The role of lean information flows in disaster construction projects: exploring the UK’s Covid surge hospital projects

Wu, Cheng; Brookes, Naomi; Unterhitzenberger, Christine; Olson, Nancy

doi:10.1080/01446193.2023.2210693

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 58 publications

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“…It focused on the workfrom-home impact due to social distancing during the pandemic in India's service industry. (Oey and Lim, 2021;Evans et al, 2022;Le and Nguyen, 2022;Evans and Farrell, 2023;Wu et al, 2023;Sari et al, 2023;Jiang et al, 2023;Simeão and Ferreira, 2023) 5 4 1 5…”

Section: Current Literature On Lean and Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19's impact on lean programs and implementation in energy-based utilities

Jensen,

Cross,

Polanco-Lahoz

2023

TQM

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PurposeLean is a continuous improvement methodology that has succeeded in eliminating waste in a variety of industries. Yet, there is a need for more research on Lean implementation in several under-studied contexts, including crisis situations such as those created by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This research investigates how Lean programs were impacted by COVID-19, while previous research has primarily explored how Lean was used to solve problems created by the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-method research approach was used to analyze employee feedback on how COVID-19 impacted the Lean programs using data from various levels of four energy-based utilities in the United States. First, an online questionnaire collected qualitative and quantitative data from a broad sample of participants. Then, a follow-up semi-structured interview allowed the elaboration of perceptions related to the research question using a smaller sample of participants.FindingsOut of the 194 responses from the four companies, only 41% of the respondents at least somewhat agreed that COVID-19 impacted the Lean program at their company; of the remaining 59%, 35% indicated they were neutral, while 24% disagreed. The themes from the qualitative portion indicated that, while employees believed their companies had successfully found a new way to do Lean within the constraints of not always being in person, the collaboration and engagement were more challenging to sustain, and COVID-19 also otherwise made it more difficult to implement Lean. Meanwhile, some believed there was no impact on the Lean program.Originality/valueThe COVID-19 and Lean peer-reviewed literature published from 2020 to September 2023 focused primarily on using Lean to address problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic vs studying the pandemic's impact on Lean programs. This research partially fills this literature gap in understanding the impact COVID-19 had on Lean initiatives.

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