The last decades showed the lack of productivity and the slow pace of improvement in the construction industry. Lean concepts started to emerge in the early 90‘s aiming to improve the productivity and efficiency in construction through developing managerial tools under the title of Lean Construction (LC). Moreover, Lean principles in the construction industry always seek more value for the customer, safe workplace environment, less waste, optimized schedules, reduced costs, and proactive risk management.

However, implementing LC goes in hand with fundamental changes of the organization, its culture and its people. Therefore, organizations do not always achieve the outcomes they expect in their Lean transformation. Maturity models can support the transformation to LC by measuring the current state of their journey and identifying strengths and weaknesses.

Maturity can be defined as the state of being fully developed or adult, referring to both physical state and personality or behavior. LC maturity refers to the maturity of an organization in its transformation to LC.

The maturity models were deliberated in the software engineering field study fields. The Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) is the best-known model to emerge from this sector. The MM seeks to enhance the organizations after assessment to improve their strategies or implement changes within a guideline. Moreover, it was stated that MM directs and informs the people to prioritize the improvement of actions and the initiation of cultural changes.

In the last decades, there was little attention paid to the relation between Lean Construction and Maturity Models. Nevertheless, the cultural maturity topic was given attention in Lean-managed organizations. Likewise, some attention is given to the Lean Enterprise Self-Assessment (LESAT) which guides the transformation in organizations. Another significant method that assesses the Leanness of an organization is the Shingo Prize Model®.

In the field of lean construction, a framework was developed in 2014 to evaluate the maturity levels in lean construction. This framework is called Lean Construction Maturity Model (LCMM) which is based on the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI). LCMM adopted the generic structure of CMMI, where CMMI claims to be a guide for the organizations seeking for an efficient and developed culture that improves processes in order to deliver the desired products or services to the customer (CMMI Product Team, 2010).

As a result, the developed LCMM includes five Maturity Levels, 11 Key Attributes, 60 Behaviours, Goals & Practices, and 75 Ideal Statements to evaluate the maturity levels of the organizations in LC practices.

In conclusion, the adoption of lean concepts in the construction industry is still fresh and somehow vague to several practitioners (individuals, organizations, etc.), where a lot of practitioners know “lean“ but they aren‘t aware how “lean“ they are, since the knowledge is always different from the practice without implementation. Therefore, it is essential to know how much of our lean knowledge is being practiced in addition to the awareness of our state throughout this practice. Lean always seeks for better, and that‘s why we should always seek for a challenging and flexible atmosphere within our organizations in order to think lean, act lean and improve lean.

References:

CMMI Product Team (2010). CMMI for services, version 1.3, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

Bernstein, H. M. and Jones, S. A. (2013). Lean construction: Leveraging collaboration and advanced practices to increase project efficency, Design and Construction Intelligence, McGraw Hill Construction, Bedford, MA.

Nesensohn, C., Bryde, D., Ochieng, E., & Fearon, D. (2014). Maturity and maturity models in lean construction. The Australasian Journal of Construction Economics and Building, 14(1), 45–59.

Nesensohn, Claus and Bryde, David and Ochieng, Professor Edward and Fearon, Damian and Hackett, Vince, Assessing Lean Construction Maturity (June 2014). Proceedings of IGLC-22, June 2014 | Oslo, Norway , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3105431

Wendler, R. (2012) The maturity of maturity model research: A systematic mapping study. “Information and software technology“, 54(12), 1317-39.

OGC (2010) Portfolio, Programme and Project Management Maturity Model (P3M3®): Introduction and Guide to P3M3®. In: Office of Government Commerce (OGC), Ed., Norwich, NR7 0HS.: Cabinet Office of Rosebery Court, 17.

Pennypacker, J.S. (2005) “Project portfolio management maturity model“. Pennsylvania, USA: Center for Business Practices.

Chestworth, B., London, K. and Gajendran, T. (Year) Diffusing Cultural Awareness and Maturity in Lean Managed Organizations. In: Egbu, C (Ed.), “26th Annual ARCOM Conference“, 6-8 September, Leeds, UK. Association of Researchers in Construction Management, Vol. 1, 461-9.