Engineering and Design for Lean Construction – An AVEVA Business Paper

Modern marketing rhetoric claims that, in order to cut out expensive costs and reduce risks during the design and construction phase of major capital projects, we must ensure that the plant design is completed 'right first time'. If we can eradicate the iterations and reworks in design and form the design right from the outset, we will ensure that everyone in the project execution is equipped with the latest and most accurate information about the project. This business paper challenges that premise and argues that, in many instances, 'right first time' is not achievable. This ideology does not have the flexibility needed to cope with client, legal, contractor and environmental changes which influence scope changes throughout the project.

The confluence of design theory and design development, the reality of construction and extremely complex engineering, requires an acknowledgement that iterative and evolving design is an important concept. We focus on the concept of the 'Design Spiral' for complex, multi-discipline problem solving and we argue that the key to Engineering & Design for Lean Construction is taking control of this spiral, reducing the iterations and building better communications between the designers and the constructors. Evolutionary design, just as in nature, requires the design process to be adaptable to change, and allowed to cycle through alternatives as quickly as possible until its most ideal form is achieved.

For more information, please download this free white paper from Offshore Technology.