Supply chain management: a review of
implementation risks in the construction industry”, Business Process Management Journal,
Vol. 18 No. 5, pp. 735-761.
AlSehaimi, A.O., Fazenda, P.T. and Koskela, L. (2014), “Improving construction management practice
with the last planner system: a case study”, Engineering, Construction and Architectural
Management, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 51-64.
Alves, T.C.L., Milberg, C. and Walsh, K.D. (2012), “Exploring lean construction practice, research,
and education”, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 19 No. 5,
pp. 512-525.
Andersen, B., Belay, A.M. and Seim, E.M. (2012), “Lean construction practices and its effects: a case at Prospect of
St Olav’s integrated hospital, Norway”, Lean Construction Journal, pp. 122-149, available at:
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2622825 (accessed 4 June 2020).
lean practices
Ansah, R.H. and Sorooshian, S. (2017), “Effect of lean tools to control external environment risks of
construction projects”, Sustainable Cities and Society, Vol. 32, pp. 348-356.
Aslam, M., Gao, Z. and Smith, G. (2020a), “Framework for selection of lean construction tools based on
lean objectives and functionalities”, International Journal of Construction Management, pp. 1-12,
doi: 10.1080/15623599.2020.1729933. (accessed 4 June 2020). 589
Aslam, M., Gao, Z. and Smith, G. (2020b), “Development of innovative integrated last planner system
(ILPS)”, International Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 701-715.
Aziz, F.R. and Hafez, M.S. (2013), “Applying lean thinking in construction and performance
improvement”, Alexandria Engineering Journal, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 679-695.
Babalola, O., Ibem, E.O. and Ezema, I.C. (2019), “Implementation of lean practices in the construction
industry: a systematic review”, Building and Environment, Vol. 148, pp. 34-43.
Bankvall, L., Bygballe, L.E., Dubois, A. and Jahre, M. (2010), “Interdependence in supply chains and
projects in construction”, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 15 No. 5,
pp. 385-393.
Belhadi, A., Touriki, F.E. and Elfezazi, S. (2019), “Evaluation of critical success factors (CSFs) to lean
implementation in SMEs using AHP: a case study”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma,
Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 803-829.
Bhattacharya, A., Geraghty, J. and Young, P. (2010), “Supplier selection paradigm: an integrated
hierarchical QFD methodology under multiple-criteria environment”, Applied Soft Computing,
Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 1013-1027.
Bygballe, L.E., Endresen, M. and Fålun, S. (2018), “The role of formal and informal mechanisms in
implementing lean principles in construction projects”, Engineering, Construction and
Architectural Management, Vol. 25 No. 10, pp. 1322-1338.
Carvajal-Arango, D., Bahamon-Jaramillo, S., Aristizabal-Monsalve, P., Vasquez-Hernandez, A. and
Botero, L.F.B. (2019), “Relationships between lean and sustainable construction: positive impacts
of lean practices over sustainability during construction phase”, Journal of Cleaner Production,
Vol. 234, pp. 1322-1337.
Casady, C.B. and Baxter, D. (2020), “Pandemics, public-private partnerships (PPPs), and force majeure j
COVID-19 expectations and implications”, Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 38
No. 12, pp. 1077-1085.
Cho, S. and Ballard, G. (2011), “Last planner and integrated project delivery”, Lean Construction
Journal, pp. 67-78, available at: www.leanconstruction.org/media/library/id15/Last_Planner_
and_Integrated_Project_Delivery.pdf (accessed 4 June 2020).
da Silva, F.F., Filser, L.D., Juliani, F. and de Oliveira, O.J. (2018), “Where to direct research in lean six
sigma? Bibliometric analysis, scientific gaps and trends on literature”, International Journal of
Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 324-350.
Dakhli, Z., Lafhaj, Z. and Bos, A. (2016), “Experiencing lean six sigma in the French residential
construction”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 346-368.
Darko, A., Chan, A.P.C., Ameyaw, E.E., Owusu, E.K., Pärn, E. and Edwards, D.J. (2019), “Review of
application of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in construction”, International Journal of
Construction Management, Vol. 19 No. 5, pp. 436-452.
Dave, B., Kubler, S., Främling, K. and Koskela, L. (2016), “Opportunities for enhanced lean construction
management using internet of things standards”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 61, pp. 86-97.
Deng, Y., Gan, V.J., Das, M., Cheng, J.C. and Anumba, C. (2019), “Integrating 4D BIM and GIS for
construction supply chain management”, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management,
Vol. 145 No. 4, p. 4019016.
IJLSS Ding, L., Zhou, Y. and Akinci, B. (2014), “Building information modeling (BIM) application framework:
the process of expanding from 3D to computable nD”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 46,
13,3 pp. 82-93.
Eastman, C.M., Eastman, C., Teicholz, P., Sacks, R. and Liston, K. (2011), BIM Handbook: A Guide to
Building Information Modeling for Owners, Managers, Designers, Engineers and Contractors,
John Wiley and Sons, NJ, NJ.
590 Ekeskär, A. and Rudberg, M. (2016), “Third-party logistics in construction: the case of a large hospital
project”, Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 174-191.
Eriksson, P.E. (2010), “Improving construction supply chain collaboration and performance: a lean
construction pilot project. Supply chain management”, An International Journal, Vol. 15 No. 5,
pp. 394-403.
Erol, H., Dikmen, I. and Birgonul, T.M. (2017), “Measuring the impact of lean construction practices on
project duration and variability: a simulation-based study on residential buildings”, Journal of
Civil Engineering and Management, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 241-251.
Eshtehardian, E., Ghodousi, P. and Bejanpour, A. (2013), “Using ANP and AHP for the supplier
selection in the construction and civil engineering companies; case study of Iranian company”,
KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 262-270.
Grilo, A. and Jardim-Goncalves, R. (2010), “Value proposition on interoperability of BIM and
collaborative working environments”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 19 No. 5,
pp. 522-530.
Gunhan, S. and Arditi, D. (2005), “International expansion decision for construction companies”,
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 131 No. 8, pp. 928-937.
Haddud, A. and Khare, A. (2020), “Digitalizing supply chains potential benefits and impact on lean
operations”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 731-765.
Hallowell, M.R. and Gambatese, J.A. (2010), “Qualitative research: application of the Delphi method to
CEM research”, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 136 No. 1,
pp. 99-107.
Jayakumar, V., Raju, R., Mariappan, C. and Ravivikram, I. (2010), “An analytic hierarchical approach to
decision making for selection of engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu”, IUP Journal of Operations
Management, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 16-22.
Johansen, E. and Walter, L. (2007), “Lean construction: prospects for the German construction
industry”, Lean Construction Journal, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 19-32.
Kabir, G. and Sumi, R.S. (2010), “An ontology-based intelligent system with AHP to support supplier
selection”, Suranaree Journal of Science and Technology, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 249-257.
Khanh, H.D. and Kim, S.Y. (2016), “A survey on production planning system in construction projects
based on last planner system”, KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 1-11.
Koskela, L., Vrijhoef, R. and Broft, R.D. (2020), “Construction supply chain management through a lean
lens”, in Pryke, S. (Ed.), Successful Construction Supply Management: concepts and Case Studies,
John Wiley and Sons, NJ, NJ, pp. 109-125.
Le, P.L., Chaabane, A. and Dao, T.-M. (2019), “BIM contributions to construction supply chain
management trends: an exploratory study in Canada”, International Journal of Construction
Management, pp. 1-19, doi: 10.1080/15623599.2019.1639124. (accessed 4 June 2020).
Le, P.L., Jarroudi, I., Dao, T.M. and Chaabane, A. (2020), “Integrated construction supply chain: an
optimal decision-making model with third-party logistics partnership”, Construction
Management and Economics, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 1-23, doi: 10.1080/01446193.2020.1831037.
(accessed 20 November 2020).
Linstone, H.A. and Turoff, M. (1975), The Delphi Method, Techniques and Applications, Addison-
Wesley Reading, London.
Liu, Y., van Nederveen, S. and Hertogh, M. (2017), “Understanding effects of BIM on collaborative Prospect of
design and construction: an empirical study in China”, International Journal of Project
Management, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 686-698. lean practices
Li, X.K., Wang, X.M. and Lei, L. (2019), “The application of an ANP-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation
model to assess lean construction management performance”, Engineering, Construction and
Architectural Management, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 356-384.
Li, S., Wu, X., Zhou, Y. and Liu, X. (2017), “A study on the evaluation of implementation level of lean
construction in two Chinese firms”, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 71, pp. 846-851. 591
Lönngren, H.M., Rosenkranz, C. and Kolbe, H. (2010), “Aggregated construction supply chains: success
factors in implementation of strategic partnerships”, Supply Chain Management: An
International Journal, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 404-411.
Luzon, B. and El-Sayegh, S.M. (2016), “Evaluating supplier selection criteria for oil and gas projects in
the UAE using AHP and Delphi”, International Journal of Construction Management, Vol. 16
No. 2, pp. 175-183.
McGrath, J.E. (1984), Groups: Interaction and Performance, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
McKinsey (2020), “How construction can emerge stronger after coronavirus”, available at: www.mck
insey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/how-construction-can-emerge-stronger-af
ter-coronavirus# (accessed 20 November 2020)
Meng, X. (2019), “Lean management in the context of construction supply chains”, International Journal
of Production Research, Vol. 57 No. 11, pp. 3784-3798.
Meng, X., Sun, M. and Jones, M. (2011), “Maturity model for supply chain relationships in construction”,
Journal of Management in Engineering, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 97-105.
Mohammaddust, F., Rezapour, S., Farahani, R.Z., Mofidfar, M. and Hill, A. (2017), “Developing lean and
responsive supply chains: a robust model for alternative risk mitigation strategies in supply
chain designs”, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 183, pp. 632-653.
Muhammad, W.M.N.W., Ismail, Z. and Hashim, A.E. (2013), “Exploring lean construction components
for Malaysian construction industry”, Paper presented at the 2013 IEEE Business Engineering
and Industrial Applications Colloquium (BEIAC), 7-9 April, Langkawi, Malaysia, available at:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6560091 (accessed 4 June 2020).
Nikakhtar, A., Hosseini, A.A., Wong, K.Y. and Zavichi, A. (2015), “Application of lean construction
principles to reduce construction process waste using computer simulation: a case study”,
International Journal of Services and Operations Management, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 461-480.
Ogunbiyi, O. (2014), “Implementation of the lean approach in sustainable construction: a conceptual
framework”, Doctoral thesis, University of Central Lancashire, available at: http://clok.uclan.ac.
uk/10563/ (accessed 4 June 2020).
Okoli, C. and Pawlowski, S.D. (2004), “The Delphi method as a research tool: an example, design
considerations and applications”, Information and Management, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 15-29.
Pan, N.F. (2008), “Fuzzy AHP approach for selecting the suitable bridge construction method”,
Automation in Construction, Vol. 17 No. 8, pp. 958-965.
Panayiotou, N.A. and Stergiou, K.E. (2020), “A systematic literature review of lean six sigma adoption
in European organizations”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 1-29, doi:
10.1108/IJLSS-07-2019-0084. (accessed 20 November 2020).
Panova, Y. and Hilletofth, P. (2018), “Managing supply chain risks and delays in construction project”,
Industrial Management and Data Systems, Vol. 118 No. 7, pp. 1413-1143.
Papadonikolaki, E. and Wamelink, H. (2017), “Inter-and intra-organizational conditions for supply
chain integration with BIM”, Building Research and Information, Vol. 45 No. 6, pp. 649-664.
Papadonikolaki, E., Vrijhoef, R. and Wamelink, H. (2016), “The interdependences of BIM and supply
chain partnering: empirical explorations”, Architectural Engineering and Design Management,
Vol. 12 No. 6, pp. 476-494.
IJLSS Perez, A.M. and Ghosh, S. (2018), “Barriers faced by new-adopter of last planner system: a case study”,
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 25 No. 9, pp. 1110-1126.
13,3
Rahman, A.H., Wang, C. and Lim, I.Y.W. (2012), “Waste processing framework for non-value-adding
activities using lean construction”, Journal of Frontiers in Construction Management, Vol. 1
No. 1, pp. 8-13.
Ramani, P.V. and Ksd, L.K.L. (2019), “Application of lean in construction using value stream mapping”,
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 1-13, doi: 10.1108/
592 ECAM-12-2018-0572. (accessed 4 June 2020).
Raval, S.J., Kant, R. and Shankar, R. (2018), “Revealing research trends and themes in lean six sigma:
from 2000 to 2016”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 399-443.
Rayens, M.K. and Hahn, E.J. (2000), “Building consensus using the policy Delphi method”, Policy,
Politics, and Nursing Practice, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 308-315.
Rocha, C.G. and Kemmer, S. (2018), “Integrating product and process design in construction”,
Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 36 No. 9, pp. 535-543.
Roy, D., Malsane, S. and Samanta, P.K. (2018), “Identification of critical challenges for adoption of
integrated project delivery”, Lean Construction Journal, pp. 1-15, available at: https://www.
leanconstruction.org/media/docs/lcj/2018 (accessed 4 June 2020).
Saaty, T.L. (1980), The Analytic Hierarchy Process, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Salem, O., Solomon, J., Genaidy, A. and Luegring, M. (2005), “Site implementation and assessment of
lean”, Lean Construction Journal, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 1-21.
Salvatirerra, J.L., Alarcon, L.F., Lopez, A. and Valasquez, X. (2015), “Lean diagnosis for Chilean
construction industry: towards more sustainable lean practices”, Proceedings of 23rd Annual
Conference of the International Groups for Lean Construction, 29-31 July 2015, AU, Perth,
pp. 642-651.
Sarhan, J.G., Fawzia, S. and Karim, A. (2017), “Lean construction implementation in the Saudi Arabian
construction industry”, Construction Economics and Building, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 46-69.
Sarhan, S., Pasquire, C., Elnokaly, A. and Pretlove, S. (2019), “Lean and sustainable construction:
a systematic critical review of 25 years of IGLC research”, Lean Construction Journal,
pp. 1-20, available at: https://www.leanconstruction.org/media/docs/lcj/2019 (accessed 4
June 2020).
Seppanem, O., Modrich, R. and Ballard, G. (2015), “Integration of last planner system and location-
based management system”, Proceedings of 23rd Annual Conference of the International
Groups for Lean Construction, 29-31 July 2015, AU, Perth, pp. 123-132.
Shamah, R.A.M. (2013), “Measuring and building lean thinking for value creation in supply chains”,
International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 17-35.
Shouke, C., Zhuobin, W. and Jie, L. (2010), “Comprehensive evaluation for construction performance in
concurrent engineering environment”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 28
No. 7, pp. 708-718.
Siddiqui, S.Q., Ullah, F., Thaheem, M.J. and Gabriel, H.F. (2016), “Six sigma in construction: a review of
critical success factors”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 171-186.
Siebelink, S., Voordijk, J.T. and Adriaanse, A. (2018), “Developing and testing a tool to evaluate BIM
maturity: sectoral analysis in the Dutch construction industry”, Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management, Vol. 144 No. 8, p. 5018007
Sundquist, V., Gadde, L.-E. and Hulthén, K. (2018), “Reorganizing construction logistics for improved
performance”, Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 49-65.
Tezel, A., Taggart, M., Koskela, L., Tzortzopoulos, P., Hanahoe, J. and Kelly, M. (2020), “Lean
construction and BIM in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in construction: a
systematic literature review”, Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 47 No. 2,
pp. 186-201.
Thunberg, M. and Fredriksson, A. (2018), “Bringing planning back into the picture – how can supply Prospect of
chain planning aid in dealing with supply chain-related problems in construction?”,
Construction Management and Economics, Vol. 36 No. 8, pp. 425-442. lean practices
Thyssen, M.H., Emmitt, S., Bonke, S. and Kirk-Christoffersen, A. (2010), “Facilitating client value
creation in the conceptual design phase of construction projects: a workshop approach”,
Architectural Engineering and Design Management, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 18-30.
Tsao, C.C.Y., Tommelein, I.D., Swanlund, E.S. and Howell, G.A. (2004), “Work structuring to achieve
integrated product-process design”, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 593
Vol. 130 No. 6, pp. 180-189.
van den Bos, A., Kemper, B. and de Waal, V. (2014), “A study on how to improve the throughput time of
lean six sigma projects in a construction company”, International Journal of Lean Six Sigma,
Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 212-226.
Vidal, L.A., Marle, F. and Bocquet, J.C. (2011), “Using a Delphi process and the analytic hierarchy
process (AHP) to evaluate the complexity of projects”, Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 38
No. 5, pp. 5388-5405.
von der Gracht, H.A. (2012), “Consensus measurement in Delphi studies: review and implications for
future quality assurance”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol. 79 No. 8,
pp. 1525-1536.

Corresponding author
Phuoc Luong Le can be contacted at: lpluong@hcmut.edu.vn

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com