Facilitating value creation and delivery in construction projects via front-end loading

The potential and the need for the construction industry to improve performance are recogni-zed in a vast amount of literature from all over the world. The literature addressing this issue and the initiatives being taken in attempting to enhance productivity tends to focus on the con-struction phase of the building projects. However it is in the early design phase that client value is established and the scene is set for everything that follows. Productivity in the construction phase is strongly dependent on performance of the design team and real client value will not be achieved if the building design does not meet client expectations (understanding the client as a wide range of stakeholders). Therefore a holistic view of the building process should be applied with a greater focus on the design phase and value creation. In Denmark a consulting engineering company has together with a major contractor developed a value based work-shop model that seeks to capture client values and manage the subsequent stages of the building process within a Lean framework striving to maximize value and reduce waste. This paper reports the initial findings of a joint research project between academic and industry practitioners developing the work-shop model to create a state-of-the-art approach to design management that is usable for practitioners in the construction industry and is based on a solid theoretical foundation and comprehensive practical experience.