Analysis of the production function in civil construction: a driver for lean construction

The construction industry has bleen an important role for economic growth, and gains in productivity could produce a significative impact. However, historically, it has been proved that this industry is operating not significativelly well in terms of efficiency related performance. The objective of this work is to justify the adoption of Lean Construction, as a comprehensive alternative for addressing problems related to resource and systemic productivity. To frame the productivity problem, the work analyzes the productivity of this sector, using the production function of Cobb Douglas, which is an econometric concept that provides information to assess relationships between the total volume produced, and the resources that are used during the production process. The present work has analyzed biggest companies in the world of civil construction, all of them listed in the Forbes 2017 publication. The production function analysis shows that these organizations are experiencing returns of decreasing scale. To address this results, this paper discusses the use of lean construction as a feasible alternative to increase productivity, considering the effects that operations networks and supply chain level could produce in the aggregate level of industry performance