Can the civil engineering sector learn a trick or two from manufacturing?

摘要

In the last 50 years, the manufacturing sector has earned a reputation for quality and efficiency that is the envy of many other industries. A large part of its success is due to its use of efficient production systems developed in Japan after World War II and used and perfected by businesses the world over. Collectively termed 'Lean systems', these methods have helped make businesses such as Toyota great by enabling them to reduce costs while simultaneously increasing quality. In the early eighties, these systems attracted the attention of researchers in production and operations management and numerous studies have been undertaken to unearth their potential.