TY - CONF TI - Where Is the Evidence of Performance Improvement in the Lean Construction Literature? C1 - Osaka and Kyoto, Japan C3 - Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 33) SP - 1 EP - 12 PY - 2025 DO - 10.24928/2025/0128 AU - Asmone, Ashan Senel AU - Pal, Aritra AU - Murguia, Danny AU - Rathnayake, Asitha AU - Middleton, Campbell AD - Research Associate, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, asa79@cam.ac.uk, orcid.org/0000-0002-2173-3890 AD - Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, aritrapal@civil.iitm.ac.in, orcid.org/0000-0002-1644-7400 AD - Senior Research Associate, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, dem52@cam.ac.uk, orcid.org/0000-0003-1009-4058 AD - Research Associate, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, agbrr2@cam.ac.uk, orcid.org/0000-0002-1389-7801 AD - Professor, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, prof@construction.cam.ac.uk, orcid.org/0000-0002-9672-0680 ED - Seppänen, Olli ED - Koskela, Lauri ED - Murata , Koichi AB - This paper critically evaluates the evidence of performance improvement within the lean construction literature. Through a systematic review of 1,351 papers presented at the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) conferences between 2013 and 2024, we identify a significant gap in evidence-based studies explicitly addressing performance improvement, with only 52 papers (3.8%) focus on this critical issue. Our findings highlight a predominant focus on building projects, while infrastructure and industrial sectors remain largely overlooked. Additionally, we classify the various performance metrics used in the literature, revealing a lack of standardisation in measuring project outcomes, which complicates benchmarking efforts. We advocate for the adoption of a consistent performance measurement framework to enable meaningful comparisons across similar projects, facilitating the identification of performance improvement and waste reduction. We argue that a structured, industry-wide approach to benchmarking and performance evaluation is essential for the sustained adoption of lean construction and the realisation of its full benefits. KW - Lean construction KW - performance improvement KW - productivity KW - measurement KW - standardisation. PB - T2 - Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 33) DA - 2025/06/02 CY - Osaka and Kyoto, Japan L1 - http://iglc.net/Papers/Details/2324/pdf L2 - http://iglc.net/Papers/Details/2324 N1 - Export Date: 07 June 2025 DB - IGLC.net DP - IGLC LA - English ER -