Analysis of craft workers' and foremen's perceptions of the factors affecting construction labour productivity

Abstract

Extensive studies have been conducted to examine the factors affecting construction productivity, but efforts have rarely been made to obtain craft workers' input. A survey was administered to 1996 craft workers throughout the US to quantify the workforce's perspective of construction labour productivity. Specifically, the survey measured the impact of 83 productivity factors, which had been identified through 18 focus group sessions with craft workers and their immediate supervisors on jobsites located throughout the US. Craft workers provide detailed insight into the factors affecting their daily productivity, and most of the adversarial factors affecting construction labour productivity can be addressed by jobsite management teams. The major findings indicated that craft workers and foremen share a general perception of the factors impacting on construction productivity; however, differences do exist. Specifically, foremen reported factors related to project management and engineering drawings having a more severe impact on their productivity compared to craft workers, and craft workers reported factors related to construction materials as having a more severe impact.Labour productivity, workforce, site management, USA,

Identification and comparative analysis of key parameters influencing construction labour productivity in building and industrial projects

“…Results at the 95% confidence level indicate that the PM and trade groups perceived some parameters' influences on CLP very differently. Statistically significant differences were reported between different generations of craft workers (Dai and Goodrum 2012), foremen and craft workers (Dai et al 2007), union and nonunion craft workers, and trades (Dai et al 2009). Eslamdoost and Heravi (2013) also observed similar differences among office and site staff respondents in comparing the rankings of factors influencing CLP.…”

“…In the most extensive and detailed existing study of factors influencing CLP, Dai et al (2009) carried out a factor survey based on an identified 83 factors with 1996 craftspeople on 28 U.S. industrial construction projects to identify the top 10 critical factors and the relationship between these factors. Detailed investigation of differences in perception between the different generations of craft workers (Dai and Goodrum 2012), foremen and craft workers (Dai et al 2007), union and non-union craft workers, and trades (Dai et al 2009) was carried out using the same survey data; significant differences were observed between the compared groups. Jarkas and Bitar (2012) identified 45 factors grouped under four categoriestechnological, human/labour, management, and external-and conducted a questionnaire survey with 157 practitioners from building and civil engineering construction firms in Kuwait; this study established the relative importance of the identified 45 factors and four factor categories.…”

“…Most importantly, all of the top five parameters perceived as having negative effects and having the greatest evaluation score differences between the PM and trade groups in the industrial context were related to "material and consumables" and "equipment and tools"; in all cases only trade respondents rated them highly for negative effect. These findings on perspective differences are important for project productivity management and improvement; the parameters with greater differences in perspectives should be further investigated, as trade workers provide detailed insight into the parameters influencing their daily productivity and their opinions are critical for CLP analysis and improvement (Dai et al 2007). …”

“…As skilled construction labour is a scarce resource (Dai and Goodrum 2012), its effective use remains a priority; optimizing CLP through appropriate analysis and modeling is therefore critical. Such analysis and modeling requires identification of the multilevel, complex, and context-dependent key parameters, factors, and practices, influencing CLP in different project contexts.…”

Essential Causes Of The Critical Site Coordination Problems In Building Projects: A Hong Kong Study

“…As efforts have been rarely been made to obtain craft worker' input to examine the factors affecting the construction productivity, Dai et al (2007) There are studies focused on reviewing the degree of impact of the important factors to the productivity. Moselhi, Assem and Ei-Rayes (2005) investigated the impact of change orders on construction productivity and introduced a new neural network model for quantifying the impact.…”