Managing work flow on design projects: a case study

Project management has neglected production. Its theory and techniques are devoted for the most part to the formation, award and administration of contracts. Production management has equally neglected projects. Developed in manufacturing, theories and techniques of managing production focus almost entirely on the task of making multiple copies of a single design. Management of project‐based production systems lies at the intersection of these two disciplines, is enormously important, and has been until recently almost entirely undeveloped. A new project delivery process is emerging in the architectural/engineering/construction (AEC) industry. Its first module is production control, dedicated to the management of work flow between specialists. A new production control system, termed the ‘Last Planner’ system, has been successfully applied both to construction and design phases of AEC projects. The paper presents a case study describing one of the first applications of Last Planner to design, which is considered to be essentially a value generating process.