Exploring the Use of Digital Visual Management for Last Planner System Implementation

The Last Planner system has been widely implemented seeking to offer greater transparency and predictability for construction projects through collaborative production planning. A major challenge in this context is increasing process transparency, which is one of the visual management (VM) purposes and a basic principle of the Lean production philosophy. Achieving this has required extrapolating the limits of the physical environment through the use of digital tools, which lead to the digitalization of VM and to virtual collaboration. This process was accelerated due to the COVID-19 context, the physical boundaries constraints, and the need for real-time information sharing and collaboration. This paper aims to explore and discuss the use of digital VM tools for LPS implementation. Action research was the methodological approach adopted in this research. The investigation was based on a consultancy in a construction company in Brazil. The digital VM tools and practices adopted in the different planning levels were assessed through requirements considered relevant to this context, including visual and non-visual aspects. Their impact in collaborative production planning is discussed. The ongoing results indicate that digital tools were better suited to the strategic and tactical levels, while traditional tools showed more suitable for the operational level.