Pull-Driven Construction of High-Rise Apartment Buildings

Construction of high-rise apartment buildings is made complex by the myriad possibilities for clients to adapt their apartments to suit their individual needs and preferences; traditional construction planning practice of progressing upwards from floor to floor breaks down in the face of the arbitrary sequence in which clients finalize their decisions. The results are long cycle times for delivery of completed apartments and corollary high levels of work in progress (WIP), budget and schedule overruns, and general dissatisfaction with the process on the part of the contractors, subcontractors and the clients. This paper presents a management model that applies lean thinking to this problem. The model was first formulated in theory, then tested using a management simulation game, and subsequently developed for practical application by a dedicated team composed of university researchers and construction company personnel. It is now being tested in a large construction company.