ABSTRACT
The nineteenth century brought a growing awareness of material quality and returned to a theme throughout history of craftsmanship in buildings. The twentieth century saw a massive expansion of construction with the technological material developments in reinforced concrete, glass, steel and aluminium and radical, improved processes for more efficient off-site fabrication and assembly. The construction industry processes are notoriously inefficient, expending wasteful resources or buffers such as additional time, material inventory and contingencies. The construction of the ‘White House’ began on 13 October 1792 with George Washington laying the first cornerstone. The Obayashi Corporation created the ‘Big Canopy’ system in 1994 to protect the construction of high rise buildings from the vagaries of the weather and as an attempt to create more factory conditions. The Transformational-Flow-Value goals are consolidated and balanced in priority under lean construction whereas traditionally the waste minimisation and value maximisation elements are neglected.
