Lean Construction Journal

Author Submission Instructions

AIMS

Published by the Lean Construction Institute since 2004, the Lean Construction Journal (LCJ) is an international refereed journal devoted to Lean Construction practice and research.

All papers will be rigorously reviewed by at least three people, at least one of whom is likely to be an industry practitioner. Reviewers will be asking themselves how the paper will support change in, and/or help to stimulate rethinking of, the construction process on- or off-site. The aim of the review process is to support the author(s) achieve this in an accessible manner. To support this, authors may choose to attach detailed statistical or other technical analyses of findings in an appendix that will be seen by the reviewers and available to readers if they want it.

In Lean Construction, owner, designers, engineers, consultants, construction manger/general contractor, specialty contractors, and suppliers work together to generate value for the owner by producing a desirable, constructable, usable, maintainable, and sustainable built and natural environment. The ends Lean Construction seek are achieved through established and developing practices that rest on sound theoretical cornerstones.

While inspired by the thinking of the Toyota Production System, a common misconception is that Lean Construction is an imposition or grafting of Lean Production practiced at Toyota on to the Construction Industry. Greg Howell, our beloved and late mentor, used to say on behalf of the Lean Construction community that “we found our way to Toyota, but we didn’t start there.” This is easily verified by reading the work (starting in 1992) of the early pioneers in this area such as Lauri Koskela, Glenn Ballard, Greg Howell, and Luis Alarcón.

The primary objective of LCJ is to stimulate a systematic rethinking of the construction process both on and off-site by providing a forum for advancing Lean Construction knowledge and exchanging ideas between industry and academia.

LCJ invites practitioners and academics to submit manuscripts on topics inspired, motivated by and/or grounded in what has been accomplished in Lean Construction since 1993 (see these editorials from Lean Construction Journal here and here ).  Manuscript authors (practitioners, consultants and academics), in any LCJ publication category, are minded to submit writings that are readily accessible to reflective practitioners and clients of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) Industry and AEC students and faculty.

We encourage authors taking interest in the discipline of Lean Construction to consider prior publications on Lean Construction at the Lean Construction Journal (www.leanconstructionjournal.org) and the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) conferences at www.iglc.net. We welcome outlines from prospective authors who want to check if their ideas might fit the scope of LCJ. As an on-line open-access journal, we are able to publish submissions as soon as they are accepted for publication.  Authors are not charged any fees for publication.

Impact Factors, Rankings, and Indexing

The assessment of the impact of scholarly, scientific work has been a divisive matter in almost all fields of academic pursuits.  It is not an overstatement to say that the methods of assessment have become an obsession, with the more complication of the methods leading to less understanding of what the impact means.   As a representative of the assessment approach, the Journal Impact Factor is calculated by Thomson Reuters (as are many other indices by others , including Google’s h-index).  The signatories to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) have documented and discussed a number of well-documented deficiencies of Journal Impact Factors as a tool for research assessment.

The Lean Construction Journal is a signatory ( along with 25,046 individuals and organizations in 167 countries) to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (read here).  The signatories of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment support research assessment practices that do not suffer from the metrics chasing problem.  The general recommendation of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment is:

1. Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.
2. The need to assess research on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which the research is published.
3. The need to capitalize on the opportunities provided by online publication (such as relaxing unnecessary limits on the number of words, figures, and references in articles, and exploring new indicators of significance and impact).

The LCJ was conceived in 2003, and the inaugural issue was in 2004.  Since our existence, we have resisted making the impact and citations factors be the aim because all that does is makes us captive to the metrics at the expense of something else.  It is illustrative to cite here what British economist Charles Goodhart stated in 1975 about metrics:  “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”.   Therefore, we have been very selective in what we publish.  Our  acceptance rate is 34% (302 papers submitted, 104 accepted) over the last 20 years.

The editorial staff, advisory board, and reviewers are the gate keepers of quality for LCJ.  The best testimony we can share is captured in a summary of email exchanges  with Prof. Greg Howell (God rest his soul) and Dr. Glenn Ballard about their opinion as to whether we should bring LCJ to a close (~ 2015-2016).  Here is what they said:

Both Lean Construction Pioneers strongly recommended and supported continuation.  The original co-founders of LCI described LCJ to be the exclusive journal that is specialized in Lean in the Construction Industry.  They shared that publishing in it is a reflection of true scholarship and mastery of what they believed was the authentic crux of what they set out to do with IGLC colleagues (Professors Lauri Koskela, Luis Alarcon, and Carlos Formoso) in 1993.  Prof. Howell was of the opinion that getting published in LCJ separated the ranchers from the spectators. ( Dr. Ballard verified accuracy through email exchange).

LCJ is  indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), EBSCO databases, RMIT Publishing, SCOPUS (owned by Elsevier B.V), and ProQuest Academic Database. LCJ was recently selected for indexing into The World Journal Clout Index (WJCI).   We understand the realities of many academic programs and the requirements for considering journal impact factors.  For latest impact factors and rankings, please go to: https://www.scopus.com/sources.uri) — Scopus preview – Scopus – Lean Construction Journal.   For other impact factors consider the SCImago Journal & Country Rank Indicator (SJR).

If you are conducting research in Lean in the Construction industry, would like to share it after it passes through a robust review process for its Lean scholarship, then please send us your manuscript (formatted to the style files provided).  If your institution forces you to publish in specific journals ( this tier or this quartile, etc) for your work to count, then perhaps LCJ is not the right option for you.

If we can assist you with your manuscript, please email us at editors@leanconstructionjournal.org 

LCJ WILL PUBLISH HIGH-QUALITY:

LCJ papers are double blind peer reviewed by at least three members of our expert review panel. At least one of your reviewers will be a practitioner.  We may send a paper to 2 practitioners and 1 academic.  Forum Essays are reviewed by the journal editors, or at their discretion sent to one or two peer reviewers (double-blind process).  Revisions may be required before a decision is made to accept or reject the paper. This can involve a further review or reviews.

LCJ considers the following manuscript types for publication (for word limits, see Instruction for Authors):

Full Papers – manuscripts that report archival-worthy basic and/or applied research that provoke new thinking in Lean Construction. Papers are blind-reviewed by at least three peer reviewers. This category is most suited for academics seeking credit for promotion purposes.

Technical Notes – manuscripts (usually has fewer than 5000 word or word-equivalents) that report (1) novel/alternative theoretical construct; (2) innovative practical developments; (3) structured investigations into Lean Construction country/region-based, and/or industry-wide implementation opportunities/challenges; (4) preliminary/partial research findings. Notes are blind-reviewed by at least three peer reviewers. This category is most suited for academics seeking credit for promotion purposes.

Case Studies – descriptions of the application of Lean Thinking to the construction process and the results obtained. We welcome reports of failure, particularly where the authors also record their learning, as well as success. Case studies are welcome from practitioners as well as academics – taken together they can form the basis for research by others. There is no requirement for case studies to be backed up by extensive references to theory and literature. All we ask is that case studies acknowledge their sources – books or people – and are easy to read. At a minimum, a case study will be reviewed by 2 practitioners and 1 academic.

Advanced Research – This category is for established Lean Construction scholars who wish to report on preliminary/partial research findings based on advanced, cutting-edge ideas for reactions and discussions. Advanced Research manuscripts are reviewed by the journal editors, or at their discretion sent to one or two peer reviewers (double-blind process). If blind-reviewed then this category is suited for academics seeking credit for promotion purposes.

Forum Essays – this is an excellent category for practitioners or those seeking to learn how to publish. We look for thought-provoking and stimulating opinion pieces on practices in the field, experiences with or historical chronicles of Lean Construction implementations, reflections on Lean Construction principles and tools. Essays may be founded in fact, conjecture, and/or speculations of the author(s). It is not acceptable that author(s) present opinion, conjecture, and/or speculations as statements of fact. For this category, the review process is seeking to make sure the spirit of a forum essay has been met rather than whether the manuscript is a synthesis of a short/long term research-based endeavor and is of archival value. We instruct reviewers to provide an open-ended and personal reaction to the manuscript [a paragraph or two would suffice, pointing out improvements, if any, such as readability, clarity, arguments presented, methods, references, etc]. Forum Essays are reviewed by the journal editors, or at their discretion sent to one or two peer reviewers (double-blind process).

Process Benchmarks – This is a document that summarizes experiences and knowledge gained from scholarly activities:

• At Lean Construction Institute affiliated university-based research labs
• By LCI-affiliated / IGLC-affiliated academics and/or academics-working-with-practitioners
• Lean Construction Community affiliated academics and/or academics-working-with-practitioners

This document captures the state of practice and theory to date on a particular topic (the current state of standard work), and serves as advice to industry that is grounded in research. The Process benchmark establishes a point of departure from where we can improve on standard work. This category is reviewed by the LCJ editors only. Updates to a published process benchmark are welcome.

IGLC Proceedings in LCJ Issues – IGLC proceeding authors are welcome to submit their manuscripts to LCJ under one of the following options:

Option 1.  Author(s) opts to “publish as is.”  In this case, the IGLC paper is the exact same as that in the proceedings, and we indicate that in the  LCJ paper.  As a courtesy, a  notification email to the Conference Technical Chairs, with a cc to the LCJ editors, is appreciated from the authors.  This  option can be used for all IGLC papers, whether they are regular, plenary, or have received a best paper award.   An Editorial/Advisory Board review may be conducted with the possibility of a rejection or a recommendation to go through the normal double-blind review process.

Option 2.  Author(s) of a ‘regular’ IGLC paper can opt to “re-publish with modifications.”  In this case, the IGLC paper is substantively modified and expanded on such that there is a clear differentiation between the IGLC paper and the LCJ paper.   Editorial and format changes are not considered substantive modifications/expansions.   At the discretion of the Editorial Board, the paper may undergo the  normal (3 reviewers or more) or expedited (1-2 reviewers)  double-blind review process.

Option 3.  Author(s) of a plenary or best paper award IGLC paper opts to “re-publish with modifications.”  In this case, the IGLC paper is substantively modified and expanded on such that there is a clear differentiation between the IGLC paper and the LCJ paper.  Editorial and format changes are not considered substantive modifications/expansions.  The LCJ Editorial Board makes an assessment as to whether the modifications/expansions of the ideas presented allow for a differentiation between the IGLC paper and the LCJ paper.  The modified paper may be accepted or further undergo an expedited  double-blind review process.

Discussions, rejoinders and closures to previous contributions – formal and considered comments, rejoinders and/or questions about the technical content of a paper. Authors’ responses/closures respond to arguments and clarify issues raised in discussions.

Book reviews are also welcome.

Themed Sections – from time to time we will invite papers around a particular theme – if you have an idea for a themed section please let us know here.

We welcome submissions from practitioners, consultants and academics and ask that they be readily accessible to reflective practitioners, owners and clients of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry, to AEC students and researchers. You will find instructions for authors here.

For many of our readers, English is a second or third language and we want your paper to be readily understandable by them as well as by practitioners and those who are fluent in English. Before you submit a paper, please use an editor and/or proof-reader to ensure that your use of English – including content, style, clarity, organization and grammar – is of the highest order and does justice to the ideas you are presenting.

As an on-line journal LCJ is able to publish submissions as soon as they are approved.