Achieving Lean Project Design Delivery

This article investigates the use of Lean Design Flow as a methodology for project production. This research is based on the conceptual framework of Lean Production, whose principles and concepts are suitable for the application to design management. Lean approach is applied throughout the whole project life cycle, resulting in a Lean Project Management delivery. Generally, Lean Project Delivery is a smoother, easier to manage, more reliable, faster and less resource-consuming process. Also the implementation of green practices benefits from Lean. The aim of Lean Project Management is maximizing performances – therefore value - for the customer and the users, integrating a set of project delivery objectives. The design process has many dimensions and includes countless interdependent decisions to be taken by the design team. Identifying needs, converting these in requirements and specifications is fundamental for value delivery over the whole design cycle. Focusing on project design flow can be a winning strategy for The Architecture, Engineering & Construction industry, if the design process is managed and structured as a value-adding flow. The purpose of this research is making project design flow seamless, keener and more solid while conveying value to the customer. The project design process – from inception to detailed design, operations management and maintenance – is a team activity with inputs from many specialists that have to be coordinated. The research is based on data collected both in literature and in design experimentation. Each case study contributed to the development of a Lean Design Management model. The outcome is a Lean methodology to be applied to project design of airport passenger terminals belonging to the Italian Airport Core-Network. This methodology gives a generalized approach for supporting the design phase and project delivery. Dematerializing project design intents with a value adding process is the role of Design Integration, linking all the phases of building life cycle. The results of this research are a project design methodology and tools, through re-defining “grey areas” for improvements based on Lean Principles.