The construction industry is still facing the chronic problems of efficiency, cost overruns, project delays, and underutilization of resources. Conventional project management practices in the industry are reactive: they lack structured protocols for systematically detecting sources of waste or monitoring work site conditions on a real-time basis. New digital and lean construction tools have the potential to produce significant productivity gains to address these four challenges.

Lean construction aims to identify where to add the value and remove the waste in the construction value chain (Ramani and Lingan, 2019). Value Stream Mapping (VSM), a lean tool for analyzing and redesigning the process segregates the activities into those adding value and those that do not add value to the operation and practices in this context. As a recent trend, waste categories like material handling and approval lags are targeted by VSM deployment in construction, which brings about reduction in project cycle times especially at the downstream end (Morato and Ferreira, 2024). To complement the above and to fit waste reduction into the overall realm of smart sustainable development, VSM has also been used to map environmental and social aspects in a recent study (Batwara et al., 2023). At the same time, with its shared and data-rich virtual representation of the functional and physical characteristics of a project, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has also driven technological adoption in the construction sector to a great extent. The potential of BIM can be multiplied when it is complimented by Business Intelligence (BI) tools like Power BI (Mane and Mhaske, 2024).

Some studies suggest that by connecting BI dashboards with BIM data, transparency and early identification of project deviations can be achieved (Di Giuda et al., 2024; Gajera, 2023). The digital twin, enabling the cloud-based real-time synchronous connection with predictive analyses and improving lean management capacity, defines this further evolution as the next stage (Jiang et al., 2024; Owais et al., 2024). Lean implementation is prevalent, and digital tools have had success; however, it is not known to its full extent how end-to-end integration of Lean concepts with digital tools can produce a synergy effect.

This paper investigates how a lean-digital approach was put into practice on a major institutional building project. It carefully examines how well VSM works for process optimization and how BIM, Speckle, Power BI dashboards, and Power Automate workflows can be used in tandem to improve stakeholder participation, transparency, and communication. To provide data-driven insights into the measurable benefits of leveraging both lean and digital tools to improve construction project delivery, this paper provides an actionable case study.

Although tools and techniques from the Lean methodology, such as VSM are widely used for non-value-added activities identification in construction and despite the advances made by a significant number of LCM studies across various industry sectors we have found that research, practical recommendations in terms of theoretical implementation and integration with digital real-time monitoring systems remain limited. Likewise, planning and visualization-tools for BIM used on the building site are widespread, but there is a lack of empirical validation to what extent they actually affect measurable performance throughout the project and production feedback loops. In construction, however, both process optimization focusing on inefficient processes and real-time data sharing, monitoring and decision-making are necessary in practice. Hence, in this work. We attempted to fill this gap by presenting and applying an integrated Lean–Digital framework consisting of VSM, BIM modeling, Speckle-based data sync., and Power BI dashboards for monitoring measurable project performance indicators on an ongoing project in Vellore. The proposed process is validated through a 4-month field observatory period, which provides quantitative measurement such as time saving in the excavation process and sensor-on time to communication latency: RFI response within two working days.

Two complementary streams of recent research on construction efficiency are the use of data-driven digital platforms for real-time project visibility and control and the application of lean methodologies such as VSM to identify and eliminate process waste.

Several VSM applications in construction are identified by Morato and Ferreira (2024) through a systematic review, indicating that the application of the methodology in an iterative manner with the stakeholder involvement has generally been able to deliver reductions in cycle frequency. This reinforces that VSM is a successful tool to find and remove wastes such as downtime, material travel, and approval waits. Towards smart and key sustainable development goals for systematic removal of the waste, studies on recent perspectives widen this basis by incorporating environmental and social perspectives into VSM (Batwara et al., 2023). According to Michaud et al. (2019), VSM could be effectively applied to digital processes themselves, e.g., streamlining BIM information flows in order to minimize the amount of time it requires for data transfer.

On the digital side, however, the most important factor influencing data management is the combination of BIM and BI. According to research, connecting BIM data to Power BI dashboards enables planners to see time (4D) and cost (5D) optimization centrally and interactively, allowing them to see departures much earlier (Mane and Mhaske, 2024). This solution enhances real-time cost tracking and data insights by enabling drill-down exploration for managers (Gajera, 2023). More refined BIM-BI integrations for facility management can be realized through advanced applications, where complex model-based data can be translated into extensive dashboards for informed decision-making (Di Giuda et al., 2024; Roxo et al., 2022).

The crossover of these digital technologies that integrates lean principles for real-time visibility and predictive analytics is an area on the rise. Digital solutions enable dynamic construction process visualizations that help teams identify non-value-added activities and promote teamwork and transparency (Owais et al., 2024). This idea develops from static models into a Synchronized Construction Management agenda and provides strategies for connecting the virtual twin model and the physical site in real time (Jiang et al., 2024). Additional technological developments can include employing open BIM standards to guarantee data verification continuously throughout a project’s life cycle (Otranto et al., 2025) and integrating BIM with game engines to improve stakeholder collaboration in order to overcome interoperability barriers (Rehman et al., 2025).

Ultimately, comprehensive systems that combine multiple digital tools with lean principles would reap the greatest benefits. Performance improvements have been reported in studies on Lean-BIM methodologies, particularly in the project design stage (Hammi et al., 2023). In a study by Jiang et al. (2024), BIM combined with QR-based tracking and future-state VSM showed a 12% increase in labor productivity and an 18% decrease in idle time. Higher-level conceptual models like coordination of BIM, IoT, and GIS could enable better resource management and collaborative decision-making (Liu et al., 2025). Some significant representative studies, their methods, and their outcomes are summarized in Table 1.

In summary, the existing studies have provided clear evidence that innovations like the BIM-to-BI pipeline allow for project status to become transparent so as to take proactive actions, and VSM can always be applied to effectively spot and remove non-value-adding steps. An integrated approach that combines lean, BIM, and other digital tools is said to be crucial in terms of narrowing the “big” divide between data analytics and managerial decisions. By operationalizing a full lean-digital loop that links VSM-based process enhancements with real-time BIM-to-Power BI dashboards and automated alerts, as well as by measuring its schedule impact on a large-scale institutional project in India, this study makes a useful, practical contribution.

The study followed a two-pronged approach: (i) laying the base for the study’s methodology by reviewing the latest research in the domain of lean-digital integration and (ii) field-based interventions conducted using digital dashboards, VSM, and BIM supported by workflow automation.

An institutional building construction project was selected to apply VSM and measuring the changes to Value-Adding (VA)/Non-Value Adding (NVA)/Non-Value Adding but Necessary (NVAN) activities, stream live BIM data via Speckle to Power BI, and automate alerts with Power Automate.

The implementation strategy, which was carried out in two significant stages, combined digital innovation with lean methods:

Phase I: VSM-based lean construction optimization.

Phase II: Linking the real-time data from BIM and the model management platform Speckle to a Power BI dashboard for digital monitoring.

Like many other projects, the selected institutional building construction also faced several chronic problems such as weather-related delays, supply chain and design unpredictability, and shifting labor availability, which had contributed to the production inefficiencies and overruns. To assess the current state of the project, it was decided to map the value streams for each of the main processes involved in the execution work. This was achieved with the aid of site diaries, resource logs and visual observation, and activities were classified as non-value adding work, non-value-adding or value-adding. These were communicated to the project team and efforts were taken to eliminate all the non-value adding activities based on the future state map. Once the project activities were streamlined, there was significant reduction of time observed. Table 3 shows the details of activities and their respective durations before and after lean implementation through VSM.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) reported based on the actual execution of the Lean–Digital. Table 4 summarizes those KPIs. An analysis was conducted at a live construction site in Vellore and observed for 4 months. The project time-schedule in MS Project and the effect of improvements were assessed by baselined versus real durations after Lean interventions. The categorization of activities VA, NVA, and NVAN was evaluated through confirmation by the project manager to confirm accuracy of workflow analysis. The implementation results indicate quantifiable enhancements, such as 15% in duration of excavation activity and 2.06% project time reduction. Furthermore, the project communication effectiveness was tracked by RFI response time which found that it was about two working days under the current system.

In order to better continuous supervision and decision-making, these KPIs were also visually processed into this real-time visualization flow through data extraction from BIM model and dashboard intergration. The project model and its datasets were kept in synch using Speckle, ensuring updated project information flowed into a centralised reporting system. Power BI dashboards were subsequently created to monitor workflow status, progress and key performance indicators in an accessible manner. This included integrating the VSM with digital dashboards to ensure that lean improvements generated were not just observed but also measured dynamically, enabling the project team to more fully check in on progress quicker and address things like TSIs approvals and RFIs sooner.

Through the elimination of redundant handoffs and waits in the excavation stage, activity time was reduced from 536 h to 455.6 h - a reduction of 15%. With accelerated approval processes and efficienct sequencing, the project gained further efficiencies of 1.4%–3% in the foundation and slab operations as well. In total, these changes decreased the length of project time by 234.88 h (i.e., 2.06% shortening from 11400 h down to 11156.12). The detailed breakdown of these improvements is presented in Table 3. Delays in drawing approvals, needless motion, ineffective material transportation, and avoidable workflow stoppages were the main waste categories that were addressed during this study. Figure 8 provides a comparison of overall project duration before and after applying lean principles.

Further improvements were achieved by the adoption of digital technologies after VSM implementation. As shown in Figure 9, a real-time feedback loop was introduced demonstrating progress, resource utilization and new workflow concerns via a live Power BI dashboard updated on the fly from Revit models (BIMs) through the Speckle platform. This data pipeline provided instantaneous, automatic information in place of time consuming manual updates. Closing feedback loops was another important function of Power Automate, which produced instant alerts of any schedule or model deviations, as seen in Figure 10, so that the execution and project management teams could react proactively as opposed to reactively. As the digital system evolved, the team members got more clarity in their daily responsibilities, reporting cycles and decision-making timelines shrank, and data input mistakes decreased.

The benefits of lean and technological integration in the project were only attained following a continuous investment in team training and a committed cultural shift toward data-driven management. Early challenges, such the transition to new sequences, matching real-world progress with model data, were similar to those encountered by many other construction projects which need continuous improvement and feedback. The limitations of process and technology are demonstrated by the fact that other external vulnerabilities, such as labor availability and climate impacts, can still control the project outcomes. By taking excavation as a sample activity, Figure 11 shows an activity level vs. project level savings in duration where as, Figure 12 shows the improvement in other qualitative parameters like stakeholder response, and report/data turn around time) as well as the reduction in approval lags.

Together with the usual benefits extracted from literature (construction uses of VSM often reducing between 10%–30% the cycle time, associated to wait for approval flows, material flow or idle times (Morato and Ferreira, 2024), The use of the lean tool VSM combined with digital technologies like BIM (Revit) BI (Power BI) and automated work (speckle), led to making a 15% reduction in duration on excavation tasks which were a vital contribution to obtain an overall saving time of 2.06% in project delivery esacpement standards. Instantaneous decision making is another important impact of the automatic alerts and live dashboards (on project control) also reflecting evidence based documentation on the productivity and time/cost visibility outcomes from BIM-BI where as much as 25% improvement attainment has been registered in real-time decision support, as well as acceleration process optimization (Mane and Mhaske, 2024; Gajera, 2023; Di Giuda et al., 2024). International benchmarking also suggest that lean–digital paradigms tend to global cut programs by 2%–15% depending upon project size and digital maturity (Hammi et al., 2023; Owais et al., 2024). Similarly, systematic waste identification and VSM-driven improvements have been found to achieve physical benefits in labour productivity gains (e.g., as much as a 12% increase in productivity and 18% reduction of idle time) using digital twin-enabled VSM case study (Jiang et al., 2024). Nonetheless, literature also reports several practical barriers associated with the adoption of digitalized construction ecosystems, such as budget constraints, data security problems, regulatory obstacles, and lack of coordination between IT managers and operations team due to limited interoperability and workforce resistance (Rehman et al., 2025; Otranto et al., 2025). Furthermore, numerous researches highlight that digitalization cannot completely mitigate external disturbances such as negative weather conditions or supply chain instability and resource constraints which still constitute major sources of variability for building projects (Liu et al., 2025; Jiang et al., 2024).

The key inferences from this study are, real-time data flows are key to a successful lean journey along with structured change management, continuous training and leadership support. Early quick wins can break the ice on resistance. Apart from continuing the longitudinal validation with different projects and increasing scalability and robustness, future developments might involve new technologies like IoT, Digital Twins, AI based analytics and so on.

The theoritical contribution of this study to lean construction research is that, it demonstrates how a lean tool combined with integrated digital tools (BIM, Power BI and Speckle) can achieve solid efficiency improvements.

The results of this research showed that digital technologies like BIM, BI and automated data exchange can be seamlessly integrated with lean practices and bring considerable improvement in project delivery time of construction. VSM allowed for time savings, in a selected excavation activity around 15% which accounted for about 2.06% reduction in overall project time.

Through real time digital connectivity, everyone in the value chain from site managers and engineers–could see the progress at a glance, get instantaneous updates on model changes or hazards to schedule and act on issues far quicker than with traditional reporting. In addition to the ability for faster review and feedback, accessible data also helps teams collaborate more effectively, hold each other accountable more efficiently and enables faster decision making. With constant visibility and automatic notifications, perceived benefits like better role clarity and ownership can be gained. The case also demonstrated the significance of feedback hardwire support and customization.

The results of this study can be viewed in the context that a scaleable lean-digital integration may not only increase the performance of individual projects, but also could help in creating a consistent pattern in the construction industry.

All of these need to be further underpinned and developed through greater investment in digital infrastructure, training team members and creating an iterative approach towards process improvements. The benefits for practice will help to support the wider industry move towards complete lean and digital adoption resulting in more efficient, transparent projects that are competitive globally over the long term.