Implications of lean thinking on the procurement process of public buildings : case study at the construction department of Karlsruhe University, Germany

Abstract

Abstract: Public administration is one of the major contracting bodies for the German construction industry. Few studies refer to procurement processes for public buildings considering this process as one enclosing cycle, starting from demand formulation by the end-user until delivery. The present dissertation is based on literature research and a case study, analysing the procurement of public buildings at Karlsruhe University with the particular focus to provide process transparency by applying techniques of value stream mapping, regrouping of sub-processes, reduction of lead times as well as further heuristics of lean-principles to the respective processes. At first the derivation of new production principles and their applicability to administrative process flows is explained. Value stream mapping of the procurement process of a public building is optimized within the case study by a number of proposals that reduce the number of consecutive sub-processes from 18 to 14 steps and restructuring the whole process. Furthermore the five prevailing lean-principles of value, value-stream, flow, pull and perfection are compared with the current situation and translated into the context of procurement processes in public administration. The dissertation has to be seen as a first part of a comparative study, suggested to be conducted on the procurement process of public buildings in Brazil combined with further detailed analysis of lead times. This enables an exchange of best practices and the possibility to elaborate new concepts to improve processes in public administrations for the benefit of better value generation to the end-users.