6.3 Suspended Ceiling Design Process - Bilkent University

5.1.2 Lean Design
The major aim of lean production is to eliminate waste in production
processes. Lean production was developed by a Toyota team, led by Ohno
in the late 1980s. The term “lean” was coined in 1991 by the research team
working on international auto production to reflect both the waste reduction
nature of the Toyota production system and to contrast it with craft and
mass forms of production (Howell, 1999). Lean philosophy has later
expanded into many other fields. In 1993, the U.S Air Force and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology established a research organization
named the Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI). The initiative defines the term
lean as “adding value by eliminating waste, being responsive to change,
focusing on quality, and enhancing the effectiveness of the workforce.”
(LAI, 2002). In 1997, the Lean Construction Institute (LCI) was founded to
extend lean design and production philosophy to the construction industry.
The institute is a non-profit association supporting lean research in
construction and it disseminates knowledge through its publications and
annual conferences (LCI, 2002).
Gregory Howell, the director of the LCI, explains that the first goal of lean
construction is to fully understand the underlying “physics” of processes,
the effects of dependence and variation. He also comments that these
physical issues are ignored in current practice which tends to focus on
more human issues such as teamwork, communication and commercial
71