Construction management suffers from many problems which need to be solved or better understood. The research described in this paper evaluates the effectiveness of implementing the Last Planner System (LPS) to improve construction planning practice and enhance site management in the Saudi construction industry. To do so, LPS was implemented in two large state-owned construction projects through an action research process. The data collection methods employed included interviews, observations and a survey questionnaire. The findings identify major benefits covering many aspects of project management, including improved construction planning, enhanced site management and better communication and coordination between the parties involved. The fact that the structural work in one of the projects studied was completed two weeks ahead of schedule provides evidence of improvement of the specific site construction planning practices. The paper also describes barriers to the realisation the full potential of LPS, including the involvement of many subcontractors and people's commitment and attitude to time. KEY WORDS: Construction planning, Last Planner System implementation, action research INTRODUCTIONWhile it is accepted that construction management suffers from many practical problems which need to be solved or better understood (Wing et al., 1998; Love et al., 2002), research in this field tends typically to be descriptive and explanatory, which makes it inappropriate to solve the most persistent managerial problems (Koskela, 2008). One of the most commonly recurring problems in construction is delay. Synthesis of previous studies on delay in various countries reveals that poor project management is one of the main reported reasons for construction delay (Mansfield et al., 1994;Ogunlana and Promkuntong, 1996;Mezher and Tawil, 1998; AlMomani, 2000;Odeh and Battaineh, 2002;Abdul-Rahman et al., 2006;Assaf and Al-Hejji, 2006; Sweis et al., 2007). In these studies, controllable factors related to poor project management were identified as the most often repeated causes of delay. Such factors included ineffective planning and control, poor site management, poor communication and coordination
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