| The structural steel erection process is considered to be a relatively efficient and fast part of a construction project. Opportunities for improvement are sometimes overlooked and obscured by apparent success. Inefficiencies observed in the structural steel erection process include: unnecessary movement of personnel, unnecessary handling of steel pieces, and inefficient crew use. This investigation explores how to reduce or eliminate these inefficiencies by applying principles part of the lean production theory. One of the main principles of lean production is the reduction or elimination of non-value adding activities (waste) from the production process (Koskela 1993).; The structural steel erection process of a building normally contains six distinctive activities: unloading, shakeout, erection, plumbing up, permanent connection and decking. According to lean production theory, unloading and shakeout activities are non-value adding. In this sense, the main goal of this research was to study the viability of eliminating non-value adding activities of unloading and shakeout from the structural steel erection process by creating an alternative erection process.; It was found that it is possible to remove unloading and shakeout from the erection process of structural steel frames with characteristics similar to the case studied. Moreover, it was estimated that removing unloading and shakeout could result in a 26% reduction in duration and almost a 20% reduction in cost for the case study. |
