Building a Lean Culture Into an Organization

Abstract

The Indian construction industry is in need for a change; a change that can help its people and organizations discard the conventional project management approach of ‘Command and control’; a change that can create better collaboration between project teams and reduce blame games. Lean construction and the Last Planner SystemTM is a potent and proven solution that offers the change. This paper suggests/proposes an approach for an organizational lean transformation. The approach is based on real life experience of the authors working with both Owner and Contractor organizations. The approach is based on building experience in lean tools at the site level that can be scaled across projects as a bottoms-up model. This is complemented with a top down approach that builds awareness, empathy, and knowledge at the leadership level. Together, the goal is to build capability and confidence in the organization to adopt and adapt lean into the organization. This paper explains in detail about the program and evolution of it from Indian experience. The authors will share their experience and their learning making the change in organizations. They will share the successes and the limitations of the approach.