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Infrastructure projects are complex, task-based endeavours; the reliability of project schedules is often low, as delays occur. As a result, the infrastructure sector is constantly searching for innovative practices that might improve project performance. This study aims to pursue one research question: what are the benefits and challenges to last planner system (LPS) implementation in Australia’s infrastructure industry? It addresses this question through an examination of two rail infrastructure projects in Victoria, Australia.

The state of Victoria in Australia provides an excellent context for this study. The study was set in one of the programme alliances which was contracted to carry out five level-crossing removal projects. This study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research techniques, including surveys, interviews and site visits. The authors collected 43 valid survey responses. Additionally, 19 participants from the alliance programme’s two projects (Projects A and B) took part in the interviews. Extensive empirical evidence has been triangulated to achieve the research goals.

The findings show through the questionnaire survey that the greatest benefits that digital LPS brings are primarily associated with process improvement and social benefits. The interview results acknowledged that the roll-out of digital LPS had a positive impact on schedules, cost, occupational health and safety (OHS) and quality performance. The research also noted a few challenges in the introduction of digital LPS. Overall, the finding presents strong evidence that the introduction of digital LPS has been a clear success in the case company.

This is the first piece of research to fill this major gap in the LPS literature by exploring the issue of digital LPS adoption in Australia’s infrastructure sector. This study has thus laid the foundation for future work on LPS research in the Australian context. The authors are optimistic that this exploratory work will generate interest across other alliances, and perhaps extend into Australia’s construction sector.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Last-Planner-System’s impact on project cultures in terms of partnering.

A case study was performed using multiple data gathering approaches. The project cultures of three projects not applying the Last-Planner-System were compared with three projects that apply the Last-Planner-System. In total, 30 participants were involved in the study. Semi-structured interviews were held and analysed by applying qualitative content analysis. Also, the “organizational culture assessment instrument”, which belongs to the “competing values framework”, was used by means of an online survey.

The Last-Planner-System leads to increased levels of mutual understanding and control about the tasks and issues of the other parties. This detailed overview leads towards a more distinguished evaluation of the trustworthiness of individuals. This does not necessarily lead to a partnering project culture.

The contribution to research is that higher levels of transparency and mutual understanding do not necessarily lead to a high level of trust. Rather, transparency could be seen as a controlling mechanism that leads to better-founded estimations about the trustworthiness of others in the project.

The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive analysis on how the advanced work packaging (AWP) managerial paradigm could be advanced by incorporating and integrating the post-construction commissioning and startup (CSU) phases.

This study was implemented with the support of consolidated knowledge from industry subject matter experts and an exhaustive literature review to provide a knowledge foundation for the developments. The findings were further validated and strengthened by external subject matter experts.

A new operating system-oriented work package, systems work package (SWP), is devised with a set of definitions and models of how it relates to AWPs with three-dimensional visualizations. SWP-related constraints, key roles and responsibilities are thoroughly investigated.

A new SWP concept would pose potential challenges for its adoption because of inherent organizational culture and hesitation to change. A systematic reorganization of existing practices is considered as a key strategy to alleviate the limitation, and short- and long-term validity of SWP is currently being investigated by organizations.

This research provides practical implementation strategies on CSU integration which lead to benefits including: better alignment and collaboration of stakeholders, reduced costs for associating AWPs to SWP and improved predictability.

AWP-related studies have primarily focused on the construction phase, with minimal integration of CSU considerations. Highlighting the importance of the philosophy “start with the end in mind,” this research describes how the AWP managerial paradigm can be expanded to include CSU, by placing a strong emphasis on understanding CSU priorities, sequences and constraints.

The overall contribution of this work is to provide a usable maturity model for collaborative scheduling (CS) that extends the literature, identifies inconsistencies in schedule development, and improves collaboration in the construction industry.

Via subject matter expert elicitation and focus groups, the maturity model establishes five pillars of collaboration—scheduling significance, planners and schedulers, scheduling representation, goal alignment with owner, and communication. The maturity model is then validated through iterative feedback and chi-squared statistical analysis of data obtained from a survey. The five pillars are tied to the literature and previous work in CS.

The analysis shows that current industry projects are not consistent in collaboration practice implementation, and the maturity model identifies areas for collaboration improvement. The study's contributions to the body of knowledge are (1) developing a maturity model-based approach to define and measure the current level of collaboration and (2) discovering the level of consistency in scheduling collaboration practice implementation.

The findings provide a benchmark for self-evaluation and peer-to-peer comparison for project managers. The model is also useful for project managers to develop effective strategies for improvement on targeted dimensions and metrics.

The construction engineering and management (CEM) literature does not contain targeted models for scheduling collaboration in the context of maturity and, broadly speaking, neither does the literature at large. The literature also lacks actionable items as presented for the maturity model for collaborative scheduling (MMCS).

The construction industry has considerably evolved in the recent two decades due to the emergence of sustainability, lean construction (LC) and building information modelling (BIM). Despite previous research efforts, there is still a gap concerning the multidimensional nature of their integration. Hence, this study aims to fill the mentioned knowledge gap through exploring and comparing the challenges, enablers, techniques as well as benefits of integrating LC with BIM and sustainability in building construction projects.

A systematic literature review was conducted to fulfill the purpose of this study.

The findings reveal and compare the challenges, enablers, techniques and benefits of integrating LC with BIM and sustainability in building construction projects. The results suggest that there are eight common challenges for integrating LC with BIM and sustainability, including high initial cost, lack of collaboration, lack of professionals and lack of compatible contractual framework. The discovered challenges, enablers, techniques and benefits seem to be mostly routed in people. The findings also suggest that the synergistic benefits of integrating LC with BIM and sustainability can overcome the common challenges (safety, reliability, productivity, collaboration and quality) in construction projects.

The findings contribute to the literature and practice concerning the integration of LC with BIM and sustainability by exploring, comparing and discussing the relevant challenges, enablers, techniques as well as benefits. Moreover, the findings reveal the significance of the development of people in construction industry, besides processes and technology, as people are always subject of activities in construction while processes and technology are always objects.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the areas and logic of integration of different stakeholders using different methods and to analyse their applicability and challenges in practical projects. The main aim is to describe how these different methods impact value creation.

Action design research was carried out in a large hospital construction project where the first author acted as an “involved researcher” and the second author acted as an “outside researcher”. Two workshops were organised to evaluate the direct and indirect challenges and benefits of the applied four methods and to explain how different methods enable value creation.

All the studied methods provide good results in terms of usability and commitment to the aims of the project, thus delivering the direct benefits expected. Process, people and tools logic works well in this case project when applying the methods properly. Significant evidence was provided on secondary deliverables of the methods, and all analysed methods had a significant impact in the area of leading people, clarifying what “focus on people” means and how it is enabled.

Focus on people can be achieved through different operative methods if applied in the right way. It is necessary to select the most suitable methods based on all the direct and indirect deliverables.

This case project offered a platform to analyse integration methods in a real-life project using the collaborative contract method. The authors were able to participate in the analysis by taking action from the very beginning of the project in terms of training, learning, continuous development and coaching of these methods and evaluating the applicability.

This study aims to set out to identify and evaluate potential obstacles to successfully implementing lean construction (LC) as a result.

Several indicators were recognized as major obstacles following an exhaustive assessment of the literature and a multicriteria decision analysis based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) of information obtained from a questionnaire survey that was directed to practitioners in the Indian construction industry.

The results of this AHP model suggest that “Managerial” and “Inadequate resources” categories with a priority weight of “0.361” and “0.309” have the highest levels of influence, respectively, while “Inadequate knowledge” and “just in time (JIT)” categories with a priority weight of “0.053” and “0.034” have the lowest levels of influence, respectively.

Construction companies can use the study’s findings as a guide to determine whether they are ready to embrace LC, learn more about the components needed for implementation or investigate any challenges that may arise. These businesses can then create plans to promote the adoption and application of the lean philosophy.

The Indian construction industry may see great success with LC management initiatives. LC concepts have been adopted by many nations, but during the past 20 years, there has only appeared to be a limited amount of lean implementation in the Indian construction industry. It seems that several structural and cultural barriers are preventing its effective implementation. Organizations will not be able to determine what improvement efforts are required, where these efforts should be directed or which initiatives could provide the best outcomes if they are unaware of the elements that influence the effective implementation of LC.

In academics and industry, significant efforts have been made to lead planners and control teams in evaluating project performance and control. In this context, numerous control metrics have been devised and put into practice, often with little emphasis on analyzing their underlying concepts. To cover this gap, this research aims to identify and analyze a holistic list of control metrics and their functionalities in the construction industry.

A multi-step analytical approach was conducted to achieve the study’s objectives. First, a holistic list of control metrics and their functionalities in the construction industry was identified. Second, a quantitative analysis based on social network analysis (SNA) was implemented to discover the most important functionalities.

The results revealed that the most important control metrics' functionalities (CMF) could differ depending on the type of metrics (lagging and leading) and levels of control. However, in general, the most significant functionalities include managing project progress and performance, evaluating the look-ahead level’s performance, measuring the reliability and stability of workflow, measuring the make-ready process, constraint management and measuring the quality of construction flow.

This research will assist the project team in getting a comprehensive sensemaking of planning and control systems and their functionalities to plan and control different dynamic aspects of the project.

This paper aims to explore a framework for implementing Lean Construction (LC) to provide corrective actions for quality defects, customer dissatisfaction and value creation during the construction of megaprojects.

This paper presents a case study involving the construction of the Mohamed VI Tower in Morocco. It is the tallest tower in Africa, with 55 floors and a total height of 250 m. This study of the quality of the work and the involvement of the LC was carried out using the Define–Measure–Analysis–Improve–Control approach from Lean six sigma. It describes the Critical to Quality and analyses the root causes of quality defects, customer dissatisfaction and variation in the quality process.

Firstly, the results of this study map the causal factors of lack of quality as established in the literature. Secondly, the LC tools have reduced non-value-added sources of quality waste and, consequently, improved critical quality indicators.

This document focuses on one part of the tower’s construction and is limited to a project case in a country where LC is rarely used.

This study reinforces the literature reviews, surveys and the small number of case studies that have validated the potential of LC and further clarifies future directions for the practical emergence of this quality improvement approach, especially for large-scale projects.

Set-based design (SBD) is a lean tool widely adopted for improving design processes and providing value maximization to clients. The purpose of this paper is to present the development and testing of a lean simulation game that incorporated point-based and SBD principles. The objective of the game was to enhance learning of lean design management among construction students.

After a thorough and comprehensive literature review consisting of secondary data in journal papers, books, thesis references and primary data in the form of interviews with lean practitioners, the simulation game prototype was developed. The testing of the game was carried out with a study group. Data were collected during the gameplay with the help of a questionnaire survey on a confidence scale and Likert scale and assessed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, histogram, one-sample t-test and false discovery rate (Benjamini–Hochberg) correction method.

The data collected both pre- and post-simulation showed an increase in average confidence in understanding from 3.33 to 3.89, a 16.7% rise. The data was further interpreted by using Wilcoxon signed-rank test, indicating that the post-simulation learning experience was significantly better than the pre-simulation one. Promising positive results were obtained for the questions on game design, engagement and understanding of point-based design and SBD concepts.

The simulation game helps bridge the gap between knowledge building and real-life by effectively imitating the process. The game facilitates a dynamic and critical approach toward developing new educational simulation games and their successful incorporation in propagating lean principles in the construction industry.