Productivity in construction

- The story of productivity in construction is not a good one. In general, we have not improved overall construction productivity at all in the last several decades. And this is a real issue that has far-reaching implications for the world's economy. By 2025, the world is predicted to need an estimated 36 million new housing units in its 20 largest cities alone. And infrastructure is deteriorating in many countries and it's gonna need to be replaced, while skilled labor continues to be hard to find. We need to do something about our productivity problem. Before we start trying to jump in and making improvements though, it's important to understand what's really being referred to when people and reports discuss construction productivity. To do this, I'm gonna break the issue down into two main topics that I'm gonna refer to as overall project productivity and then productivity at the workface. When I refer to overall project productivity, I'm talking about the time it takes to deliver a project from concept through design, procurement, and construction, and on to handoff. So in other words, the total time it takes from the point at which an owner decides to build to the point at which they take possession of that facility. This is the construction productivity that's being referred to by the majority of the studies and reports and the news stories that you might see out there in the marketplace. And it's what's being referred to when we discuss the lack of improvement in construction productivity. It means that we have not made any progress in shortening the length of time it takes for an owner to get a new facility. Now, experts and studies and reports measure construction productivity this way, because overall, all of that time matters. All of that time represents time where an owner, whether that owner is a person, a company, or a community, is not able to use the facility that they're buying. So when we discuss opportunities for improvement in construction productivity, those opportunities exist in many areas. We can work on shortening the design time and maybe virtual reality can help with that. We can work on shortening what we call the procurement time, the time it takes to bid out a project and hire a contractor. And different methods of early contractor engagement can help with that. And I discuss that in my Project Delivery Methods course. Of course, we can also work on shortening the actual building time or time on the project out in the field, which is where I focus attention here in this course. When I talk about improving our building time, I think that there are also two main areas where attention can be focused. We can work on improving productivity out at the workface and we can work on improving productivity of the overall project. Both of these are important concepts and in construction, both are complex concepts. They're complex because of what construction is and the way that most projects actually get built out in the field. In construction, we typically have a general contractor, who hires multiple trade contractors or sub-contractors to perform the work on different segments of the project being constructed. The general contractor might self-perform some of the work or they may sub-contract it all out. And the materials being incorporated into the facility may be all procured and supplied by the individual trade contractors who will do the work or some of it may be procured by the general contractor or even the owner of the project. All of this happens in a frenzy of activity out on the site and all the while, the clock's ticking. And the more time the overall process takes, the more time the facility sits useless. Now, on one hand, we need to work on improving productivity of the overall project, reducing the actual build time. And there are plenty of opportunities there. But we also need to work on improving productivity at the workface, reducing the time it takes to perform individual tasks. And there are plenty of opportunities there too. The thing to keep in mind though is that while it may be easy for many people to grasp the concept that improving productivity at the workface will also improve overall project productivity, it's more difficult for many to grasp the inverse of that concept and actually understand that taking steps to improve the overall project productivity first can actually help improve productivity at the workface later.