This is a list of books and papers on lean that are a good starting point to understand the subject, and develop personal knowledge.

Overview

What Is Lean Construction – 1999 
by Gregory A. Howell (1999) Proceedings Seventh Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-7, Berkeley, CA, July 26-28, pp. 1-10.

What Kind of Production Is Construction? 
by Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell (1998) Proceedings Sixth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, Guaruja, Brazil, August 13-15.

Theory and Supporting Documents

The Prevalent Theory of Construction is a Hindrance for Innovation 
by Lauri Koskela and Ruben Vrijhoef (2000) Proceedings Eighth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, Brighton, UK, July 17-19.

Interaction Between Subcycles: One Key To Improved Methods 
by Gregory Howell, Alexander Laufer, and Glenn Ballard (1993) Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, ASCE, 119 (4) 714-728, December.

Parade Game: Impact of Work Flow Variability on Succeeding Trade Performance  
by Iris D. Tommelein, David Riley, and Gregory A. Howell (1998) Proceedings Sixth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, 13-15 August held in Guaruja, Brazil, 14 pp.

Lean Project Delivery System™

Lean Project Delivery System™  
by Glenn Ballard (23 September 2000 (Revision 1)) LCI White Paper-8.

“Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions – Back to the Future on Large Complex Projects”  
by Robert Lane and Graham Woodman (2000) Proceedings 8th Annual Meeting of the International Group for Lean Construction, August 17-19, Brighton, UK.

Production Control

Shielding Production: An Essential Step in Production Control  
by Glenn Ballard and Gregory Howell (1998) Journal of Construction Engineering in Management, ASCE, 124 (1) 18-24, January.

Lookahead Planning: The Missing Link in Production Control  
by Glenn Ballard (1997) Proceedings of the 5th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia, July.

Pull-driven Scheduling for Pipe-Spool Installation: Simulation of Lean Construction Technique  
by Iris D. Tommelein (1998). J. of Constr. Engrg. and Mgmt., ASCE, 124 (4) 279-288.

Coordinating Specialists  
by Iris D. Tommelein and Glenn Ballard (1997) Tech. Report No. 97-8, Constr. Engrg. and Mgmt. Program, Civil and Envir. Engrg. Dept., Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA. Also Proc. Second Intl. Seminar on Lean Construction, 20-21 October, organized by A.S.I. Conte, Logical Systems, São Paulo, Brazil.

Improving Work Flow Reliability  
by Glenn Ballard (1999) Proceedings Seventh Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-7, Berkeley, CA, July 26-28, pp. 275-286.

WorkPlan: Database for Work Package Production Scheduling  
by Hyun Jeong Choo, Iris D. Tommelein, Glenn Ballard, and Todd R. Zabelle (1998) Proceedings Sixth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, 13-15 August held in Guaruja, Brazil, 12 pp.

Work Structuring

Case Study for Work Structuring: Installation of Metal Door Frames  
by Cynthia C.Y. Tsao, Iris Tommelein, Eric Swanlund, and Gregory A. Howell (2000) Proceedings 8th Annual Meeting of the International Group for Lean Construction, August 17-19, Brighton, UK.

Work Structuring to Achieve Integrated Product-Process Design 
by Tsao, C.C.Y., Tommelein, I.D., Swanlund, E., and Howell, G.A. (2004). ASCE, J. of Constr. Engrg. and Mgmt., Nov/Dec, 130 (6) 780-789.

Use of Work Structuring to Increase Performance of Project-Based Production Systems 
by Cynthia C.Y. Tsao (2005) Ph.D. Diss., Dept. of Civil & Envir. Engrg., University of California, Berkeley, 325 pp.

Design

Wicked Problems and Social Complexity  
by Jeffrey Conklin (2005)

The Parallel Between Product Development and Production and Building Design and Construction  
by Thomas W. Mikulina (1998) Design Build Institute of America Conference, Chicago, Illinois.

Towards Lean Design Management 
by Lauri Koskela, Glenn Ballard, and Veli-Pekka Tanhuanpaa (1997) Proceedings 5th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia, July.

Managing Work Flow on Design Projects  
by Glenn Ballard (2000) Proceedings CIB W96, Atlanta, GA, May 19-20.

Positive vs Negative Iteration in Design  
by Glenn Ballard (2000) Proceedings Eighth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, Brighton, UK, July 17-19.

Integrated Design Planning, Scheduling, and Control with Desplan  
by Jamie Hammond, Hyung Jeong Choo, Simon Austin, Iris D. Tommelein, and Glenn Ballard (2000) Proceedings Eighth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, Brighton, UK, July 17-19.

Can Pull Techniques Be Used in Design Management
by Glenn Ballard. Presented at the Conference on Concurrent Engineering in Construction, Helsinki, Finland. August 26-27, 1999

Lean Supply

Toward Construction JIT  
by Glenn Ballard and Gregory Howell (1995) Proceedings of the 1995 ARCOM Conference, Association of Researchers in Construction Management, Sheffield, England.

Just-In-Time Concrete Delivery: Mapping Alternatives for Vertical Supply Chain Integration  
by Iris Tommelein and Annie Li (1999) Proceedings Seventh Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-7, Berkeley, CA, July 26-28, pp. 97-108.

More Just-In-Time: Location of Buffers in Structural Steel Supply and Construction Processes  
by Iris Tommelein and Markus Weissenberger (1999) Proceedings Seventh Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-7, Berkeley, CA, July 26-28, pp. 109-120.

Project Controls

Can Project Controls Do Its Job?
by Gregory Howell and Glenn Ballard (1996) Proceedings of the 4th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, Birmingham, England.

Is the Earned-Value Method an Enemy of Workflow  
by Yong Woo Kim and Glenn Ballard (2000) Proceedings Eighth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, Brighton, UK, July 17-19.

Project Management

Systems Dynamics Modeling of Project Management 
by John Sterman (1992) MIT, Sloan School of Management.

Reforming Project Management: The Role of Lean Construction  
by Greg Howell & Lauri Koskela (2000) Proceedings Eighth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, Brighton, UK, July 17-19.

Lean Construction and EPC Performance Improvement  
by Glenn Ballard (1993) Proceedings of the 1st Annual Meeting of the International Group for Lean Construction, Espoo, Finland, August, reprinted in Lean Construction, pp. 79-92.

Think of the Queue Behind You  
by Greg Howell (July 17, 2000) Engineering News Record, McGraw Hill.

Case Studies and Implementation

Alliance Lean Design/Construct on a Small High Tech Project  
by Robert S. Miles (1998) Proceedings Sixth Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, IGLC-6, 13-15 August held in Guaruja, Brazil, 27 pp.

Report on a Lean Project  
by Michael Pappas (1999) extracted from Evaluating Innovative Construction Management Methods through the Assessment of Intermediate Impacts, thesis for a “Master of Science in Engineering”, University of Texas at Austin, 1999. A complete report is available through The Department of Architectural and Civil Engineering – ECJ 5.200, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78731.

PARC: A Case Study
by Glenn Ballard, Gregory Howell, and Michael Casten (1996) Proceedings of the 4th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, Birmingham, England.

Implementing Lean Construction: Understanding and Action  
by Greg Howell and Glenn Ballard (1998) Proceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, Guaruja, Brazil.

The Early Papers

The Last Planner™  
by Glenn Ballard (1994) Northern California Construction Institute, Monterey, California, April.

Lean Production Theory: Moving Beyond ‘Can-Do’   
by Gregory Howell and Glenn Ballard (1994) Proc. Conference on Lean Construction, Santiago, Chile, September, reprinted in Lean Construction, pp. 17-23.

Implementing Lean Construction: Stabilizing Work Flow  
by Glenn Ballard and Gregory Howell (1994) Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the International Group for Lean Construction, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, September,http://www.vtt.fi/rte/lean/santiago.htm, reprinted in Lean Construction, pp. 101-110.

Implementing Lean Construction: Reducing Inflow Variation  
by Gregory Howell and Glenn Ballard (1994) Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the International Group for Lean Construction, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile, September, reprinted in Lean Construction, pp. 93-100.

Implementing Lean Construction: Improving Downstream Performance  
by Glenn Ballard and Gregory Howell (1994) Proc. 2nd Ann. Conf. on Lean Constr. , Pontificia Univ. Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Sept., http://www.vtt.fi/rte/lean/santiago.htm , reprinted in Lean Construction, pp. 111-125.

Reports & Dissertations

The Last Planner™ System of Production Control  
by Glenn Ballard (2000) PhD Dissertation, School of Civil Engineering, The University of Birmingham, U.K., May, 192 pp.

An Exploration Towards a Production Theory and its Application to Construction  
by Lauri Koskela (2000) PhD Dissertation, VTT Building Technology, Espoo, Finland. 296 p., VTT Publications: 408, ISBN 951-38-5565-1; 951-38-5566-X

Application of the New Production Philosophy to the Construction Industry  
by Lauri Koskela (1992) Technical Report No. 72, Center for Integrated Facilities Engineering, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Stanford University, CA, September, 75 pages.

Introducing Lean Construction – Reforming Project Management
by Greg Howell, presented to the Construction User Round Table (CURT), November 14, 2001.

Selected Books

Modern Construction: Lean Project Delivery and Integrated Practices
by Lincoln H. Forbes and Syed M. Ahmed, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2011.

Lean Construction
by Luis Alarcon, A.A. Balkema Publishers, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 1997.

Theory of Constraints
by Eliyahu Goldratt, North River Press, 1990.

The Goal
by Eliyahu Goldratt, North River Press, 1992.

Factory Physics
by Hopp, W. & Spearman, M., Irwin McGraw Hill, Boston, 1996.

From the American System to Mass Production from 1800 to 1932
by David Hounshell.

Lean Leadership  
by Dr. William Lareau.

Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting
by H. Thomas Johnson and Robert S. Kaplan.

No Business as Usual
by Terry Knott, The British Petroleum Co. ISBN 0 86165 202 9, 1996.

Simultaneous Management
by Alexander Laufer, AMACOM, 1997.

Productivity Improvement for Construction Managers
by Oglesby, C.& Parker, H. McGraw Hill (Out of print).

Productivity Improvement in Construction
by Oglesby, Parker & Howell, McGraw-Hill, 1988.

Learning to See
Mike Rother and John Shook, Lean Enterprise Institute, 1998.

Cases in Production Operations Management
by Roger Schmenner, Prentice Hall, 5th Ed.

The Machine that Changed the World
by Womack, Jones & Roos, Harper Perrenial, 1990.

Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation
by Womack & Jones, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 350 pp., 1996.

Lean Transformation: How To Change Your Business Into a Lean Enterprise
by Henderson, Bruce A., Larco, Jorge L. (Editor: Martin, Stephen H.), Oaklea Press, ISBN 0964660121, 1999, 288 pp.