Current Status and Future Research Trends of Construction Labor Productivity Monitoring: A Bibliometric Review

Abstract

Construction labor productivity (CLP) is a critical measure of efficiency in the construction industry. This bibliometric review comprehensively analyzes global research trends in CLP monitoring over the past 56 years. The review identifies the top journals, authors, and nations contributing to this field and highlights a significant increase in publications since 2000. The co-authorship bibliometric map illustrates how different nations collaborate in research, with Europe and Asia being the most engaged regions in the study of CLP monitoring. The author keyword co-occurrence analysis indicated the need for more consistent and reliable measurements of CLP in the field. Furthermore, the review highlights the importance of factors such as occupational health and safety, change orders, and the adoption of lean construction principles and innovative technologies for monitoring and improving CLP. Finally, we evaluated the characteristics of different modeling approaches utilized in CLP monitoring studies, considering factors such as data availability, the complexity of relationships, and the required expertise. This study highlights the need for real-time and transparent CLP monitoring methods. Overall, this study contributes to the research field by offering insightful information on the current state of CLP monitoring and proposing potential future directions for research.

Evaluation of Lean Manufacturing Tools and Digital Technologies Effectiveness for Increasing Labour Productivity in Construction

“…A detailed bibliometric analysis of research on monitoring labour productivity made in [3] indicates an almost exponential increase in the number of publications for the period from 2011 to 2022. With regard to the problems of our study, we will conduct a review of the literature paying special attention to the impact of downtime on CLP and approaches to reduce downtime.…”

“…Factors related to the workforce have a direct impact on labour productivity. Reference [3] notes a number of articles dedicated to the identification of factors related to the workforce and work process improvement.…”

“…Also, references [40,41] emphasize the importance and high degree of impact of the interrelated problem of requests for changes in the project (RFI) on construction labour productivity, since it is requests for changes that result in a large number of delays in the construction process, a corresponding increase in the cost of correcting changes in the project, and a decrease in labour productivity, which ultimately affects the success of the entire project. The aforementioned literature review [3] emphasizes the insufficient attention paid to the importance of project management methods, including Lean manufacturing and communication management in reducing the negative impact of requests for changes on labour productivity, and indicates the need for more thorough research.…”

“…Today, there is a crisis of low labour productivity in the economy, known in the literature as the productivity puzzle [1,2]. At the present time, construction is facing this acute problem [3][4][5].…”

“…A bibliometric analysis of related publications [3] emphasizes the importance of integrating the principles of Lean construction and innovative digital technologies to boost workflow efficiency and increase construction labour productivity. However, little attention is paid to this area in modern research.…”