Brief Reflection on the Improvement of the Design Process Efficiency in Brazilian Building Projects

This paper starts with (i) an introduction on building construction sector design process main characteristics and (ii) a presentation and discussion on its efficiency problems. The Concurrent Engineering concept as a tool to improve this process, approximating it to lean construction approach is introduced. It also describes a case study on a 22 companies group quality program. This group includes building construction companies, as well design offices, which are implementing some design process changes. The paper ends up proposing a building design process methodology, based on the concurrent engineering principles.