Abstract
The purpose of this research project is to contribute to improving the status quo in the construction sector, which currently suffers from major deficits in the areas of construction productivity and digitalization of business processes. Mitigation strategies are often seen in a more systematic application of the BIM approach on the construction site, as well as in the adaptation of Lean Management principles to the construction domain. Both approaches have already achieved significant improvements when considered individually, as reported in the literature. Also, theoretical synergies between BIM and Lean are well known in the scientific community. However, there is currently still a lack of practical recommendations and tools that actually integrate both approaches at the data processing level and can thus bring concrete benefits into practical application. This thesis attempts to address this gap by developing a new BIM‐based production management system based on Lean Construction principles. This system is furthermore transferred into a working software prototype, which should enable a direct implementation of the theoretical concepts into construction site operations. For this purpose, the "Design Science Research" paradigm is followed for the development of innovative artifacts. These artifacts aim at mitigating the described problems by practically applicable solutions. Besides the identification of the problem, the development and evaluation of these solutions with respect to their practical utility and applicability are the main contributions of this scientific work. The results of the evaluations conducted in this thesis allow to preliminary conclude a confirmation of the practical added value of the developed system. However, one of the major limitations of this study is that a test on live projects and over a longer period of time to measure specific construction process performance parameters is still pending, as access to construction sites and the necessary interaction with site personnel was not possible due to the worldwide COVID19 pandemic. Based on the preliminary findings, the hypothesis for a potential further scientific investigation continuing this work is however, that a future construction site application of the developed construction production management system using the supporting software prototype can sustainably improve characteristic construction process performance indicators and lead to a better collaboration of the stakeholders involved. These indicators could include process stability, adherence to schedules, lead and cycle times as well as quality of execution and collaboration.