BIM+Lean for integrating production and quality control at the construction site

Abstract

Current production and quality control activities performed on-site are based either on manual procedures or on different automatic data collection technologies. A major problem in these controls is that they are often applied in isolation. Therefore, there are opportunities for improving the performance of construction projects by integrating quality and production control systems supported by digital systems and considering concepts and principles from Lean Philosophy. This article describes a conceptual framework that make it possible to integrate production and quality control in construction sites, considering the combination of BIM and the Last Planner System™ (LPS). This investigation was based on two empirical studies, carried out in companies that develop and build residential building projects. The main contribution of the study is the ability of the model to surpass the limitations of commercial software available to cope with the flexibility demanded by LPS. The results indicated that the proposed framework enables timely feedback to be provided to production managers, and BIM models to be quickly updated with progress monitoring and product quality data.