Congratulations to Eran Haronian on publishing his recent paper in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management!

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it …”

Measuring production flow in the context of earthworks is challenging, due to the unique nature of the products, the processes, and the production environment. Earthworks is an area where significant improvements may be achieved, with impact on cost, time, quality, sustainability, and safety.

This paper presents an attempt to tackle the question of production flow in earthworks based on the theory of Lean production, specifically on the production principles developed by Hopp and Spearman (“Factory Physics”) and modeled by Little’s Law (WIP = CT × TH). The data analysis presented uses raw data obtained from machine control systems installed on the heavy earthworks equipment, and their linkage to the “roadel information schema” – a discrete representation of continuous products in earthworks.

The work is an output of the first author’s PhD and was co-funded by the Israel Ministry of Construction and Housing.

The full article is available from:

https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0002091