The nexus of BIM and Lean in supply chains-Innovation and strategy

Abstract

Various innovations in construction have been put forward from construction improvement agendas over the years. Some of them are supply chain management philosophy, lean thinking and most recently Building Information Modelling (BIM). However, for all these innovation, adoption challenges remain and the innovations are adopted at different maturity levels. The presentation links three paradigms and puts forward the thesis that the reasons for low innovation adoption are the firms’ heterogeneity, the strategic pluralism and the disconnect between management and production, drawing upon Lauri’s Koskela 2017 CME article. Given the increasingly digitised outlook of construction, innovation adoption necessitates rethinking both management and organisation, valuing collaboration and consciously revisiting the nature of work.