Waste in Construction: a Systematic Literature Review on Empirical Studies

Waste is one of the key concepts in the Lean Production philosophy. The elimination of waste has been largely used as driver for improvement in the manufacturing industry. By contrast, it has not been strongly emphasised in the construction management books and mainstream journals. This paper presents a review on papers that have systematically investigated the occurrence of waste in the construction industry, including concepts adopted, metrics, and type of feedback provided. This study is part of a wider research initiative that aims to conceptualize waste in production management theory. In order to ensure that the most relevant studies have been considered, a systematic literature review on that topic has been carried out. This kind of review makes explicit the criteria used to select publications, which enables an assessment of the search undertaken, as well as makes it possible to replicate or extend it. The main sources were the IGLC conference papers, the Lean Construction Journal and a set of mainstream construction management journal. This study intends to make a contribution towards the understanding of the nature of waste, particularly in the construction industry, and how the construction management community have approached this theme so far.

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