Visual management in highways construction and maintenance in England

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current visual management (VM) practices in highways construction projects in England. Design/methodology/approach - Following a comprehensive literature review, the research topic was investigated by using five case studies and focus groups. Findings - The main findings are the current implementation of VM is limited, particularly on the construction field, there are some identified points (suggestions) that require attention to disseminate and advance the current practices further many conventional and Building Information Modelling (BIM)-based opportunities to extend the current VM implementations exist for the sector. Originality/value - The highways construction and maintenance sector in England has been systematically deploying lean construction techniques in its operations for a while. One of those lean techniques is a close-range visual communication strategy called VM. The literature on the VM implementation in construction is scarce and generally limited to the building construction context. This paper documents the current industry practice in conventional and BIM-based VM and identifies a set of recommendations and some VM ideas for future implementation efforts in the highways construction and maintenance sector.