| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 276634 | International Journal of Project Management | 2007 | 9 Pages |
New management thinking, like that of lean construction, has suggested many principles and techniques that can result in better labor and cost performance. This paper focuses on improving construction labor productivity in Egypt by applying two lean construction principles, namely benchmarking and reducing variability in labor productivity. Using labor productivity data from masonry activities on eleven building projects in Egypt, several measures of benchmarks of construction labor productivity are demonstrated, calculated, and then used to evaluate the productivity of bricklayers and identify the best and worst performing projects. The benchmarks include disruption index (DI), performance ratio (PR), and project management index (PMI). On the other hand reducing variability of labor productivity is another important lean construction principle. The labor productivity variability of the studied projects is calculated using the coefficient of productivity variation. The correlation between variability in labor productivity and project performance was also examined statistically. From the application of the two lean construction principles, it was concluded that the benchmarks of labor productivity (DI, PR, and PMI) were found to be reliable indicators of project labor performance. In addition, the variability in daily labor productivity was found to be an important delineator between good and poorly performing projects.
