School of Civil and Construction Engineering Photo courtesy of NBBJ Exploring the Opportunities for Applying Lean Principles to Electrical Prefabrication.

School of Civil and Construction Engineering

Photo courtesy of NBBJ

Exploring the Opportunities for

Applying Lean Principles to Electrical Prefabrication

H. W. Chris Lee, Ph.D.

Oregon State University

July 22, 2013

Working Hypotheses

1. Electrical construction has its own unique barriers to prefabrication

2. A project that applies more lean principles provides more opportunities for electrical prefabrication

Photo courtesy of Oregon Electric Group

Project Objectives

Identify barriers

Investigate a list of lean principles

Develop a leanness scoring matrix

Increased Prefabrication in Electrical Construction

• Organizational• Contractual• Technological

1

2

3

Project Tasks

1• Interviews to identify barriers

2• Case studies to identify lean principles

3• Cross-case analysis to develop the leanness scoring matrix

4• Documentation

(Tentative) List of Lean Principles

• Design alignment– Design for Prefabrication– BIM implementation

• Variability management– Lead time/Labor/Quality/Design

• Inter-organizational collaboration– Multi-trade cost and design management

• Alignment of commercial interests– Integrated contracting methods

Photo courtesy of OEG

Project Outcomes – Research Report

What to overcome?

Why to overcome?

How to overcome?

Barriers

Lean Principles

Leanness ScoringMatrix

Research Outcomes:Leanness Scoring Matrix

Category A

Category B

Category C

Category D

Category E

Category F

0

5

Cross-case analysis to identify

improvement opportunities

Photos courtesy of OEG and Skanska

WHY Simple?

WHY Advanced?

Hyun Woo “Chris” Lee, Ph.D.

• CEM faculty at Oregon State University

– School matching support of $20,000 for the project

• Head, IPDS (Innovative Project Delivery for Sustainability) Lab– Applying lean construction concepts and methods to

sustainable investments

• 7 years of construction experience– 3 years as estimator for electrical construction of light rail

and trolleybus in California

Strategic Partnership for Research

• NECA Oregon-Columbia Chapter

• NECA San Francisco Chapter

• And more!

School of Civil and Construction Engineering

Thank you! Questions?

H. W. Chris Lee, Ph.D.School of Civil and Construction Eng.

Oregon State [email protected]

541-737-8539

Photo courtesy of NBBJ

(Tentative) List of Barriers

• Organizational– Late decision making– Lack of pre-planning– Inflexibility of construction workflow– Lack of (field personnel) buy-in

• Contractual– Lack of contractors’ involvement– Lack of multi-trade communication

• Technological– Interoperability issues of design software