Avaliação da implementação da filosofia da construção enxuta em pequenas empresas da construção civil

Abstract

The traditional model of management and production of civil construction has always been focused on mass production, generating high levels of material waste, low quality of the final product, low productivity, and, ignores the flow activities. These characteristics, together with successive economic crises faced by the sector, had caused many companies to lose space in the market, especially micro and small companies. Thus, this work proposes to evaluate and compare the eleven principles of a management model, derived from a Japanese production philosophy, originally known as Lean Production. This production model was conceived in the Japanese industry in the post-World War II period and was prominently applied by the Toyota Motor Company, based on works developed by Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo. Faced with the success of this new model, several researchers and scholars sought ways to adapt their concepts to other production sectors, and from that, Lean Construction emerged as a result of the work of the Finnish Lauri Koskela, who took the initiative to develop and adapt lean ideals in the civil construction sector. Lean Construction has the potential to bring benefits to small businesses such as: increased transparency of processes, reduced rate of variability, time savings, reduced waste, less errors and rework. Thus, a case study was developed in a small construction company, in the city of Fortaleza - CE, where the data were collected by applying a questionnaire in order to assess whether the company has any degree of application of the Lean Construction philosophy, also visits to the construction site and interviews with the managers involved in the production process were carried out, identifying the deficiencies of the current management model. Thus, it was found that the company's management and engineering have a lean percentage below 30%, level D, considered the most precarious level of performance, and, evidencing the low focus on improvements and zero knowledge regarding Lean Construction, according to the applied methodology. Finally, the results were evaluated and discussed, and Lean Construction was presented as a possible solution through proposals for improvements that expressed the eleven principles of Koskela, consistent with the reality of the company. The managers were receptive to the new philosophy, affirming the desire to study the subject in depth, and the probable implementation of this knowledge. Therefore, the research contributed to introduce Lean Construction concepts in the studied company and with the generation of actions aimed at improving the construction management model.