From Factory Floors to Construction Sites

The Evolution of Lean Construction

Through Six Decades

COMMENTARY

By LIM YiiLiang

Sarawak, Malaysia

Figure 1: History of LC
(Source: Author’s own work)

The Evolution of Lean Construction: From Factory Floors to Construction Sites

Lean Construction (LC) has not arrived at its current stature by accident, or divine intervention, or coffee-fueled site meetings. Although the latter may have played a role. Instead, LC has journeyed through a rich and structured evolution spanning over five decades, with each phase shaped by prevailing industrial challenges, intellectual breakthroughs, and the universal human desire to “do more with less” (de Oliveira & Loos, 2024; Singh, Kumar, Mittal & Verma, 2024). Figure 1 attempts to summarise this evolution visually, but beware, even a flowchart cannot capture the full drama of transitioning from TPS to AI-enabled LC.

Phase I (1970s): When Lean Was Born in a Car Factory

The LC story begins on the factory floors of Toyota in Japan, where Taiichi Ohno in the late 1970s likely stared at an overcrowded assembly line and thought, “there must be a better way.” Thus, was born the Toyota Production System (TPS), a philosophy that revolved around eliminating waste (muda), improving workflows via kaizen, and redefining value from the customer’s point of view (Liker, 2004; Binu & Gupta, 2024; Horsfall & Alaribe, 2024).

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How to cite this work: YiiLiang, L. (2025). From Factory Floors to Construction Sites: The Evolution of Lean Construction Through Six Decades, Commentary, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue VII, July.  Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/pmwj154-Jul2025-Yiiliang-From-Factory-Floors-to-Construction-Sites.pdf

About the Author

LIM YIILIANG

Sarawak, Malaysia

Mr. LIM YIILIANG was born and raised in the oil rich state of Sarawak, Malaysia. With over 27 years of experience in Oil & Gas, Construction and recently in the renowned Alternative Energy sector, he is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) by Project Management Institute (PMI) USA. He has exposure working with multinational energy companies such as Shell, Kellog Brown & Root (KBR), Brunei LNG, ORPIC and now OQ, a national petroleum company wholly owned by the Government of Oman.

Area of expertise cover the aspects of Project Management, Construction Management, Governance & Assurance, Contract Management, Scope Change Management, Planning & Scheduling, Cost Control, Stage Gate Review (SGR), Value Assurance Review (VAR), Project Technical Services, Project Engineering (FEED), QA/QC, HSSE Performance Management and Risk Management.

He is a humble first year PhD student majoring in Construction Management, with research focus on Lean Construction. YIILIANG can be contacted at nicewilliam@rocketmail.com