The impact of management practices on mechanical construction productivity

Over recent decades, sporadic advancements in machinery and construction materials have to some extent increased construction productivity in the United States. However, there is evidence that additional productivity improvement opportunities exist. One way to improve direct work rates and likewise the potential to increase construction craft productivity is through better planning and management. Utilizing a dataset from the Construction Industry Institute Benchmarking and Metrics programme with 41 sampled projects, the relationship between the level of implementation of different management programmes and mechanical craft productivity is examined. The implementation of several management programmes, including pre-project planning, team building, automation and integration of information systems and safety had a positive correlation with improved mechanical productivity. In fact, the statistical results show that projects with advanced implementation of the selected management programmes experienced significant mechanical productivity advantages over projects with weak implementation.