Visual management in highways construction and maintenance in England

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current Visual Management practices in highways construction projects in England.

Design/methodology/approach
Following a comprehensive literature review, the research topic was investigated by using five case studies and focus groups.

Findings
The main findings are (i) the current implementation of VM is limited, particularly on the construction field, (ii) there are some identified points (suggestions) that require attention to disseminate and advance the current practices further (iii) many conventional and BIM based opportunities to extend the current Visual Management implementations exist for the sector.

Originality/value
The highways construction and maintenance sector in England has been systematically deploying lean construction techniques in its operations for a while. One of those lean techniques is a close-range visual communication strategy called Visual Management. The literature on the Visual Management implementation in construction is scarce and generally limited to the building construction context. This paper documents the current industry practice in conventional and Building Information Modelling (BIM) based Visual Management and identifies a set of recommendations and some Visual Management ideas for future implementation efforts in the highways construction and maintenance sector.