Carpentry workers issues and efficiencies related to construction productivity in commercial construction projects in Alberta

Abstract

For decades, many researchers have reported the decline in construction productivity, but it is impossible to generalize the productivity problems due to issues such as geographical differences, weather changes, skill level differences in the labour force, and workload demand. There are currently approximately 160 000 construction workers in Alberta, and the value of ongoing and future projects in the oil and gas sector alone is over Can$200 billion. Because of the high demand and necessity for a comprehensive research study for Alberta to improve construction productivity, a 2 year study commenced with the collaboration of four eminent contractors to investigate human, management, and external issues. Under human issues, 101 construction workers in the carpentry trade were observed, interviewed, and surveyed by questionnaire. This paper discusses the research method, results, and recommendations of the productivity research specific to the human issues. These recommendations were communicated to the contractors for improving the human issues by developing and analyzing a new expectancy model considering construction workers' effort and performance and the tool times observed to mitigate the reasons for non-tool time.Résumé : Les chercheurs ont fait état, depuis plusieurs décennies, de la baisse de productivité en construction. Cependant, les problèmes de productivité ne peuvent pas être généralisés en raison des questions telles que les différences géographiques, les changements de température, les différences dans les niveaux de compétence de la main-d'oeuvre, les charges de travail, etc. L'Alberta compte environ 160 000 travailleurs de la construction et des projets en développe-ment pour une valeur de 200 milliards de dollars. En raison de la forte demande et de la nécessité d'avoir une étude de recherche complète pour que l'Alberta puisse améliorer la productivité en construction, il a été recommandé d'entreprendre, avec la collaboration de quatre grands entrepreneurs, une étude de deux ans afin d'examiner les questions humaines, externes et de gestion. Pour ce qui est des questions humaines, 101 charpentiers ont été observés, interviewés et ont eu à répondre à un sondage. Cet article aborde la méthode de recherche, les résultats et les recommandations de la recherche sur la productivité spécifiques aux questions humaines. Ces recommandations ont été communiquées aux entrepreneurs afin d'améliorer les aspects humains en développant et en analysant un nouveau modèle d'attentes qui tient compte de l'effort et du rendement des travailleurs de la construction, ainsi que des temps réels de travail observés afin d'atténuer les raisons des temps non consacrés au travail.

IT usage in Alberta's building construction projects: Current status and challenges

“…Over 45% of the 101 interviewed workers described communication problems between the managers and the workers and inadequate communication has an adverse impact on productivity [7].…”

“…Access to this information helps to ensure jobs are done well, planned well, and are proactive around supply issues instead of reactive. Confusion created by a lack of information about materials, tools, workers, and information were observed on many occasions on the construction sites [7,18]. Most of the time, foremen had to visit the site office to get clarifications generating idle time for the workers.…”

“…Hewage and Ruwanpura [7] discussed the dissatisfaction of construction workers around the issue of available communication systems and practices. A similar problem was identified by the work of previous researchers; Bowden et al [8] and Mohamed and Stewart [9].…”

“…These researchers found that only 20% of the information passes to the operational (worker) level from the management level at a construction site. The research conducted by Hewage and Ruwanpura [7] also Automation in Construction 17 (2008) found 45% of interviewed construction workers, from the participating Alberta commercial construction sites, describing their frustration with inadequate communication on their construction sites. Workers identified inadequate communication as the main reason for low motivation and productivity.…”

The Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to the Benchmarking of Construction Performance in Australian and American High-Rise Buildings

“…Stewart and Spencer, 2006) and human resource management (e.g. Hewage and Ruwanpura, 2006). However, performance is not just about efficiency but achieving desired results.…”