Breistein, H. and Lædre, O. (2022). Implementing VDC. Proceedings of the 30 th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC30), 937–948. doi.org/10.24928/2022/0204 Product Development and Design Management 937 IMPLEMENTING VDC Helene Breistein 1 and Ola Lædre 2 ABSTRACT Norwegian construction clients are demanding the use of VDC in their projects. Contractors have thus implemented VDC on construction projects. However, little research has been conducted regarding how projects should implement VDC. The study answers four research questions to provide a set of recommendations on how VDC should be implemented in projects: (1) How is VDC implemented in construction projects, (2) Which part of the implementation had positive effects on the implementation, (3) Which part of the implementation had negative effects on the implementation and (4) How should VDC be implemented in construction projects. Three general and five case-specific semi-structured interviews were conducted. The contribution of the study is a set of recommendations concerning how projects should implement VDC. The recommendations are based on seven key elements for implementation, ranked from most influential to least: Anchoring, Communication, Vision, Plans, Project Team, Training, and Engaging. KEYWORDS Last Planner® System; Virtual Design and Construction (VDC); BIM; Lean Construction; Implementation INTRODUCTION Norwegian construction clients require their design and build-contractors to use Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) in many of their projects. VDC can be defined as “the use of integrated multi-disciplinary performance models of design-construction projects to support explicit and public business objectives” (Kunz and Fischer, 2012). Some clients have demanded using one or two of the working methods found in VDC (Bråten et al, 2021). More recently though, clients require using all the working methods within VDC in their construction projects. The increasing demand for VDC in Norwegian construction projects has – as a natural response – resulted in contractors implementing the VDC framework in their projects (Alarcón et al, 2010). Implementing in this context is defined as “to put into practical effect ” (NUBU, 2014). VDC is thus considered implemented in a project when VDC is in practical use. Nevertheless, implementing new working methods successfully in construction projects is a demanding process (Alarcón et al., 2010). Sufficient attention must be given to the implementation. If the implementation is not prioritized, the result may be a waste of money, time, and effort (Alarcón et al., 2010). However, little research has been 1 MSc student, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway, +47 988 01 476, helene.t.w.b@gmail.com, orcid.org/0000-0003-1835-5523 2 Professor, dr.ing, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway, +47 911 89 938, ola.laedre@ntnu.no, orcid.org/0000-0003-4604-8299