Analyzing the Empire State Building Project from the Perspective of Lean Project Delivery System

Oct 24, 2026

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A research paper examines the Empire State Building’s design and construction using the Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS) perspective. It highlights that lean-like construction methods were used during the building’s 20-month completion, decades before lean concepts were formalized. The study compares Starrett Bros. & Eken’s processes with LPDS, detailing how LPDS structures value generation and production management through interconnected phases and modules, including work structuring and production control.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS)

LPDS framework and modules

Work structuring and production control

Analyzing the Empire State Building Project from the Perspective of Lean Project Delivery System Somik Ghosh, PhD and Kenneth F. Robson, AIC, CPC University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma The Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world when it was officially opened on May 1, 1931. It held that distinction for over 40 years. In 20 months the building was designed, engineered, permitted, demolition of an existing building completed, and the building constructed. In order to complete the Empire State Building under the allotted 18 month schedule, Starrett Bros. & Eken, the contractors employed innovative construction methods and techniques. Many of these construction methods qualify as tools of lean construction practiced in today’s construction industry. Comparing the design and construction processes employed by Starrett Bros. & Eken with the theoretical constructs of Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS), it is evident that several lean construction principles were employed during the construction of Empire State Building, a quarter of a century before lean concepts were formalized. Using archival records and historical accounts, this paper examined the design and construction processes of the Empire State Building and compared them with the LPDS processes that are increasingly employed in the construction industry today. Key Words: Lean construction, Project management, Project delivery methods, Planning Introduction The Empire State Building is arguably one of the most famous buildings in the world. It was the tallest building in the world when it was officially opened on May 1, 1931. It held that distinction for over 40 years. In 20 months the building was designed, engineered, permitted, existing buildings were demolished, and the building constructed. Atthe peak of construction, framework rose 4 ½ floors a week. The Empire State Building was completed on time and under budget. The contracts with the architects were signed in September 1929 and the first structural columns were set in April 1930. Only one year later, the building was fully enclosed, with a height equivalent to 102 stories and 1.2 million square feet of rentable space (Willis, 1998). In a project such as the Empire State Building, where 57 thousand tons of structural steel and over 62,000 cubic yard of concrete were erected involving almost 3500 workers on peak days (Willis, 1998), the approach to design and project management played a crucial role for the successful completion of the project. gly, designers and contractors view any construction project as a transformation process where total production can be broken down into smaller production units, and the total production can be managed by managing the smaller units. The inherent problem with this approach is the failure to acknowledge the interdependencies of the smaller units, as if those units are independent from each other. The Empire State Building project, an anomaly to the traditional practices of design and project management strived to adopt a production management based approach to design and construction. The paper argues that the management philosophy of the Empire State Building was rooted in what has come to be referred as lean construction, and bears a close resemblance to the Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS) . This paper analyzes the design and construction of the Empire State Building project from the perspective of LPDS. In the following sections, the paper presents the conceptual framework of LPDS, discusses how it is different from the traditional approach, and illustrates the resemblance of the production process of the Empire State Building Project with that of LPDS. Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS) LPDS has been designed as a framework for a production management based approach to design and constructing capital facilities in which “the project is structured and managed as a value generating process”(Ballard, 2000). The main intention

FAQs

What does the paper aim to analyze about the Empire State Building project?

The paper analyzes the Empire State Building’s design and construction processes and compares them with the Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS).

How does LPDS structure projects for production management?

LPDS provides rules for decision-making, procedures for execution, and tools to implement production management, structuring the project as a value-generating process.

What is work structuring in the LPDS/lean construction context?

Work structuring is defined as developing a project’s process design to align engineering design, supply chain, resource allocation, and assembly efforts to make work flow more reliable and quicker while delivering customer value.

Oct 24, 2026

Upload by Stanley