Visual Management in Mid-sized Construction Design Projects

Paper in proceeding, 2015

Visual Management has emerged during the past decades within manufacturing and service organizations, as a system that through visualization enables the employees to better understand their role and contribution in relation to both their own organizational values and costumer needs. Visual management is not well known within the construction industry; however, the importance of visualization is well recognized. In construction design, two types of visual means are frequently applied, i.e., 3D models and visual planning. These visual means support communication and mutual understanding during design, but do however not address the management of the project. The aim of this article is to explore how visual means support the design in terms of coordination and how they utilize the potential that exists in a multi-disciplinary design team. For exploring how visual means support the design coordination, we conducted and compared two case studies qualitatively in a construction design setting. Both case studies were followed throughout the entire design process, where the design teams were semi-collocated. More than 15 semi-structured interviews were recorded and transcribed. Both cases were residential in-house projects. Based on our findings we contribute with the following: (1) by using multiple visual means, i.e., visual management, the design teams become more self-going. (2) However, the self-going supported by visual management is primarily related to a collocated setting and active engagement of all actors involved.