Integrating the production and the erection processes of pre-fabricated steel frames in building projects using phased lean management Gholamreza Heravi, Majid Fazeli Kebria and Milad Rostami School of Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of implementing value stream mapping (VSM), just in time ( JIT), continuous flow and total productive maintenance (TPM) methods throughout production and erection processes of pre-fabricated steel frames (PSFs) of building projects. Design/methodology/approach – As phased lean management, after implementing the VSM technique, the JIT technique is implemented as first lean phase and the TPM and the continuous flow techniques are implemented as second lean phase. To evaluate the expected improvement of project performance due to reduce wastes by implementing lean techniques, discrete event simulation (DES) is utilized. In this research, an eight-story residential building project in Tehran, Iran, is studied. Findings – Simultaneous use of lean techniques to integrate production and erection processes of PSFs leads to the improvement of the performance of production and erection stages, significantly. The results indicate 43 and 17 percent reduction in PSFs production and erection processes time and cost, respectively. Research limitations/implications – In the present study, only the effects of implementing lean techniques on the production and erection of PSFs have been evaluated. However, it is also possible to apply these lean approaches and the key strategies to the other modular or pre-fabricated construction methods. Originality/value – The main contribution to knowledge is improving the construction project performance by integrating the production and erection processes, using phased lean management through implementing lean techniques. The results of the current study provide valuable insight into the possibility of integrating and improving construction processes of pre-fabricated construction. Keywords Process, Project management, Construction planning, Scheduling, Integrated practice Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction In addition to difficulties of on-site construction methods, the competitive environment of the construction industry has led many construction organizations toward using innovative methods (Serrano et al., 2009). The innovative methods may be used in order to improve the performance of the construction project by reducing project time and cost. Among those innovative methods, lean techniques have been used as an effective tool for minimizing wastes with doing functions in proper time, proper quantity by utilizing minimum resources (Womack and Jones, 2005). Waste is defined as any activity or process that is not value added that means it does not add any value to the final product (Tyagi and Vadrevu, 2015). The definition of value depends on the ultimate desire. This value is a critical point in lean thinking (Womack and Jones, 2003). The ultimate goal of lean methods is to eliminate wastes and improve the value index of the processes. As a result, lean production systems try to produce in lower time and cost compared with conventional systems by reducing or eliminating wastes (Womack et al., 1990; Bhosale and Salunke, 2015). Lean production was started in Toyota car factory in Japan that reduced the time between receipt and delivery (Ohno, 1988). After applying lean techniques in the manufacturing industry (Wahab et al., 2013) and achieving desired results, with the development of new lean Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management © Emerald Publishing Limited 0969-9988 DOI 10.1108/ECAM-03-2019-0133 Received 11 March 2019 Revised 27 July 2019 Accepted 21 October 2019 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0969-9988.htm Pre-fabricated steel frames in building projects