An innovative fuzzy framework for overcoming lean barriers in sustainable infrastructure megaprojects

Sustainable infrastructure megaprojects represent a critical pathway toward achieving global environmental, social, and economic sustainability goals. To realize this potential, integrating Lean Construction (LC) principles into these projects enhances efficiency, reduces waste, and advances environmental sustainability. However, LC adoption remains hindered by context-specific barriers, particularly in emerging economies like China. This study develops a novel fuzzy-based framework, combining Fuzzy Relative Importance Index (FRII) and Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation (FSE), to identify, evaluate, and prioritize critical LC barriers in Chinese megaprojects. Through expert interviews and a survey of 379 professionals, 24 barriers were validated and categorized into five groups: Financial Barriers (FB), Organizational and Attitudinal Barriers (OAB), Stakeholder Barriers (SB), Technological and Knowledge Barriers (TKB), and Process Barriers (PB). Results reveal that lack of funding (Bar 19), low awareness of LC concepts (Bar 12), and lack of employee incentives (Bar 18) are the top three individual barriers. At the group level, Financial Barriers emerged as the most critical (Total Index = 3.584), followed closely by Organizational and Attitudinal Barriers (3.545) and Stakeholder Barriers (3.537). Based on these insights, the study proposes a prioritized, actionable roadmap to guide policymakers and practitioners in systematically overcoming these obstacles. By grounding barrier prioritization in empirical data and robust fuzzy logic, this research not only advances theoretical understanding of LC adoption dynamics but also delivers practical tools for implementation. Ultimately, it contributes to building a more sustainable, efficient, and resilient built environment through context-sensitive lean transformation.