REENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES IN THE ERA OF CONSTRUCTION 4.0: A LEAN-BASED FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Industries around the world continue to be reshaped, and the construction industry is no exception. Being one of the oldest industries, construction did indeed undergo major transformations over the years. However, for the past few decades, traditional business-as-usual in construction has reached a stagnation point, adding pressure on organizations to rethink their current processes. Two major transformations changed and continue to change the landscape of the construction industry: Lean Construction and Construction 4.0. While Lean has taken a hold of construction, Construction 4.0, a counterpart of Industry 4.0, is a growing transformation that leverages the power of technology. While the importance of Construction 4.0 has been highlighted, the “how” component of achieving a Construction 4.0 state has not been yet discussed. A process reengineering methodology is needed to assist construction companies in adopting technologies, especially since the existing construction processes have been mostly designed before current technologies became available. Therefore, this paper proposes a holistic conceptual framework to reengineer construction processes in the Construction 4.0 era. The proposed Construction 4.0 Process Reengineering (CPR4.0) framework, which embodies the Futures Triangle methodology, is inspired by Kurt Lewin Change Management Model, and consists of three phases that build on existing reengineering methodologies, people-process-technology methodology, and Lean principles.