Identifying the significant causes of waste of housing infrastructure projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Construction waste issues have worsened globally due to the fast development of construction activities. The environment, expenditures, duration, productivity, and social dimension of the country are all negatively impacted by construction waste. The construction sector needs an in-depth knowledge of the development and construction management waste to minimize its detrimental effects. The infrastructure works of housing projects play a substantial role in many economies, including Saudi Arabia. Lean is presented as an improvement management approach for construction projects through lean techniques (less waste, time, and cost). Thus, optimizing project profitability is considered. This paper introduces the adoption of Lean in the construction of Housing infrastructure works in Saudi Arabia, in which waste can be eliminated or reduced when the causes are identified, thereby improving the reliability, stability, and optimizing profitability of construction operations. This article aims to establish the main sources of waste in Saudi Arabia's housing infrastructure projects. A questionnaire survey was conducted among owners, consultants, and contractors in Saudi Arabia. The Partial Least Square Structure Equation Model (PLS-SEM) and Relative Importance Index (RII) methods were used to analyze the collected data. The main finding revealed that the ten most important causes of waste are distributed among owners, consultants, and contractors by 20%, 10%, and 50% using the PLS-SEM method. At the same time, those percentages differ in the case of using the RII method as follows: 20%, 80%, and 0%. The consultant's causes have a mutual influence on the owner's causes and the consultant's causes. The research is considered one of the first such studies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and may enhance stakeholders' understanding of performance improvement from a lean system viewpoint in the Saudi Arabian construction industry.