IMPLEMENTATION OF LAST PLANNER IN A MEDIUM-SIZED CONSTRUCTION SITE - Paper Reflections and Preliminary Findings

Sep 12, 2026

Pilot research examines the implementation of Last Planner initiated by Skanska on a 6,800 square metre project comprising a kindergarten, junior high school, and a sports and cultural centre for the Municipality of Kristiansand. Excavation began in late 2008, with delivery of utility buildings scheduled for June 2010. Action research involves academics and construction professionals through ongoing change processes. The study reports preliminary findings on coordination, constraint analysis, and opportunities for further improvements, including stakeholder relationship challenges.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time6 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Background and Lean Construction links

Prior research and evaluation needs

Pilot project context

IMPLEMENTATION OF LAST PLANNER INA MEDIUM-SIZED CONSTRUCTION SITE Bo Terje Kalsaas 1 , John Skaar2 and Rein Terje Thorstensen3 ABSTRACT The paper address a pilot project in implementation of Last Planner initiated by the general contractor, Skanska, in a construction project of 6800 square metre made up of a kindergarten, junior high school and a sports and cultural centre. Excavation work started late autumn 2008 and the utility buildings are scheduled to be delivered to the owner in June 2010. The owner is the Municipality of Kristiansand. Action research is applied as research method, where academics take part in the change processes, together with professionals from the construction project and the general contractor’s head office. This paper concerns reflections from the ongoing construction process and is based on preliminary data. The first run is broadly in accordance with the Last Planner concept as outlined by Ballard. It is, however, identified a need to improve the system to link the output from the collective phase scheduling to production planning via the lookahead schedule and constraint analysis, which has been mis-conceptualised in the early phase of the project. The most successful part of the implementation study so far is several phase planning processes, in which the technical sub-contractors have been taking active part in the collective organised planning process. It is too early in the project to see if this also leads to improved PPC in production, but it is expected that it will. However, the same quality of coordination is missing for the architect and the subcontractor for site work. It is identified a number of empirical difficulties in the implementation the process. The largest challenge seems to be the relationship between the architect, the general contractor and the owner, as the pattern in the relationship appears to be dysfunctional in order to create best possible condition for cooperation, and which need to be further studied. Moreover is it identified proposals for further improvements in the Last Planner concept. KEY WORDS Last planner, implementation, first run study, preliminary findings 1 Dr.Ing, Associate Professor, Faculty of economics and social sciences, Department of working life and innovation, University of Agder, 4846 Grimstad, Norway, Phone +47 37 25 30 00, e-mail: [bo.t.kalsaas@uia.no](bo.t.kalsaas@uia.no) 2 Quality and HSE-manager John Skaar, Skanska Agder, Norway, Phone +47 45869178, e-mail: [John.Skaar@skanska.no](John.Skaar@skanska.no) 3 Head of Department Rein Terje Thorstensen, Faculty of technology and science, Department of engineering and science, University of Agder, 4846 Grimstad, Norway, Phone +47 37 25 30 00, email: [rein.t.thorstensen@uia.no](rein.t.thorstensen@uia.no) INTRODUCTION Several of the largest construction companies with operations in Norway show increasing interests to apply lean construction oriented methods in their operations. They are, however, on a rather early stage on that path and implementation seem to take place in pilot cases. An exception might, however, be a competitor to SKANSKA on the Norwegian market, which has decided to go for a full implementation of their version of Last Planner, denoted “Involvement in planning”4 . Last Planner has been in development since 1992 (Ballard and Howell 1997 in Ballard 2000) and is associated to the TFV-theory (Koskela et al. 2002), which Ballard (2000) regard to be synonymios to Lean Construction. Hence, the development of Last Planner started up a couple of years after the Lean Production denotation of Toyota’s production system was launched in the Machine that Changed the World (Womack et al. 1990) . The TFV-theory (Transformation-Flow-Value), as in Lean production/Lean construction, is based on a set of principles associated to transformation, flow and creating value for customers, some of the principles are theory based, while others are based on generalization from b

FAQs

What project context was used to implement Last Planner?

The pilot was initiated by Skanska on a 6,800 square metre construction project with a kindergarten, junior high school, and a sports and cultural centre for the Municipality of Kristiansand.

What research method guided the study?

Action research was applied, with academics participating in change processes alongside professionals from the project and Skanska’s head office.

What main improvement need was identified after the first run?

The study found the system needed better linkage from collective phase scheduling to production planning through lookahead scheduling and constraint analysis, which was mis-conceptualised early on.

Sep 12, 2026

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