Lean management in the real estate industry - maximizing customer value and minimizing waste
"Only produce what the customer needs."
Taiichi Ohno
What is behind lean management? What are the benefits and how do we use it in the Architecture and Construction division at ECE Group Services? In this blog post, we will shed light on the basics of lean management and its application in companies.
Definition of lean management
Lean management as a methodology and philosophy aims to,
- maximize customer value,
- minimize waste and
- continuously improve processes.
This includes overproduction, waiting times, transportation, superfluous processing, inventories, unnecessary movement, rework and unused employee potential.
History of lean management
Lean management has its origins in the automotive industry. It was born out of the need to increase efficiency and minimize waste. It was a response to the challenges faced by Japan after the Second World War and at the same time a creative way to achieve maximum results with limited resources.
Principles of lean management
Lean is a holistic management system based on philosophy, principles and methods. The principles of lean management are central guidelines that help companies to maximize value, minimize waste and continuously improve processes. Lean management consists of five principles:
- Define customer value: clear communication and understanding of customer value, everything else is waste.
- Define value stream: analyze the entire value stream with all relevant Sections and Investments and through transparency, identify and eliminate waste in the process.
- Create flow: recognize and eliminate obstacles in the process to ensure a smooth flow.
- Introduce a pull system: only produce on customer request and avoid overproduction.
- Strive for perfection: work together to continuously improve the status quo and processes.
Resources are often increased in developments to cover up problems. Lean management is about creating transparency and thereby identifying and eliminating the causes of problems.
Lean management in the construction and real estate industry
Construction projects are becoming increasingly complex and demanding, while time and cost pressures are rising. The height of project participants with different competencies and the growing requirements for safety and sustainability pose additional challenges. Lean management in the construction industry addresses these challenges. These include a strong customer focus, increased process transparency, a holistic view of processes across all project phases, collaboration between the various project participants and more efficient planning, organization and implementation of developments.
"Lean is a fundamental attitude that strives for continuous improvement to increase customer satisfaction. Together with customers and partners, we develop a common understanding of the value chain and thus create the basis for efficient and successful cooperation." - Mehrnoush Nayebi, Senior Lean Manager, Architecture & Construction at ECE Group Services
Lean management under planning stage and under construction at ECE Group Services
Lean management has also become an integral part of the Architecture and Construction division at ECE Group Services and is applied in all ECE asset classes. The key to success: a combination of lean and agile working methods:
Standardizing repeatable processes and increasing scalability
Standard processes are defined and applied in developments and individually adapted. This is a great added value in a multi-project management environment with standard processes, such as "At your Service" measures or building blocks for the energy-efficient refurbishment roadmap. The aim here is to develop an individual and long-term action plan for shopping center owners that will enable them to achieve their goal of climate neutrality by 2045 as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.
Agile management of creative and complex tasks
Developments that are more individual in nature, on the other hand, require a certain degree of agility in planning stages in order to be able to react quickly and efficiently to any Alterations or obstacles. In these developments, such as the Foodgarden in the Main-Taunus-Zentrum, the "agile planning management" methodology is used, where the planning processes are defined and scheduled together with the planning partners. By regularly and jointly updating the planning processes, it is possible to react more quickly to Alterations in the planning stage.
ECE EDITORIAL TEAM
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