INTRODUCTION

The construction industry is very important for the development of any country; the creation of the
necessary infrastructure have to be provide by the government and/or privates investments in order
to achieve it. For example the investment estimated for 2014 period by CChC is 684US$ MM, where
209US$ MM correspond to VIVIENDA and 475US$ MM to Infrastructure (public and private).
Despite the importance and the great amount of resources managed by the industry, is still one of
the most inefficient, so the efforts are concentrated today in reducing the waste in construction and
reach the goal of creating value-added products with the fewer resources.
The industry to emulate in terms of reducing waste is the car industry, who lived a revolution in the
80s decade leaded by the Toyotas chief engineer Taiichi Ohno and the definition of the seven Mudas
( Overproduction, Excess inventory ,Unnecessary motions, Idle waiting , Unnecessary transportation
, Inefficient processing and Defects, breakdowns, injuries), a concept that describes activities that
add cost but no value. The implementation of methods and practices that reduces the Mudas
identificated by Ohno required special focus on measurement before, during and after the
manufacturing process, this could by think as the scientific method being applied all along the car
industry process.
This has to be pointed; the focus was not only in the final product but also during production
(especially during production). That is a major difference today between both industries, because
the philosophy of construction management is to apply corrective actions to the final product or
repair before the final product is handed over the costumer (Forslund 2007, Waste based supply
chain quality). The transition that have to be experimented by the industry is from the Product
Orientation to the Process Orientation like the car industry did it.
Process linking along the supply chain is another focus point to take on account in order to reduce
the Muda in construction. The most efficient system is the nature, there all the parts work not only
for the personal benefit, but also to achieve the global goal, a win-win game, and this is exactly what
the construction industry have to learn (IMITATE). The ability to work together of all the actors
involved in the system from the design stage to the execution of the project, including also the
suppliers.
The coordination between all the parts is a very difficult task to achieve by the construction
manager, and has to be done from the early stages of the project in order to make a good design
and consider all the aspects of all the specialties involved.
This Thesis is oriented mostly in the implementation of methods that can improve this two aspects
mentioned before, the reduction of the Muda all along a specific construction process and the
improvement of the process linking.