A branding device for the main contractor

The main contractor had a long history of being involved in industry-leading processes and projects concerning construction improvement. Members of top management had decided to involve themselves in the Danish Lean Construction community, and concomitantly with the execution of the renovation project a member of top management was appointed chairman of the Lean Construction community in Denmark.

The LPS was viewed by top management as a way of improving the profitability of construction projects, and it was obviously also a way of branding the company as an innovative and Lean company. In the following excerpt is taken from an internal workshop in the company, where the LPS was presented by top management and discussed with area managers in the company:

Chief production officer: We have worked with this management technology in a couple of projects now with great success. We are planning to disseminate the technology to even more construction projects in our company, and therefore require you to learn more about it.

Area manager: But what is it about and what difference does it make to a construction project?

Chief production officer: It allows better control of the construction projects. We achieve a more even construction flow, and we have received positive feedback from the subcontractors who have been involved. In addition, it gives us an advantage when we profile ourselves to customers and subcontractors.

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This aspect did in itself infuse a kind of stability to the LPS in general during the renovation project.

The advantages of the LPS, explicitly presented by top management, made the LPS a technology that could not be removed from the renovation project. It became mandatory for the project managers who referred to both area managers and the chief production officer to maintain the existence of the LPS in the renovation project. However, there was no internal auditing taking place about how the LPS was performed. The specifics of the performance of the MCS were therefore wholly handed over to the project managers.

In this respect the LPS therefore gained an identity of being a branding device, which supported its durability in the renovation project. This particular finding is therefore in line with institutional perspectives on isomorphism, proposing that management technologies are used to represent competiveness in broader discourses of efficiency and stay rather decoupled to particular production processes. In order to uphold this identity, all that was needed of the MCS was its mere existence in an indefinite form throughout the construction project. As mentioned, top management was interested in applying the LPS to a number of future projects. At the end of the renovation project, which was completed two months ahead of the initially projected deadline, top management assigned the project managers to evaluate the LPS with the subcontractors. The excerpt below illustrates part of the evaluation sequence:

Daily project manager: I would like to hear your opinion of these weekly meetings. This so-called Lean Construction. It is not something I will hold you accountable for. It is also reasonably new to me. This is not something that is to take the whole day. But what is your experience of it?

Plumber: I think it is great.

Bricklayer: I don’t think it is different from other meetings I have attended and have been involved in. Whether it is called Lean Construction or not, I don’t see the difference between this and the meetings held before this Lean Construction came into the picture. I don’t see that.

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Painter: The difference is that our boss is not the clerk of works who does the planning. We who execute the actual activities do the planning.

Daily project manager: Yes, that is the big difference.

Electrician: That is where things usually go wrong.

Painter: Now, I can only talk for myself. When I am out it is always me who attends the meetings because my boss don’t say anything when he is present. But in my experience it is often the clerks of work who perform the planning and evaluation procedure. It is therefore second-hand information that we get. And something is often forgotten in that process. In addition, the agreements you make with the other trades at the construction site…if the boss comes around telling you to do this and that…then you are in trouble concerning the other agreements you made.

Electrician: The LPS is good in this kind of construction. It would not have been of any help if it was a house or something. Then it would have been too comprehensive.

Daily project manager: There would have been too many activities to go through.

Painter: We would lose our overview. If it is to be used in a larger-scope construction project, we would have to use apartment numbers instead of activities. There you can’t take every single activity.

Electrician: It fits fine with this type of project.

(file 45)

The rest of the evaluation part did not add further to these reflections. It is evident that even though they expressed a positive attitude towards its use, the trades also had reservations about the application of the MCS in more complex construction projects. In addition, there were divergent perceptions of the innovativeness of the MCS. According to the bricklayer, the LPS did not represent any change from other construction projects that he had participated in. According to the painter, the LPS was an advantageous departure from traditional construction management because agreements were made between the ones who were actually executing the activities and information was therefore first-hand. Whether this information was channeled back to top management is not known, but the company implemented the LPS in several other construction projects after the completion and delivery of the construction project. Additionally a project manager from this project was appointed Lean Construction specialist, counseling other project managers in the

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company on Lean Construction principles. These implications emphasized top management’s dedication to the maintenance of the LPS.