Construction productivity measures for innovation projects

A 30-year retrospective analysis of resource use in a range of new construction and repair projects reveals insignificant productivity increase when applying traditional narrow measures, as shown in a case study of beam bridges. It appears as necessary to estimate hidden quality changes in both outputs and inputs. Changes in government regulations, in specifications, and the development of nonprice criteria for contract award emerge as important. Schemes for benchmarking the performance of construction projects as well as life-cycle analyses suggest that customer risk aversion and effects on customer productivity should be taken into account. The outcome is a set of measurements that can be applied to the selection of any type of proposed new construction or repair technology innovation according to their potential impact on industry productivity.