TY - CONF TI - Lean Construction for the Sake of What? C1 - Osaka and Kyoto, Japan C3 - Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 33) SP - 1126 EP - 1136 PY - 2025 DO - 10.24928/2025/0174 AU - Christensen, Randi M. AU - Arroyo, Paz AU - Schöttle, Annett AU - Ballard, Glenn AD - Sustainability Director, COWI, rmch@cowi.com, and Founder and Co-Director, CollabDecisions, orcid.org/0000-0002-3377-7057 AD - Quality Leader, DPR Construction, PazA@dpr.com, and Founder and Co-Director, CollabDecisions, orcid.org/0000-0002-8098-8172 AD - Independent Consultant, annett.schoettle@web.de, and Founder and Co-Director, CollabDecisions, orcid.org/0000-0001-6001-7320 AD - Research Associate, Project Production Systems Laboratory (P2SL), University of California, Berkeley, USA, gballard@berkeley.edu, orcid.org/0000-0002-0948-8861 ED - Seppänen, Olli ED - Koskela, Lauri ED - Murata , Koichi AB - Lean construction includes impactful and powerful tools and techniques. For many years, it has been recognized as a management approach that helps the construction industry become more efficient and productive. The aim of implementing Lean Construction is mainly to reduce costs and time or to increase the value achieved for the client. However, with the need for a more sustainable construction industry, this paper calls for a discussion of our underlying assumptions on what constitutes waste and value, and whether we have the proper definition of the customer. Through a literature review and analysis, the authors highlight the original focus on value and waste behind implementing Toyota Production Systems and review the IGLC body of knowledge. The authors argue that as a community, we have been too focused on reducing economic waste and delivering value to the paying customer. As a community, we need to agree what value and waste mean and for whom. We must expand the stakeholder definition to also include future generations and nature. Moreover, we should discuss our underlying reasons for investing in implementing Lean Construction. Perhaps it is time for us to discuss “Lean Construction for the sake of what”? KW - Lean Construction KW - value KW - waste KW - costumer KW - sustainability 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/2356/pdf L2 - http://iglc.net/Papers/Details/2356 N1 - Export Date: 07 June 2025 DB - IGLC.net DP - IGLC LA - English ER -