Influence of the experience of the project manager and the foreman on project management’s success in the context of LPS implementation

Abstract

Production planning is a key element for success in building project management. Last Planner System (LPS) has emerged as an alternative proactive management method through the commitment of the different stakeholders involved in the project; however, further research is required to determine the factors that can affect the success of LPS implementation. This research aims to analyze how the implementation of LPS and the construction management experience of the project manager and the construction site foreman individually influence project management's success, getting minimum time and cost deviations. In this work, newly built single-family house projects were analyzed. Quantitative and qualitative analyses, based on the Mann–Whitney U test and qualitative comparative analysis method, respectively, were performed to constrain both the individual and combined effects of LPS, the project foreman, and the project manager in terms of cost and time deviation as measures of project management success. The results highlight that LPS implementation is significant in terms of time deviation and combined LPS implementation and the foreman's experience in construction management are sufficient to maintain time deviations below 10%. However, among the studied variables, only the foreman’s experience is a required condition to maintain cost deviations under 10%. Overall, this study may help construction organizations to improve their managerial practices at construction sites.

Keywords

• Last Planner System (LPS)
• Building projects
• Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA)
• Mann–Whitney U test
• Project success