OPINION: Construction productivity should not be measured like other industries

On his hardhatOPINION to the question “What has happened to the construction productivity”? Construction Professional Darrell van Rooy gives us 10 reasons why he does not think the construction industry’s productivity should be measured like any other industry.

The construction process cannot be quantified and measured like any other industry that is generally based on a long-term duration where the work processes are of a constant and ongoing repetitive nature. Any factory that has been in operation for a large number of years and is intended to remain for decades to come can have the processes streamlined and tweaked to enhance productivity and thus reduce costs and increase productivity over a long period of time.

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By contrast most construction projects are:

1. Short term with durations ranging from several months to a maximum time frame of around five years.
2. Each project has a new learning curve for whatever items of work are required.
3. Work on a construction project is complex but restricted in terms of not being of a repetitive nature. It completes a process and moves onto the next process.
4. Due to the “nomadic” nature of contracting every project will have a certain element of core staff and labour, but the majority of labour needs to be sourced locally and have a fresh learning curve. On conclusion of the project very few will be afforded the opportunity of continued employment. This results in each project starting from zero and no real continuity to enhance or improve productivity.
5. Project to project the work requirements will vary, meaning that each project is different.
6. Conditions between each project can vary in terms of not only soil conditions (geotechnical), but also things like specification, Engineer’s requirements, available skill level within the local communities (resource pool), supplier constraints and a whole list of other items that will be too numerous to mention.
7. Reporting structures, systems and methods vary from company to company. As an example, we do in depth analysis of seven different methods of Allowable vs Cost reporting in our training material. Some companies may adopt a generic company only type of reporting that may not be suited to the project and is not the best measure of cost vs allowable for that particular project and varying applications.
8. While man hours may be available on a project, how much of this information is made available beyond the company or project boundaries? If only man hours are reported for a project (example for safety statistics) it would only list the total man hours and not split between workshops, overhead and coal face hours utilised.
9. Construction plant productivity is dependent on the type of machine, process it is being used for and the conditions it is being used in. As mentioned previously each project will have its own environment, conditions and peculiars that set it apart from any other project, even one next to it as an example two roads projects forming part of the same network can differ vastly.
10. While technological gains and enhancements may be used in many other industries, the fundamental processes within the construction industry have not made giant strides in the past few decades. It still takes people and equipment to shift muck from point a to point b with many constraints and variables between projects.

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