Assessing the Level of Implementation of Lean Construction: An Audit Protocol

The implementation of lean construction still faces barriers mainly in its initial stages. It occurs, in part, due to the lack of evaluation tools that enable the acknowledgment of its true value for the companies. Thus, this paper aims to present an audit protocol to evaluate the level of lean implementation. Developed under Design Science methodological background, the audit protocol was proposed based on literature. To evaluate the applicability, the pilot protocol was implemented and tested into 4 construction companies from the city of Fortaleza, northeast of Brazil. The pilot revealed improvements to improve the protocol. Then, the improved protocol was evaluated and validated by 5 lean construction experts, resulting in the final protocol which was composed by 4 dimensions, 35 categories, 136 items and 223 examples of verifying evidences. Was verified that the protocol allows more than identify the lean implementation level, but enables a lean journey if used as a guidebook to lean implementation. The proposed audit protocol can be also used to cyclic evaluation that enables the improvements of the identified gaps, through a deep comprehension of the critical factors that can prevent the success of lean construction in the companies.