PREPARING CONTRACTOR ORGANIZATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTING LEAN CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

Chilean construction companies are currently developing several initiatives to improve their competitiveness in the local an international market. More than twelve construction companies, under the guidance of a research team of the Universidad Católica de Chile, have carried out collaborative research to implement Lean Construction practices. The approach followed for implementation include some key elements such as: training for action, collaborative sharing among companies, coaching and action research. All these aspects are part of an overall strategy to introduce principles of lean construction and better practices in the organizations. More recently, companies have focused on redesigning their organizations, the role of project managers and reviewing their performance evaluation systems to align all the aspects of their organization with the requirements of Lean Construction implementation. The incremental nature of the implementation, has made possible to observe, analyze and identify the impacts of individual changes in the project/production management practice of the companies and their organizations. The paper reports the results obtained, analyzes critical factors, barriers found in the organization, and approaches adopted to manage them in order to get from them opportunities to strengthen the implementation process. The paper focuses mainly on human and organizational aspects that seem to be key for a successful implementation.