Impact of labour productivity in estimating the duration of construction projects

Abstract

Several constraints influence the duration estimation of construction activities. Labour productivity is one of the critical limitations, which affects the estimate of activity duration. Various factors affecting construction labour productivity are studied in detail in the literature; the same is not considered to determine the duration of activities. Therefore, this research proposes an activity duration estimation framework to estimate the duration of construction work-packages concerning the standard norms and factors affecting labour productivity. The authors considered 16 factors that affect the labour productivity mentioned in the literature sources. Three expert’s suggestion is obtained to determine the loss in labour productivity for all the 16 factors. Based on these inputs and labour constant values from the standard document, activity durations are calculated. A genetic algorithm optimization approach is adopted to determine the optimal duration to execute six construction work-packages. The proposed framework also allows the project managers to include project constraints while deciding the overall duration. The result showcases a realistic duration estimation for the assumed conditions in a real-time construction project. The proposed activity duration estimation framework is flexible to incorporate labour productivity values from any other standard norms.