Lost productivity is lost revenue in the construction industry – and since many contractors have as many projects as they can possibly handle, the cost of not completing jobs on time can be enormous. According to research from FMI Corporation, lost productivity costs contractors upwards of $30-40 billion per year.
There’s almost never a single silver bullet that can instantly eliminate all wasted time in construction. Lost productivity is usually measured in small time wasters – unscheduled breaks, trips to tool trailers and pauses in work while a supervisor waits for an answer – that collectively add up to many wasted person-hours per day. The good news is that eliminating even a small source of wasted time can have a compounding effect on productivity and produce a measurable improvement in your bottom line.
These are the top productivity killers in construction and what you can do about them.
Waiting for Materials
Not having the appropriate materials to continue work is one of the worst things that can happen to any construction project because it often means that work on the site pauses completely until the needed supplies arrive. If the materials for a project are stuck in a supplier’s back-order system, the only solution is often to move the crew to a lower-priority project that may not be ready for full-scale work.
What to Do About It
Having materials delivered to a site early isn’t usually the ideal solution for this problem because that only creates more problems. Materials become hard to find because the site gets too crowded. Things have to be moved around repeatedly, and that increases the risk of damage. Create a procurement schedule that’s tied directly to the construction schedule. Understand suppliers’ lead times and place early orders when necessary. The goal should always be to have materials arrive on the site right before they’re needed.
Smoke Breaks
There’s no way to eliminate scheduled breaks on a construction site because they’re necessary for safety and morale. Unscheduled smoke breaks, however, can be very problematic because an entire crew’s productivity can dip when a few members are missing. A smoke break can often also take much longer than the time needed to smoke the cigarette because the crew member will probably need to walk to an approved area and remove his or her protective equipment before smoking.
What to Do About It
The best way to prevent unscheduled smoke breaks is by having a break schedule that’s equally enforced for both smokers and non-smokers. If someone doesn’t abide by the schedule, handle it professionally and privately to prevent non-smokers from feeling resentful. Consider offering nicotine pouches to smokers to help them keep their cravings under control without leaving the site.
Too Many Meetings
Does your company hold meetings because they produce useful decisions, or do meetings just happen because they’re on the calendar? A meeting can result in a surprising amount of lost productivity when you multiply the length of the meeting by the number of people in attendance – and that’s before you consider the time required to prepare for the meeting and travel to it. A single one-hour meeting can easily consume dozens of labor hours.
What to Do About It
Don’t hold a meeting unless it’s required in order to produce a decision. Every meeting should have a clear purpose and agenda. Attendees should only be key decision makers or people whose input is required. Don’t require people to attend if their time would be better spent elsewhere.
Frequent Travel Around the Job Site
Are you sure that your job sites are organized in the most efficient way possible? A 10-minute walk to retrieve a tool or locate a material might not seem like much on the surface. If you multiply the number of trips by the number of workers on the site, though, the total amount of wasted time could potentially total multiple person-hours every day. This is exactly why eliminating a small inefficiency can instantly make a construction project dramatically more productive.
What to Do About It
Efficient organization of the job site is crucial. Make sure that the correct tools are nearby and that the required materials are at hand when people need them. Mobile tool carts can be very useful for site organization. It’s also worthwhile to consider staging the materials for a floor before work begins. Remember that you may need to reevaluate the site’s layout for different construction phases
Repeated Work
Needing to tear down and repeat a portion of the project is one of the worst things that can happen on a construction site because it means that all of the labor and materials used to do that portion of work are wasted. Repeated work is horrible for morale because no one wants to do the same thing twice, and it’s also likely to push all subsequent work behind schedule.
What to Do About It
The way to prevent repeated work is by ensuring that you have consistent supervision and quality control throughout the process. Don’t allow work to proceed before all design decisions are finalized. When a first installation of a new project phase is completed, review it and handle any quality control issues before work proceeds. It’s much easier to correct one installation than it is to correct dozens.
Equipment Breakdowns
If a lift, excavator, compressor, power tool or other crucial piece of equipment breaks down, the resulting delay can potentially stop work on a portion of a project if no contingency plan is in place. In the worst case, an equipment breakdown can halt all work on a site for a day or even longer while a replacement is located.
What to Do About It
Preventative maintenance is the best way to ensure that an equipment breakdown won’t result in an extended work stoppage. Operators know their equipment better than anyone, and you should encourage them to report any performance issues, leaks, warnings or strange noises that they encounter. Most construction equipment has a manufacturer-prescribed maintenance schedule. Ensure that all recommended maintenance is performed on time and documented. Whenever possible, ensure that critical replacement parts and backup tools are available on site.
