Challenges to lean construction implementation in South Africa

The results of this study could be employed to help researchers, practitioners and companies in South African construction industry to focus their attention and resources on the significant issues, crucial to support the successful implementation of LC.

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Challenges to Lean Construction Implementation in South Africa

Chapter · January 2020

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-26528-1_33

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Challenges to lean construction implementation in South Africa

Thabiso Monyane1,*, Fidelis Emuze1, Gerrit Crafford1,

1‘2‘3 Central University of Technology,FS Department of Built Environment, Bloemfontein, South Africa., 9300

tmonyane@cut.ac.za Nelson Mandela University, Department of Quantity Surveying

Port Elizabeth, South Africa, gerrit.crafford@mandela.ac.za

Abstract Efforts of the lean construction could prove to be highly worthwhile for the South African

construction sector Evidently exposed continuous poor performance of projects exhibit that the concept of lean thinking would push the construction industry’s pursuit to advance quality and efficiency While numerous countries internationally gained large benefits by adopting Lean Construction (LC) concepts, there still seems to be inadequate application of lean in South African construction industry, over the last two decades A number of structural and cultural barriers appear to be militating against the successful implementation of lean construction By not recognizing the factors that contribute to the successful application

of LC, organizations will not be able to know what improvement efforts need to be made, where these efforts should be focused, or which efforts could obtain best results For this reason, this study sought to identify and assess the possible barriers to the successful implementation of LC in South Africa Grounded on a systematic literature review, followed by semi-structured interviews with Lean experts in the country, a number of barriers were acknowledged as significant barriers Further investigation discovered that policy changes and cultural change are some of the barriers exposed as significant The results of this study could be employed to help researchers, practitioners and companies in South African construction industry to focus their attention and resources on the significant issues, crucial to support the successful implementation of LC

Keywords: Lean · Challenges · Barriers · implementation

The construction industry is considered an important sector in an economy of any country; hence, 73% of the people across the world agree to investment in infrastructure for the country’s future economic growth [37] Moreover, [37] predict that around US$5.25 trillion dollars is likely to be spent a year on infrastructure globally

by the year 2030 Lean construction (LC) has been hailed as one of the innovative construction method ever created since the 1990s [33] Due to the poor performance recorded continuously on construction projects, lean concepts have been recommended as a way to improve efficiency and effectiveness of project’s execution Several studies has extensively research the benefits of lean and the achievements for over 27 years since its inception of the International Group for Lean Construction The benefits derived by numerous studies include, improved productivity and reliability, better quality and customer satisfaction, improved forecasting, shortened schedules, waste minimization, cost effective and improved safety with the application of lean principles [33], [11], [26], [41], [12], [10], [8], [9], [37] However, despite all these achievements, South Africa has not adopted the lean concepts for the construction industry’s performance improvement [17] realized that to integrate LC completely

in a construction organization, the recommendation is to comprehend and anticipate the barriers that might be opposed to a proper implementation A barrier in this case is a step or an action that prevents the attainment of the desired objective Comprehension of such barriers is vital to propose remedies, mitigate their impact, or forewarn their occurrence and strengthen the identified conditions that contribute to the successful implementation of lean construction [17] Based on this argument the main objectives of this study is to identify the barriers that may hinder successful implementation of lean construction initiatives The study will first look at the background of lean construction in section 2 of the paper, while Section 3 of the paper illustrate the structure of the research approach adopted in this study and section 4 pronounce the SLR examination conducted to identify the barriers that may hinder the successful implementation of lean construction The study focused only on barriers applicable

to construction to limit the amount of information out there related to barriers of lean

2 Background to lean Construction

To define the word “lean construction” has been a controversial issue due to the lack of consensus Mossman [37]; [30] including the International Group for Lean construction (IGLC) and Lean Construction Institute (LCI) communities The machine that changed the world [49] presents a sketch picture of lean production [37] Moreover, [37] imply that the term “Lean construction” emerged two years later through the contribution of [33] owing to lean production ideas in construction; however, [40] contrast this idea to have emanated from the term being coined by the International Group for lean construction in 1993 Lean production was coined by [35] to differentiate the Toyota production system from the western mass production system and subsequently popularized through the book the machine that changed the world [49] However, [25] assert to the rich literature

in case studies unfolding the worthwhile implementation of LC on real projects, while [34]; [37] recite numerous benefits such as reduction of construction cost and shortened construction period witnessed when implementing

LC in construction projects There are several studies undertaken in various countries of lean implementation in the construction industry Studies found in the literature are from developing and developed countries such as Chile [2], Uganda [3], Ghana Ayarkwa [6], Nigeria [42], Saudi Arabia [4],Australia [46], Germany [28], Singapore [22], The Netherlands [28], the UK [37], the USA [39], Turkey [48] It is notable that none of the studies are from South Africa, and despite the benefits already cited the level of adoption is still non-existent to very low not only in South Africa but worldwide owing to barriers that may hinder successful implementation [37]

Figure 1 display a conceptual map of the overall structure of the research followed in this study to address the research objective formulated and stated in Section 1, and the sections of the article where the components of the research (i.e research objectives, method and stages) are presented As demonstrated in Figure 1, the barriers to the effective implementation of Lean Construction (i.e research objective) were identified and established by following a research method based on a systematic review of the academic literature

As previously outlined a barriers in the context of this study is a challenge, a hurdle or obstacle, which does not assist, or restricts, progress to achieve a successful integration and implementation of lean [18] To address the research questions and objectives [32] opines identification of barriers through an adoption of systematic review

of the existing literature owing to its detailed, replicable, clear and meticulous approach [32] Moreover, [21] suggests following the five sequential phases of SLR These five phases entailed the following: (1) objective/question formulation, (2) locating studies, (3) study selection and evaluations, (4) analysis and synthesis and (5) reporting and using the results Phase one is reported in Section 1 of this paper The subsequent phases are addressed in the following sections beneath

The phenomenon under investigation guided the location of articles through usage of search strings linked to the main topic According to [21], to facilitate an exclusion/inclusion criterion of the search strings a Context – intervention-mechanism-outcome (CIMO) can be followed, hence such was carried out in this study Further relevant papers were identified using a combination of search strings such as Barriers, Challenges, failures, Obstacles, pitfalls, and Boolean operators (i.e AND & OR) A specific search could be focused upon and this allowed the exclusion of irrelevant articles When the same articles continued to re-appear a saturation point was considered to have been reached as a result Input of search strings were done from various academic journals and proceedings in Emerald, ASCE, Scopus and Science Direct databases from 1990-2018 Academic books, google scholar and credible proceedings website of the IGLC on the topic are also included because of their impact on the advance of the field Focus of the systematic literature included only lean implementation in construction and excluded implementation of lean in other sectors completely The search criteria, a final sample of 177 articles that relates to lean implementation was identified Conversely, only 86 of these discussed implementation barriers, and hence were further considered appropriate in this study Figure 1 beneath is an illustration of the structure of this study

Identify the barriers in

the implementation of

Lean construction

Systematic Literature review (SLR) Analysis

1 Objective / Questions formulation

2 Locating Studies

3 Study Selection and Evaluation

4 Analysis and Synthesis

5 Reporting and Using Results

Section 1 Section 2

Section 3

Fig 1 Conceptual Illustration structure of this study (Adapted from [18]

The qualitative data was synthesised using thematic analysis There are various methods that can be employed to synthesize qualitative data, however, for this study thematic analysis proved most efficient and most appropriate due to its ability and structured way in recognizing important frequent themes [13] Data obtained from the thematic analysis of the articles reviewed provided 30 barriers to lean implementation in construction However, the authors would like to admit that due to length of a conference paper data could only be gathered from 46 articles at this stage Data will be analysed further perhaps for a Journal article publication Input from industry expert outlined the following barriers applicable to a South African context: Cultural barriers, financial issues, extensive use of subcontractors, lengthy approval process, and lack of training, lack of support by management

as barriers that could hinder successful implementation of lean in the public sector Table 1 beneath display a list

of barriers identified from SLR

Table 1 Identification of Barriers to Lean construction implementation.

1 Lack of technical capabilities [24], [3], [42],[14], [6],[45], [5]

2 Heavy reliance on poorly skilled foreign workers, [22]

3 Non related work background to construction [22]

4 Language and education barrier [22],[42],[14],[44],[15],[27];

]37][5], [38]

5

6

7

Extensive use of subcontractors

Lack of long term commitment to change and

Innovation

Price oriented tendering system

[22], [24][31], [42], [37], [44], [1], [??], [38],[7], [19],

[23],[24], [28], [36] [37, [42], [43], [44], [47]

[22], [42], [3], [30], [44], [1], [??], [38]

[22], [24]

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

Long term relationships with suppliers for fear of

complacency,

Limited communication via contract

Lack of quality management

Too many meetings and too much information

Lean beneficial to large projects not small projects

Extra resources required specific to deal with lean

issues

Difficult to tracks tasks from all planning forms

Lack of understanding of the concepts

Lack of training

Lack of support from Management

Inflexible Legislation

Lean not part of University curriculum

Inability to deal with change management

Lengthy approval process by client

Culture and social issues

Transparency

Active client, user stakeholder involvement

Financial Issues

Lack of time for implementing new practices in the

Projects

Challenge to create organizational elements

Lack of self-criticism to learn from errors

Resistance to change

[31], [3], [30], [2]

[24], [31]

[31]

[31],

[20]

[31]

[42],[6],

[44] ,[22], [28]

[38], [2], [21], [23], [47],[48], [1], [2], [7], [14], [23], [29], [30], [37]

[42], [6], [15]; [19], [2], [30], [14]

[42], [6], [44], [37], [14], [44], [38], [2]

[37]

[37]

[1], [37]

[37], [27], [29]

[37], [44]

[37], [44], [30], [14], [1], [42], [4], [18], [46], [44], [38]

[30], [2]

[30], [2], [30] [6], [5]

[30], [44], [5]

[2], [30], [44], [42], [37]

[2]

[2]

[2]

[7], [10],

Findings form the semi-structured interviews were similar to the ones identified from the literature Policy changes was one of the critical barrier identified by six of the seven interviewers conducted Although lean construction principles had to be explained to some of the interviewees, after comprehension from the respondents more barriers were identified as a result Cultural change was also one of the key barrier outlined as a big factor in transforming the construction industry as a whole Since most of the interviewees were consultants with more than 25 years’ experience it would explain the culture change as a barrier It would appear that senior consultant are comfortable with the experience they have gained all these years, and would not want to commence with new ways However, they believed that lean stands a chance if younger entrants begin with such ideas early on Resistance to change would also be identified as a barrier as all seven of the interviewees identified culture change and not willing to commence with a new way for doing construction and a new mindset

The study investigates the barriers that may hinder successful implementation of lean in the construction sector This was attained by employing a systematic literature review [32]; [21] was conducted as a methodology to identify the barriers that may hinder effectively adopting Lean in the construction sector Employment of this method, 30 barriers were identified and analysed Lean construction is still a novel approach in South Africa and the knowledge gained from identification of barriers will assist in promoting the drivers of implementing lean in future Moreover, the contribution emanating from this study is advancing the knowledge of assisting the construction industry and forewarn on the possible pitfalls when lean gains momentum in the country Knowledge attained from other industry will go a long way in guiding the South African construction sector not to make the same mistake already identified in other construction context Moreover, lack of training about the new concept was highlighted by all seven of the interviewees as a key barrier This was explained as time is always not on the side of execution of projects This means most consultant are not willing to spend time learning and training to execute project using lean thinking However, as the author asserts to the interviewees how they can embed lean

in their daily lives, they showed interest and thought is an easier way of introducing lean construction

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