Systematic Literature Review of Design Management in Construction through the Last Planner® System Perspective

The Last Planner ® System (LPS) created by Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell helps to improve the predictability and reliability of construction production. LPS is the most advanced and widely used lean construction technique with positive impact. With adaptations, the Last Planner System works in design too. There is a gap in the existing reviews about implementation of LPS in Design. To fill in this gap, this paper aims to analyze the existing literature about implementation of the Last Planner System during the design stage of building projects. To do so, the researchers carry out a Systematic Literature Review of design management in construction through the LPS perspective. For practitioners, Systematic Literature Review helps to develop a reliable knowledge base by accumulating data from a range of studies, which serves both academic and practitioner communities. This Systematic Literature Review identifies and analyzes articles published from 1992 to 2018 in English language scientific journals, books, book chapters, conference proceedings, and dissertations. The study shows the increased usage of LPS in design over the last 20 years. The most contributing countries are USA, Latin American countries, Nordic countries and the UK. The study reveals the need for quantitative data in the form of questionnaires of project participants and stakeholders; the need for testing the LPS implementation in design-bid-build environment and testing the inclusion of clients representatives in Percent Plan Complete calculation procedure.