034 innovation & productivity

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INNOVATION
DELAY & DISRUPTION
WASTE ON SITE

INNOVATION AND CONSTRUCTION
PRODUCTIVITY
 Innovation in construction is considered
to be ‘the act of introducing and using
new ideas’. They are:
 Technologies;
 products and/or processes aimed at
solving problems;
 viewing things differently;
 improving efficiency and effectiveness;

PRODUCTIVITY
 immobility of the final product;
 the construction work happens
on site;
 The advantages of automated
products is rarely possible;
 Innovation in some areas has
improved productivity.

PRODUCTIVITY
A recent government report
suggests that:
Innovation needs to be at
the heart of the construction
industry’s efforts.

PRODUCTIVITY
 There are many reasons for adopting
innovation in construction sector,
For small firms:
 Owners play a key role in driving
innovation in construction firms.
 Small firms focus on smaller contracts
in the market.

PRODUCTIVITY
 The broader market segments is
occupied with large firms.
 Small firms lack resources and finance
to push towards innovation.
 This often hampers the capacity of
large firms to experiment and commit
to investment strategies.
 Innovation often does not give a
return in short term.

PRODUCTIVITY
 The need for innovation in the
construction industry has long
been stressed from both within
and outside the industry.
 There is a need for innovation in
construction Because of:
 changes in global markets;

PRODUCTIVITY
 increased customer expectations;
 government pressure;
 all led to innovation becoming a
key focus for the construction
sector.
 Innovation in the Construction
Industry is still slower than other
industries.

PRODUCTIVITY
 The mass production in other sectors
such as car manufacturing.
 pushed the industry toward
automation for higher productivity.
The area where application is fast
developing includes:
 the aid of computer database;
 robotics and automated process
control.

PRODUCTIVITY
Innovation has been slow because:
 Immobility;
 Durability;
 complexity and high risk of failure;
 all characteristics of construction products.
 The key towards a successful push for
technological innovation:
 It occurs when in all cases, firms target
minor and peripheral markets;
 where the cost advantages of new
technology could be more easily
demonstrated.

PRODUCTIVITY
 Factors that influence and impact on
innovation in the industry are:
The external environment
 Innovation activity in small construction
firms is triggered mainly by key events in its
external business environments.
 changing client needs
 unforeseen project-specific events
 are all important for a big push towards
innovation.

PRODUCTIVITY
 There are number of approaches in
which small construction firms can take
advantage of changes in its external
environment and advance its
innovation capacity.
 One approach is to make the effort to
predict and identify key events within
their client needs and ongoing projects

PRODUCTIVITY
 Small construction firms can also use their
external environment. They can be achieved
by:
 developing strong client relationships;
 make an effort to understand client
organisations;
 getting involved in industry associations and
forums;
 signing up to newsletters;
 can be a way to stay informed of client
needs.
 Also, what is happening in the industry.

PRODUCTIVITY
The structure of the industry
 The construction industry is generally
driven by single projects that require
the formation of a team to do the work.
 The subsequent separation of that
team once the job is completed.
 Put constrain on a push towards
innovation.

PRODUCTIVITY
 It also can help innovation by
ensuring:
 great flexibility;
 fast adoption of new ideas and
technology;
 However, it can also constrain
innovation.

PRODUCTIVITY
 knowledge gained through the
process of a project might be lost.
 As the company moves on to the
next project new people form a
group.
 Knowledge gained should be stored
and kept in a Management
Information System (MIS).

PRODUCTIVITY
Steps towards innovation in
construction
Developing a strategy
Training within the
organisation

PRODUCTIVITY
 This can help overcome the
potential problems of lost
knowledge.
 Once knowledgeable people
leave the organization, the
knowledge will be lost.

PRODUCTIVITY
Adopt a method to:
 document lessons learned
 Including best practices after every
project
 valuable lesson for the organization
 This will help to avoid previous
mistakes and learn from
experience.

PRODUCTIVITY
 strategy of documenting lessons
learnt from previous projects.
 It has been recognised as one of the
key contributing factors in achieving
KPIs.
 Heathrow Terminal 5 mega project.
 Has meet all objectives.
 Excluding the opening day and lo
luggage confusion.

PRODUCTIVITY
Organisational culture
 Culture of Innovation in construction
firms amongst small firms is very rear.
 nationally and internationally
 innovations is a key to become more
competitive
 innovation has to become a part of the
companies culture
 New ideas should be prevented from
getting lost.

PRODUCTIVITY
 Innovative ideas should be rewarded.
 Opportunities for information and
knowledge sharing between projects
and business units should be created.
 Management should communicate the
importance of innovative solutions
thoroughly.

PRODUCTIVITY
Steps to take:
 give employees freedom to become
innovative
 support innovative employees actively
 This should be regardless of position
in the hierarchy.
 A few simple changes can make a
significant difference to the innovation
culture of your business.

PRODUCTIVITY
 Changes must go through a
brainstorming sessions.
 The advantages or disadvantages
are assessed.
 Even sometimes a financial
incentive might help.
 Setting up a suggestion box.
 Encouraging inputs at staff
meetings.

PRODUCTIVITY
 One way of promoting innovating
ideas is the use of Value engineering.
 Value engineering is one method that
promotes innovative approaches.
 It looks critically at the design and
methods of construction.
 The use of equipment.
 Selecting best alternative to initial
designs or methods of work.
 Please go to VE Power Point

WASTAGE ON SITE
There are five significant sources of
Construction wastage:
1. design changes
2. left over material and scrap
3. waste from packaging and non-
reclaimable construction materials
4. design detailing errors
5. poor weather
6. repeat work following bad
workmanship

WASTAGE ON SITE
 On average 50% of the waste
deposited in a disposal site in the UK
is construction waste.
 The construction site waste could be
minimized by re-using materials.
 Recycling building waste.
 Trying to avoid waste by reducing
repeat work.
 Double handling of materials
 etc.

WASTAGE ON SITE
 Effective waste minimization
strategies can be developed for
construction project sites using the
following steps:
 Developing an inventory of all waste
streams on the construction site.
 Identifying the source of the waste
stream.
 Determining the quantities and
compositions of the waste stream.

Fig. 2.03 Typical adverse material management (Thomas et al, 1989)
Extensive multiple
handling of materials
Material badly stored
or marked
Poor House Keeping
Wastage on
Site
Access to storage
area obscured by
debris
Lack of planning of material
deliveries
Lack of co-ordination between
the time of deliveries and
erection.
Remobilization and re-
familiarisation after a lengthy
delay.
Running out of
materials
Lack of anticipation
about material
shortage

WASTAGE ON SITE
 Based on my own research and
derived mathematical formulas:
 AC= Actual time for Craft to carry
out a unit rate of a job.
 AL= Actual time for a Labour to
carry out a unit rate of a job.
 PR (Loss/Gain)=MD [A-X] + {(EC .
HC)+ (EL . HL)}-{(AC . HC)+ (AL .
HL)}

WASTAGE ON SITE
 PR (Loss/Gain) =MD [A-X] +
HC(EC- AC)+ HL(EL- AL)
 AC = a EC (1+Σ xi) and similarly AL
= a EL (1+Σ xi)
 xi = % of influential factors such
as weather, crew size, absenteeism,
machinery, accidents on site, etc.

JUST-IN-TIME (JIT)
 In order to achieve better
productivity:
 Just-in-Time (JIT) has been
introduced to reduce the level of
wastage on construction sites.
Benefits of JIT are:
 the ability to streamline operation
 the ability to be more responsive to
the environment
 and shortage of resources

JUST-IN-TIME (JIT)
 improvement in the level of
productivity
 improvement in scheduling
 cost saving
 improvement quality assurance
 improvement in buffer

JUST-IN-TIME (JIT)
 The JIT philosophy is about having:
 an accurate and reliable
documentation system;
 which will give support to all
functional departments;
 tt is a good communication tool;
 can be used by everyone in a project
to obtain necessary information for
his or her task.

JUST-IN-TIME (JIT)
significant wastage within the
construction process is mainly
related to factor such as:
 over production;
 poor transportation or mishandling;
 excessive waiting time;
 processing failure;
 unnecessary movement on site and
high inventories.

EFFECT OF DELAY AND DISRUPTION
ON CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTIVITY
 Delays within the construction site
are created by:
1. Idleness
2. waiting times
 The delays associated with waiting for
supervisory instruction,
 IF there are severe time constraints
 and problems with shortages of on-
site managerial staff
 It will make project duration longer.

EFFECT OF DELAY AND DISRUPTION ON
CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTIVITY
 The Construction Decision
Support System for delay
analysis [Delay Analysis System
(DAS)] is a good source of
information.
 It was developed by Yates in
1993 to assist managers during
the decision-making process.

Delays can be classified as:
1. compensable,
2. Excusable
3. non- excusable
 a more complicated delay is
con-current delays,

compensable Delays:
 this type of delay is caused by
the project owner
 the contractor can be
compensated for such delays
excusable Delay:
 this type of delay is not the fault
of the contractor or the owner of
the project

non-excusable:
 this is caused by the
mismanagement of materials
 or the contractor workforce
 his sub-contractor
 because of suppliers

 Types of disruptions are
organized into three
categories:
 disruption related to
resources: such as material
availability, tool availability,
equipment or information
availability.

 disruption related to rework:
such as design change
 disruption related to
management:
such as congestion, out-of
sequence work, supervisory

034 innovation & productivity

034 innovation & productivity

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