The annual Indian Lean Construction Conference 2022 (ILCC 2022), which was organized by the Institute for Lean Construction Excellence (ILCE) and the National Institute of Construction Management and Research (NICMAR), was held at Hyderabad, India, a couple of weeks ago. The theme for the conference was “Sustaining Lean in Construction with People and Technology”. The four-and-a-half-day conference brought the top academics and the who’s who in the industry together. As an active participant and a stakeholder in every edition of the annual conference since its inception, VisiLean played a major role this year too. We do a quick round up of the events that stood out.
About ILCC 2022
The ILCC 2022 saw Lean Practitioners from the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Facility Management (AEC/FM) fields come together to explore the opportunity to share and discuss their experiences with adopting and implementing Lean techniques in construction projects on a common platform. The conference consisted of a workshop, an industry day, a technical conference, and an industrial visit. Aside from academic presentations and research, the pre-conference workshop focusing on training participants on lean implementation techniques on Indian construction site projects and interacting with industry experts on practical nuance regarding the implementation of lean was also held.
VisiLean at ILCC 2022
The latest edition of the conference held a special place for us; the event started with ILCC felicitating our Co-founder and CEO Dr Bhargav Dave. One of the pioneers in implementing Lean methods in construction, Dr Dave’s contributions have been monumental in the inception of ILCC. This has also led to VisiLean being an active participant during the ILCC over the years.
The highlight of ILCC 2022 was the fact that experts shared their profound insights. Dr Bhargav Dave was invited to present on a number of topics across the five days of the annual conference. His in-depth knowledge of Lean Construction and Technology, both academically and from working with clients and projects across the globe, was highly valued by the patrons. He chaired a technical session and also led two panel discussions on Lean and Digital Construction and the role of ‘Technology in Lean Implementation. Apart from this, VisiLean conducted a full-day workshop on Decoding ‘Lean‘ in Production Management for almost 100 participants divided across 3 batches. This workshop was delivered and led by our Solution Specialist, Vijayashree TM, who has previously conducted similar workshops for the last ILCC (2021) held at CEPT University, as well as for the Masters students at Nihon University.
The panel discussion delved deep into the latest developments and discoveries in the integration of technology, methodology and construction trends. The synergies between Lean and BIM and how it can help meet sustainability targets, increased profits, and reduce risks formed the crux of the discussions.
Dr Dave drove home the point that the rapid rise in technologies such as wireless sensor networks, artificial intelligence, machine learning and reality capture has given birth to a new wave of the industrial revolution, often labelled Industry 4.0. One of the core aspects of lean construction processes is that it proposes a more robust bottom-up process that is constantly reconciled with the situation on the ground. From this perspective, the construction 4.0 initiatives and lean construction processes can significantly benefit from each other. Their synergies lie across the whole construction process, from early design to construction and later operations and maintenance. Dr Dave provided his vision of digital construction practices based on lean theories and methods to support the construction lifecycle. The talk was widely accepted by the patrons.
From theory to practice
The foundations of VisiLean are deeply embedded in research on the successful integration of Lean and BIM for effective project delivery. The workshop conducted by Vijayashree TM was designed to take the participants through the theoretical background of these domains, combined with the practical application of our tool – VisiLean, by simulating real-life project implementation practices.
The workshop, entitled ‘Decoding ‘Lean’ in Production Management‘, was designed to dive deep into what it entails to do ‘lean’ in the production planning, execution, and control processes of construction projects, and how its integration with BIM supports and enables efficiency in project delivery. The focus of the half-day workshop held as a part of the ILCC 2022 saw participants – a group of about 100 people comprising of students and professionals being given hands-on training in the finer nuances of how our Lean- BIM integrated solution, VisiLean, works.
Dr. Bhargav Dave, kicked off the workshop by addressing the participants on the pressing challenges of conventional construction practices due to non-value-adding activities and how projects fail due to no common understanding of value amongst different project stakeholders. Vijayashree then introduced the participants to the Lean-embedded workflows through a creative digital planning session to prepare a 4 week-lookahead plan in VisiLean. Once the production plan was made ready by the teams, the next session focused on the benefits of integrating the Lean processes with BIM. The teams could visualize their 4-week lookahead plan with the BIM models by linking the tasks with the design models. This exercise was then followed by the mapping of constraints in the weeks to come through the visualisation offered by the model highlighting any safety or logistic concerns. The last step was to feed in data of actual practice into the system to simulate a real-life successful project that made them understand how and why VisiLean is the integrated solution for production management. The participants were very enthusiastic and excited to see the theory they learned being put to actual use.
Our takeaway
This year’s conference was special in many ways. The interactions were very intense and extensive. Students and participants were keen on knowing the practical applications of Lean and BIM together. The spark of interest in VisiLean was so widespread that I really enjoyed the workshop, says Vijayashree TM, our Solution Specialist.
For Dr Bhargav Dave, one of the proponents of Lean, ILCC is an integral part of his life. “It is a comeback”, he says, “an annual pilgrimage to a cause I hold close to my heart”. VisiLean has always been and continues to be closely involved with academia. This is an agenda that is close to all members who build and support VisiLean to spread the knowledge with young minds entering the industry. As a product built on strong research, the team wishes to grow this involvement in the future with such events and collaborations.
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