Contributions for the integration of design and production management in construction

Product Development Process (PDP)has become an important research topic inconstruction since the 80’s .However , there are few research efforts focusing on understanding the integration between design andproduction planning andcontrol.This paper discusses how to plan andcontrol the design process in construction through the use of the Last Planner System.It is basedon four case studies carriedout in industrial andcommercial building projects.The main proposition of this investigation was to adopt the Last Planner System for the design process andto explore links between design and production management on site.Both quantitative andqualitative data were collected. The main conclusion of this study was that the Last Planner System providedsome key support for integration of design andproduction management on site

The role of visual management in collaborative integrated planning and control for engineer-to-order building systems

Visual Management is a key approach in the implementation of Lean Production. It emphasizes the importance of developing easy-to-understand visual devices for sharing knowledge within an organization. Such visual devices can play an important role in mitigating the complexity of engineer-to-order production systems. A major difficulty in managing engineer-to-order prefabricated building systems is the need to integrate planning and control of different processes, such as design, fabrication and assembly on site, in a multiple project environment. This paper reports preliminary findings on the implementation of visual devices for collaborative and integrated planning and control in a Steel Fabricator, which designs, fabricates and assembles steel structures. The aim of this paper is to understand how visual management tools can contribute to improve the effectiveness of planning and control in this environment. A set of visual devices have been used in the planning and control system in this company, including a panel that makes available information about 200 simultaneous contracts in an easy-to-understand way. The implementation of those tools has enhanced the participation of different people in the planning process from operational levels or from the different production units

Three Theoretical Perspectives for Understanding Inter-firm Coordination of Construction Project Supply Chains

The success of construction projects is highly dependent on the coordination of a fairly large number of stakeholders, such as client organizations, designers, general contractors, and subcontractors. Each of those stakeholders can both affect and be affected by the way a project is managed, and none of them usually has the power or the ability to coordinate project supply chains. However, the existing literature on supply chain management does not provide a comprehensive theoretical foundation for describing or explaining the coordination of construction project supply chains. This paper discusses the role of three different theoretical perspectives for understanding the inter-firm coordination process of project supply chains in the construction industry: the Theory of Coordination, the Transaction Cost Theory and the Language-Action Perspective. The contribution of each theoretical approach is pointed out in the paper, and their complementary role is illustrated in a case study carried out in a petrochemical construction project in Brazil