@inproceedings{Asmone2025_2324,
  author = {Asmone, Ashan Senel and Pal, Aritra and Murguia, Danny and Rathnayake, Asitha and Middleton, Campbell},
  editor = {Seppänen, Olli and Koskela, Lauri and Murata, Koichi},
  title = {Where Is the Evidence of Performance Improvement in the Lean Construction Literature?},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC 33)},
  year = {2025},
  pages = {1--12},
  address = {Osaka and Kyoto, Japan},
  issn = {2789-0015},
  doi = {10.24928/2025/0128},
  url = {https://www.iglc.net/papers/details/2324},
  abstract = {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.},
  keywords = {Lean construction, performance improvement, productivity, measurement, standardisation.},
}