Construction productivity measurement and improvement in Thailand by improved work-sampling

The Thailand construction industry is the database for this research, which consists of three main sections. As there has been a lack of research in the construction industry in Thailand, firstly, structured questionnaires were distributed to project manager, foremen and craftsmen, to observe general construction productivity and to find out if a work-sampling study could be tailored to detect these problems. The results indicated that lack of materials, incomplete drawing and lack of tools and equipment have the greatest effect on construction productivity in Thailand, and so a work-sampling study can be tailored to detect these problems. Having confirmed that it is possible to undertake work-sampling to increase construction productivity, this thesis, secondly, has improved and clearly specified all the individual steps required to carry out a work-sampling study. In addition, this research has also reported the application steps of FDS. The work-sampling technique was applied to four construction cases and FDS was also carried out on two of the four sites. The results confirmed that a work-sampling study can highlight the productivity problems, and indicate how to overcome or alleviate them, and inferred that late start/early finish and crew imbalance are likely to be universal construction productivity problems in Thailand. In addition, these two techniques contribute to each other and should be implemented together. The final part of this study applied the Markov process to predict the results of worksampling at any particular periods of time in the future. This concept is not only able to predict the results, but also supports the principle of work-sampling which, if it is to be successful requires full support from management.