Several studies have pointed out the importance of the building design process in terms of improving the performance of the construction industry, and that it is a very difficult process to manage. It involves thousands of decisions, sometimes over a period of years, with numerous interdependencies, under a highly uncertain environment. As distinct from production, quality in the design process...

Customers’ demands regarding quality and cost efficiency caused the Swedish construction industry to increase its levels of prefabrication. However, the main focus has been on the structural design and production in the development of these new building systems, and very little attention has been devoted to customer needs and requirements. This has created a situation where ad hoc solutions hav...

BACKGROUND The Toyota Production System (TPS), based on industrial engineering principles and operational innovations, is used to achieve waste reduction and efficiency while increasing product quality. Several key tools and principles, adapted to health care, have proved effective in improving hospital operations. TOOLS Value Stream Maps (VSMs), which represent the key people, material, and ...

The survival of any organization depends upon its competitive edge. Even though Lean is one of the most powerful quality improvement methodologies, nearly two-thirds of the Lean implementations results in failures and less than one-fifth of those implemented have sustained results. One of the most significant tasks of top management is to identify, understand and deploy the significant Lean pra...

The basic technologies used in preanalytic processes for chemistry tests have been mature for a long time, and improvements in preanalytic processes have lagged behind improvements in analytic and postanalytic processes. We describe our successful efforts to improve chemistry test turnaround time from a central laboratory by improving preanalytic processes, using existing resources and the prin...

Over the past 10 years or so, lean manufacturing has been receiving an increasing amount of attention as one source for productivity improvements and cost reductions in manufacturing. Hailed by its proponents as a breakthrough means to analyze and improve production and the factory floor environment, lean manufacturing is a broad collection of principles and practices that can improve corporate...

Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Lean Thinking have been used separately as key approaches to overall construction projects’ improvement. Their combination, given several scenarios, presents opportunities for improvement as well as challenges in implementation. However, the exploration of eventual interactions and relationships between BIM as a process and Lean Construction principles is...