Development of a construction productivity metrics system (CPMS)

Construction productivity has been a cause of great concern in both theconstruction industry and academia. Even though many companies havedeveloped their own productivity tracking systems based on their experiences andprevious studies, none have been successful in establishing common definitionsand developing a survey tool that collects standard productivity data at theappropriate levels. This research was initiated to establish a common set ofconstruction productivity metrics and their corresponding definitions.As a result of this research effort, the Construction Productivity MetricsSystem (CPMS), which contains a list of direct and indirect accounts and 56 dataelements grouped into seven major categories, was developed. The CPMS is astandard construction productivity data collection tool and provides a frameworkto report industry norms to benchmark construction productivity.Input from 73 industry experts were used in determining the 56 measuringelements and their corresponding definitions. Data collected from the 16industrial projects were used in presenting preliminary findings and illustratingdata analysis and data presentation methodologies. The expected relationshipsfrom data were also provided to show the recommended outputs of futureresearch. Because of the small sample size, drawing any conclusions would bespeculative and thus they were kept to a minimum. Based on the analyses, thedeveloped CPMS is believed to be a reasonable productivity data collection toolto provide industry norms.This dissertation also introduces a new approach to estimate expectedconstruction productivity and explains the concept of developing a constructionproductivity model to calculate expected productivity. Finally, conclusions andrecommendations for further improvement are offered.