https://doi.org/10.24928/2022/0104

Role of Lean and VDC in Reducing Physical and Operational Waste and Environmental Impact

Musab Jamal Maraqa¹, Rafael Sacks² & Sabrina Spatari³

¹Ph.D. Graduate Student, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, +972 59 8218363, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0002- 7756- 2787.
²Professor, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, +972 4 829 3190, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-9427-5053.
³3 Associate Professor, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, +972 54 668 4373, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-7243- 9993.

Abstract

Lean construction focuses on eliminating process and operational wastes. The reduction of waste improves environmental performance by reducing GHG emissions. This research quantified the impacts of lean construction and VDC in reducing physical and operational wastes related to partition walls. The researchers observed worker activities at construction sites and compared them with observations from past projects. The activities were classified into value-adding and non-value-adding activities. The researchers observed the construction of different block types (gypsum, autoclaved aerated concrete, and concrete blocks) to estimate the operational wastes related to the construction method. The results showed that lean and VDC improved the value-adding activities using gypsum block to 68.4% compared to 25.8% in a traditionally managed project using concrete block, an improvement of 167%. Moreover, the embodied GHG emissions in the lean-VDC project per partition area are 12 kg CO2e m-2 compared to 58.4 kg CO2e m-2 in the traditionally managed project. The reduction in GHG emissions is due to reducing waste in the lean-VDC project and using more sustainable materials.

Keywords

Lean construction, sustainability, waste, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Virtual Design and Construction (VDC)

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Reference

Maraqa, M. J. , Sacks, R. & Spatari, S. 2022. Role of Lean and VDC in Reducing Physical and Operational Waste and Environmental Impact, Proc. 30th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) , 36-47. doi.org/10.24928/2022/0104

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