Artificial Intelligence and Lean Construction: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?

Lean construction (LC) is nowadays a key management approach for construction projects. Although lean principles and methodologies have progressively been introduced in the Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) field since the early nineties, digitalization, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasing opportunities and potentialities of lean construction, as well as providing construction managers with new methods to control and optimize the building process. Within this scope, this paper elaborates on the multiple digitation levels of LC and discusses the application of different AI techniques to construction project monitoring and management. Two AI applications for LC, one focused on automatic monitoring of construction works and the other dedicated to material handling and transportation planning, are then presented and discussed.