Lean Construction: Prospects for the German construction industry

Abstract

There is little, if any, information available about the range and dissemination of lean concepts among construction companies in Germany. Building on the methodologies and conceptual frameworks used in earlier work in the UK (Common et al., 2000) and the Netherlands (Johansen et al., 2002) this study carried out a similar survey among German construction companies to discover the current understanding of lean principles, perceptions of lean and trends in lean development. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of an email questionnaire sent to large German construction companies indicates that there is little awareness of lean in the German construction industry and that hardly any company uses lean concepts on a company wide basis despite evidence that procedures and techniques that are used on German construction sites are generally consistent with lean construction practice. There appears to be cultural resistance to a manufacturing derived, production-system-view of construction.