Comelli, M. L., Veras de Carvalho, Y. M., Marinho, R. C., Cândido, L. F. and Barros Neto, J. P. (2019). “Assessing the Level of Implementation of Lean Construction: An Audit Protocol” In: Proc. 27 th Annual Conference of the International. Group for Lean Construction (IGLC), Pasquire. C, and Hamzeh, FR.. (ed.), Dublin, Ireland, pp. 999-1022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24928/2019/0202. Available at: <www.iglc.net>. 999 ASSESSING THE LEVEL OF IMPLEMENTATION OF LEAN CONSTRUCTION: AN AUDIT PROTOCOL Marianna Lira Comelli 1 , Yan Mota Veras de Carvalho 2 , Renan Caminha Marinho 3 , Luis Felipe Cândido 4 and José de Paula Barros Neto 5 ABSTRACT The implementation of lean construction still faces barriers mainly in its initial stages. It occurs, in part, due to the lack of evaluation tools that enable the acknowledgment of its true value for the companies. Thus, this paper aims to present an audit protocol to evaluate the level of lean implementation. Developed under Design Science methodological background, the audit protocol was proposed based on literature. To evaluate the applicability, the pilot protocol was implemented and tested into 4 construction companies from the city of Fortaleza, northeast of Brazil. The pilot revealed improvements to improve the protocol. Then, the improved protocol was evaluated and validated by 5 lean construction experts, resulting in the final protocol which was composed by 4 dimensions, 35 categories, 136 items and 223 examples of verifying evidences. Was verified that the protocol allows more than identify the lean implementation level, but enables a lean journey if used as a guidebook to lean implementation. The proposed audit protocol can be also used to cyclic evaluation that enables the improvements of the identified gaps, through a deep comprehension of the critical factors that can prevent the success of lean construction in the companies. KEYWORDS Lean construction, improvement, evaluation tool, implementing lean, integration. INTRODUCTION Implement lean is a great challenge for any company from any sector. This is evident in the literature, since the efforts of Womack et al. (1990) that results in a generalization of Toyota principles, theoretically applicable in any company (Womack and Jones, 1996). Despite of this efforts, there is no consensus of this generalization, principally if 1 Professor, Christus University Center (UNICHRISTU), Brazil, marianacomelli@yahoo.com.br 2 Master Student, Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil, yanveras00@gmail.com 3 Master Student, Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil, renancmarinho@gmail.com 4 Lecturer, Federal University of Ceará (UFC) at Crateús, Brazil, luisfcandido2015@gmail.com 5 Full Professor, Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil, barrosneto@gercon.ufc.br