Conference Speakers
Dr Trevor McSharry
Presentation
Lean Construction Ireland Maturity Assessment Tool
Summary
Lean Construction Ireland, in collaboration with Atlantic Technological University (ATU), has developed a new Lean Maturity Assessment Tool to help organisations across Ireland's built environment sector understand their current level of lean maturity. The assessment provides valuable insights into organisational strengths and improvement opportunities, enabling companies to establish strategic priorities and accelerate their lean transformation journey.
This presentation will outline the background and development of the tool, explain its purpose and benefits, and provide a live demonstration of the assessment process, including data entry requirements and the insights generated through the reporting outputs.
Biography
Dr Trevor McSharry is Head of the School of the Built Environment at Atlantic Technological University (ATU), with over 30 years of experience across both the multinational and higher education sectors. Trevor is deeply committed to bridging the gap between education and industry through meaningful collaboration. Together with his departments across ATU, Trevor has led the creation of Ireland's largest suite of online programmes and consortium-led apprenticeships for the Irish construction sector.
Trevor holds a Doctor of Education, specialising in change and leadership in higher education. He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of Engineers Ireland, as well as a certified Project Management Professional. His academic and professional qualifications also include an MBA from Dublin City University and a Postgraduate Certificate in BIM and the Digital Environment.
His research and consultancy interests span leadership, project and change management, lean construction, and process optimisation. Since 2018, Trevor has served as a founding director of Lean Construction Ireland (LCi) and currently holds the role of Treasurer.
Morten Skaarup Jensen
Presentation
Lean i Praksis (Lean in Practice) — Turning well-known Lean Construction theory into tools that actually work on site
Summary
Danish construction still loses significant value to waste, weak coordination and low on-site productivity — the very problems Lean Construction was designed to solve. Lean i Praksis is a national initiative from Lean Construction-DK (LCDK) that closes the gap between theory and site: rather than developing new theory, it systematically reviews, updates and re-packages the Lean tools the industry already knows — Last Planner System, TAKT planning, 5S, PDCA, Kaizen, A3 and VSM — and tests them against how they are actually used on Danish building sites today.
Several hundred practitioners — site managers, foremen, consultants, contractors and clients — have contributed through workshops and seminars, sharing real project examples and hard-won experience to sharpen each tool before publication. The talk shares the project's model for turning established theory into field-tested practice at scale, presents preliminary findings from an awareness-and-effect analysis showing which tools practitioners know, use and trust, and walks through concrete examples of how practitioner input has reshaped classic Lean tools for today's building sites.
Biography
Morten Skaarup Jensen is a Senior Project Manager at Værdibyg and works within the Lean Construction-DK network (LCDK / LCI Denmark), where he leads the Lean i Praksis initiative bringing established Lean Construction tools into everyday practice on Danish building sites.
Han Thomas Holm
Presentation
Lean experiences from a Norwegian owner
Biography
Full speaker profile to be announced.
Jacqueline Zurke
Presentation
How to Save the World with Takt
Biography
Full speaker profile to be announced.
Laura Pääkkönen
Presentation
Aware Worksite turns one of Lean's core principles into measurable daily practice
Co-presented with Marika Nyyssönen (HOAS).
Summary
The Aware Worksite concept developed by HOAS combines Lean principles and social responsibility into a measurable framework for improving construction-site performance. Its foundation is seven core rules that guide daily operations and support effective collaboration, placing every worker at the centre — regardless of their employer — so that everyone is valued as part of the project team.
Regular surveys assess both site performance and employee well-being, giving workers a voice to share experiences, opinions and improvement ideas. Results are reviewed openly with all site personnel and displayed on-site to promote transparency, and improvement actions are then jointly planned and implemented with contractors based on the feedback received.
Biography
Laura Pääkkönen is Construction Manager at HOAS, working to improve project performance through collaboration, continuous improvement and people-centred leadership. She is actively advancing Lean Construction, Integrated Project Delivery (IPD/IPT) and industrialised construction across the Finnish industry, and serves as a board member of LCI Finland.
Her particular interests include production flow, takt production, construction logistics and prefabrication to improve quality and predictability. Laura also co-hosts the Rakentamisen muutos (Construction Transformation) podcast.
Marika Nyyssönen
Presentation
Aware Worksite turns one of Lean's core principles into measurable daily practice
Co-presented with Laura Pääkkönen (HOAS).
Summary
The Aware Worksite concept developed by HOAS combines Lean principles and social responsibility into a measurable framework for improving construction-site performance. Its foundation is seven core rules that guide daily operations and support effective collaboration, placing every worker at the centre — regardless of their employer — so that everyone is valued as part of the project team.
Regular surveys assess both site performance and employee well-being, giving workers a voice to share experiences, opinions and improvement ideas. Results are reviewed openly with all site personnel and displayed on-site to promote transparency, and improvement actions are then jointly planned and implemented with contractors based on the feedback received.
Biography
Marika Nyyssönen is Sustainability Manager at HOAS, driving sustainability initiatives focused on measurable impact and evidence-based decision-making. A strong advocate of the principle that Lean is the most responsible way to build — reducing waste, improving resource efficiency and creating better outcomes for people and projects — she played a key role in developing the Aware Worksite (Tiedostava työmaa) concept.
She is also active in the sustainability workstream of the Lyra project, helping integrate Lean principles and ESG objectives into industry development, with an emphasis on transparency, collaboration and respect for people.