The identification and analysis of making-do waste: insights from two Brazilian construction sites

Abstract

Making-do has been pointed out as an important category of waste in the construction industry. It refers to a situation in which a task starts or continues without having available all the inputs required for its completion, such as materials, machinery, tools, personnel, external conditions, and information. By contrast, the literature points out that improvisation is a ubiquitous human practice even in highly structured business organizations, and plays an important role when rules and methods fail. The aim of this paper is to provide some insights on the nature of making-do as a type of waste, based on two exploratory case studies carried out on construction sites. The main contributions of this research work are concerned with the identification of different categories of making-do and its main causes. This paper also discusses some strategies for reducing making-do on construction sites.

Application of Dynamic Spreadsheets in the Analysis of Waste by Making-Do

“…The number of making-do events identified was relatively high in this paper. This occurs in a similar way to the results of previous studies by Formoso et al (2002), Horman and Kenley (2005), Formoso et al (2017), that pointed out that the numbers of waste tend to be reasonably high in the construction industry, regardless of the category of waste being investigated.…”

Analysis of Making-Do Waste at Construction Site in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil

“…The main sources of evidence collected by direct observation were: improvisations made by labor due to lack of inputs by planning; work environment conditions that could require some kind of improvisation by the workforce, which may interfere in one or more tasks. They are the two main points of events that generate waste by making-do (Formoso et al 2017).…”

“…With respect to the study by Ronen (1992), there are management aspects in Machado (2003) and Santos (2004) that make production feasible by reducing or avoiding what is now conceptualized as making-do. Therefore, any investigation about the nature, causes, and main consequences of waste by making-do in the construction industry becomes relevant (Formoso et al 2017).…”

The Role of Slack in Standardized Work in Construction: An Exploratory Study

“…For example, in complex systems the number of interdependencies between activities tends to be large and as a result some preconditions for starting work may not be met. In turn, this triggers workarounds detrimental to both safety and quality (Hollnagel, 2012).Work done under suboptimal conditions is ubiquitous in construction sites (Formoso et al, 2017), this creates a kind of waste known as making-do (Koskela, 2004).…”

“…According to Formoso et al (2017), there are at least eight types of preconditions for a construction task: construction design, components and materials, workers, equipment, space, connecting works, external conditions and work infrastructure (water, electricity). The availability and quality of these preconditions is usually subjected to high variability, and thus the probability of interrupting a sequence of work is high (Koskela, 2000).…”