Gledson, B; Williams, D and Littlemore, M (2018) Construction planning efficiency and delivery time performance: Analysing failure in task-level 'hit rates'. In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 34th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2018, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
Within construction, project delivery is considered successful if scope, time, cost and quality outputs are attained, and any shortcomings in one or more of these representing a failure of sorts. Considering only one of these criteria – 'time' – it is noticeable how recent research efforts have focused on poor time predictability and performance at 'industry-level', with minimum focus being retained at 'project-level', although some exceptions are apparent. These include Lean Construction theorists arguing how the 'planned percentage complete' (PPC) of individual construction activities typically remains at only 50%, and Dawood (2010) who created a way of determining 'planning efficiency' identifying a 'percentage reliability' of circa 55%. It is therefore apparent that the enactment of 'projects', 'project phases' and their individual 'work packages' and 'construction tasks' remains unsatisfactory. The main aim of this work was to contribute to such efforts through an analysis of planning efficiency across several distinct 'substructure', 'superstructure', and 'finishes' project phases. A further sub-aim of this work was also to review a common construction 'maxim' which holds that major contractors are able to perform satisfactorily during the 'substructure' and 'superstructure' phases, but not the 'finishes' phase of a project. Performance data were provided by a major UK construction organisation from several recently completed projects. This allowed quantitative analysis to be employed that measured planning and delivery efficiency using a previous method established by Dawood (2010). Findings show how planning and delivery efficiency is worse than previously recorded with an average of only 38% of project activities starting on and finishing on time. Secondary findings show that the highest percentage of activities that started late and finished late in this sample, was within the 'superstructure', and not the 'finishes' project phase. Several of the study’s results can help inform construction productivity efforts.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction planning; failure; measurement; planning efficiency; predictability; productivity. |
| Index terms: | package, efficiency, lean construction, construction organization, construction activity, productivity, finishes, PPC, delivery time, construction planning, project delivery, construction productivity, quantitative analysis |
| Subjects: | standard forms of contract, organization, construction operations, data analysis and analytics, contractual arrangements, project delivery, construction planning, operations management, building materials, management, performance management, time analysis, building construction |
| Topics: | Procurement, Research Practice, Project Management, Business Strategy, Time Control, Site Management, Quality Management, Design Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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