Studying cultural issues:the implementation of facilitated process-orientated co-operation

Movements advocating lean construction and other initiatives based on improving production and cooperation have gained momentum. Similarly the construction business is faced with broad support for closer and less rigid working relationships within the supply chain. This is set against the dominating subcultures anchored within individual trades and professions that appear to constitute a barrier to the adoption of process-orientated forms of cooperation. As part of a pilot study for an ongoing Ph.D. study a large construction project in Denmark was monitored, observing and subsequently analysing the actions of the members of a contracting organization in the process of implementing process facilitation. The ethnographic research was instrumental in helping to illustrate the disparity between intention, current norms and culture. Despite broad understanding of, and support for, the new production and cooperation principles the members of the project organisation failed to make full use of the techniques applied. This appeared to be the result of a mismatch between overall aims and various cultural interpretations of procedures. The research was also useful in identifying some of the softer issues surrounding the implementation of lean tools and methods and was instrumental in helping to shape the ongoing doctoral work, which is investigating the interaction between (lean) design and construction.