Abstract
The Lean Construction philosophy emerged to assist overcome the challenges in optimizing the productive processes of companies. As an effort to quantify the application degree of Lean philosophy in the civil construction companies, several measurement tools were created. In order to discuss the effectiveness of these tools into measuring the presence of the Lean philosophy in construction sites, the present study performed a critical analysis of its methodological procedures, based on four aspects: ‘questionnaires and forms’, ‘answering system’, ‘data collection methodology’, and ‘results’. Although it was not possible to investigate measuring tools from other countries, it was concluded that, among Brazilian methods, the one developed by Pereira (2012) is the most suitable for use since it presented just few problems in its formulation. This way, it is possible to do the intended measurement with assertiveness, substantially contributing to civil construction development.
Highlights
The policy and economic crisis that has reached Brazil since 2014 has had direct consequences on the construction industry. Both the national GDP and the GDP relative to the Brazilian civil construction are in a critical situation, registering, in 2016, negative variations of 3.6% and 5.2% in relation to the previous year, respectively (CBIC, 2017a)
Tonin and Schaefer (2013) developed a method with 37 questions about the Lean philosophy application in the construction site analyzed, grouped by the Lean Construction principles suggested by Koskela (1992)
The method created by Souza and Cabette (2014) to measure the use of the Lean philosophy in construction sites consists in the use of several instruments, such as informal dialogues and interviews, questionnaires and periodic technical visits, throughout the Lean implementation process in the corporation
Summary
The policy and economic crisis that has reached Brazil since 2014 has had direct consequences on the construction industry. This situation is evident in the evolution of jobs in the area: in the first quarter of 2014, there were 8,039 employees in construction; three years later, this number was substantially reduced to 6,836 employees, resulting in a 15% drop (CBIC, 2017b) In this scenario, in order to be successful in a very unstable market, the construction companies that operate in the sector need to recognize the problematic activities that could be improved in their production process. The applications of each method recorded in the literature are restricted, almost exclusively, to the creation and validation experiments of their respective authors For this reason, it has become difficult for those who intend to join the ideology to compare their performance with other companies in the sector. It is possible to determine parameters to assist in the ranking of the existing measurement instruments, it is possible to define which the best tool to be used is, considering the nature and needs of each construction site being analyzed
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