Projects

The Lean and Green Research Initiative conducts research and education to improve the delivery of high performance buildings through the development of resource efficient (lean) processes that maximize value at minimal delivery cost. To represent this mission, there are a cornucopia of research projects that are being explored within this research group at Penn State that range from energy audits to safety to integration project delivery implementations to high performance teams. For more information on the various projects within the team, please see the breakdown below:

Guide to Success in Integrated Projects
GOAL: Determine the role of project delivery methods and team integration in project success OBJECTIVES: Provide a repeatable process for making project decisions Allow owners to select delivery methods, project teams, and contract methods that offer the greatest likelihood of success Improve transparency of decision-making process regarding delivery methods

Owner Integration into Safety Planning
GOAL: OBJECTIVES: PI

Collaboration in Delivery of Projects
GOAL: OBJECTIVES: PI

Evaluating Constructability using Building Information Modeling
GOAL: OBJECTIVES: PI

Emotional Intelligence within Construction Engineering
GOAL: Understand the complex relationships amongst individuals and teams within the Construction Engineering domain utilizing Emotional Intelligence. OBJECTIVES: PI

GOAL: Enable project sustainability goals to be achieved in an efficient and cost effective manner OBJECTIVES: Work with the Pentagon Renovation and Construction Program Office to develop, implement and validate a process that enables project teams to identify sustainable solutions that also improve project constructability. [|PI], [|Publication]
 * Alignment of sustainability and constructability: The continuous value enhancement process **

**Operations and Maintenance Knowledge for Sustainable Construction** GOAL: Improve the quality of operations and maintenance input in the design and construction phases of projects OBJECTIVES: Work with the Pentagon Renovation and Construction Program Office to accomplish this goal using tools such as a DBOM contract approach. [|PI], [|Publication]

GOAL: Capture critical value-added steps and identify opportunities for improvement by mapping Toyota’s delivery process for green projects OBJECTIVES: Develop a modeling approach to map the RE&F delivery process, apply it to a case study project, and highlight key components that enable successful HPGB delivery. [|PI], [|Publication]
 * Mappi **** ng the Toyota Delivery Process for High Performance Green Buildings **

GOAL: Identifying scalable factors used in the pre-design phases of high performance green buildings OBJECTIVES: Examine successful high performance green building projects. Develop a list of guidelines for the pre-design phase of high performance green building projects. [|PI], [|Publication]
 * High Performance Green Building Factors: Understanding the Pre-Design Phase **

GOAL: Facilitate informed decision-making (DM) regarding the efficient use of prefabrication strategies on key systems of sustainable buildings during the design phase OBJECTIVES: Articulate synergies and tensions among prefabrication strategies, building performance and sustainability criteria; develop a methodology to facilitate DM; identify key variables that dominate DM on building systems (e.g. wall/partition, curtain wall, and MEP systems); identify attributes of building systems which can most benefit from prefabrication strategies. [|PI], [|Publication]
 * Decision Support for Prefabrication Strategy Selection **

GOAL: Characterize the H.P. design processes and project team competencies that increase overall project success OBJECTIVES: Develop tools to measure the performance of key activities and processes on H.P. buildings and provide industry professionals a mechanism to easily utilize the research findings. [|PI], [|Publications]
 * High Performance Design Processes for High Performance Buildings **

GOAL: Study the relationship between project delivery, project efficiency, and levels of sustainability to develop a delivery method decision-making tool for green building industry OBJECTIVES: Gather case study projects and examine delivery methods for various green building performance metrics. [|Survey Details], [|PI] , Publications
 * High Performance Green Building Delivery **

**Continuously Improving Green Buildings: Using Quality Principles to Identify & Quantify Valuable Delivery Process Characteristics** GOAL: Identify valuable green building delivery process characteristics by mapping and analyzing the process used by Penn State's Office of the Physical Plant (OPP) OBJECTIVES: Work with OPP to map their green building delivery process, identify valuable process characteristics and eliminate wastes in process. delivery process. [|PI], Publications

**High Performance Green Building Principles for an Affordable Housing Model** GOAL: Achieve an integrated design and delivery process for an affordable housing model OBJECTIVES: Evaluate and understand current practices of housing design & construction in developing countries, identify key factors of HPG buildings applicable to housing sector, design and deliver an affordable, sustainable & worldwide applicable housing model. [|PI], Publications

**Greening Healthcare Facilities** GOAL: Provide the industry of healthcare a better understanding of how the delivery of building envelopes affects the energy systems, long-term building performance, occupant productivity and health OBJECTIVES: Investigate case study hospital buildings to evaluate the current delivery process of its envelope systems; identify synergies and conflicts between the building envelope, energy systems and occupant performance; Improve process for delivering building envelope systems. [|Greening Healthcare Consortium], [|PI] , Publications