Increasing Singapore's construction productivity through construction process re-engineering

Using Construction Process Re-engineering (CPR), seventeen initiatives that may bring about improved performance are identified. To ascertain these initiatives' degree of usage and suitability to raise productivity, the views of construction industry practitioners, namely contractors, architects and clients, were sought through a postal survey. The results showed that 14 of these methods are suitable to raise productivity. However, only four are frequently used. These are: "the use of specialist sub-contractors"; "use of alternative dispute resolution techniques"; "selection of contractors on the basis of past performance"; and "practising knowledge management for systematic continuous improvement". There is therefore much potential in raising productivity by using more of the available re-engineering initiatives. With a few exceptions, the ratings were consistent across different types of respondents. Numerous barriers to implementing the initiatives are also identified. It is recommended that for the construction industry to achieve higher productivity, more CPR initiatives should be adopted. In particular, the industry should focus on obtaining inputs from all participants at the design stage, training professionals to be multi-skilled, and undertaking joint risk analysis for early risk allocation.