Creating a baseline for labour productivity of reinforced concrete building construction in Kuwait

Abstract

Despite many technological advances, construction remains a labour intensive industry, and labour productivity remains the industry’s predominant determinant of performance. However, there is a lack of evidence-based labour productivity ‘baselines’ with which researchers or industry practitioners can compare the efficiency of the labour force, and subsequently establish sensible benchmarks. A rigorous approach to determining baselines for labour productivity of in situ reinforced concrete trades for major building elements under normal operating conditions in the State of Kuwait has therefore been developed. The data were collected from 208 in situ reinforced concrete building projects between 2006 and 2013. The intermittent observation data collection technique which requires the researcher to carry out weekly site visits to audit site staff daily records was used. Projects observed included residential, office and commercial buildings ranging from 1000 to 15 000 m2 in gross floor area, and US$300 000 to US$21 000 000 in construction cost, located across most major cities and suburbs within the State. For each dataset, the minimum, lower quartile, median, upper quartile and maximum labour productivity values are presented. Whilst the median and inter-quartile range represent the baseline or normal labour productivity range of the related activity, the lower and upper quartiles may be used as benchmarks to identify poor and exceptional performance. Although the metrics are specific to Kuwait, the principles of data collection, analysis and use are generic and could be applied to advantage in other countries.