Nguyen, L D; Nguyen, T K N; Tran, D Q and Villiers, C (2014) Productivity in daytime and nighttime construction of urban sewer systems. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 140(7): 04014021, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Sewer construction in urban areas often requires nighttime operations to meet project schedules and to reduce possible negative effects of construction work on traffic operations. Although several studies investigated the correlation between daytime and nighttime construction productivity, there is a limited understanding of how shift work may influence productivity in sewer construction projects. This research examined the labor productivity of 10 activities typically performed in both day and night shifts in sewer construction. The research employed Levene's test and t-tests to analyze the data collected from eight sewer construction projects in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The results indicated that (1) pavement cutting and timber piling were more productive in daytime operations, whereas steel sheet piling and manhole concreting were more productive in nighttime operations; (2) no statistically significant difference exists in productivity between day and night shifts for the following activities: excavation, form installation, rebar installation, pipe laying, sand filling, and asphalt paving; and (3) the productivity of pavement cutting, excavation, timber piling, steel sheet piling, pipe laying, and asphalt paving was higher in partial road closure than in full road closure methods. These statistical results were verified and validated by the experienced site managers/engineers through eight structured on-site interviews. This research contributes to the construction productivity knowledge by providing empirical results of daytime and nighttime operation productivity in sewer construction. It is expected that practitioners can use these results to focus proper attention and resources for day and night shifts in sewer construction projects.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | labor and personnel issues; nighttime construction; productivity; sewer construction; sewer systems; shift work |
| Index terms: | engineer, productivity, construction work, labour productivity, rebar, site manager, sand, construction productivity, paving, interview, sewer, personnel, Vietnam, excavation, practitioner, construction project, concreting, urban area |
| Subjects: | practitioner, profession, data collection methods, construction operations, operations management, building materials, Geography, production management, management, urban form and morphology, infrastructure and transport systems, transportation engineering, building construction |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Engineering Principles, Construction Materials, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Project Management, Business Strategy, Site Management, Human Resources, Urban Studies |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here