Barriers to adopting lean construction in the construction industry: a literature review

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify and theoretically explain the general barriers to adopting lean construction practices in the construction industry regardless of the country or the company size or specialization, and to suggest future research studies in this field. Design/methodology/approach Systematic literature review was conducted to identify and explain the list of the barriers from scientific sources that were published before May 2018. Findings Twenty-nine barriers were identified and explained, and a proposed model to classify the sources of the barriers was chosen. Seventeen barriers were classified as internal environment-related barriers, five were labor-related, three were materials-related and four were exogenous barriers. In addition, some directions for the future research studies were suggested. Research limitations/implications The barriers that are related to the advanced levels of lean construction (LC) implementations, to a specific location or to a specific LC tool were excluded. Originality/value This review will help to increase the understanding of the new concept of LC and might help to encourage the adoption of LC practices. Also, it might be useful for identifying the strategies to achieve successful application of these practices.