Jimenez, A; Engstroöm, S and Stehn, L (2019) Why (not) measuring productivity in house-building companies? In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 35th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2019, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
The need for improved productivity in construction, and the continuous tendency of lagging behind manufacturing industries in this respect, is a longstanding theme in the general debate in Sweden. However, there is a lack of consensus on how to understand and measure productivity, and thus, how to enable for productivity to be assessed and compared properly over time, between projects as well as between companies. Moreover, the opportunities introduced by digitalization have become part of such calls assuming that it can play a pivotal role in future developments of construction performance. The presented study aims to address how Swedish construction companies acknowledge and measure productivity performance, and how digitalization could be understood to have an impact on productivity in construction. Based on a literature review on how productivity is understood and measured in traditional manufacturing, the measuring of productivity in construction is problematized by drawing from interviews with representatives from construction companies, complemented with results from a survey. Tentative results indicate that measuring productivity is not common practice in construction. Moreover, to measure productivity in ways that allows for relevant comparing of performance between projects seems especially problematic. Productivity as a performance measure also seems to be understood and assessed differently depending on the stakeholder. Findings suggest that whereas digitalization can facilitate for the gathering, storing and sharing of data, further development on the concept of productivity is needed to understand better where the system boundaries of productivity should be put to minimise the risks of sub-optimization and the hampering of value-adding activities.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | productivity measurement; house-building industry levels; productivity performance; construction |
| Index terms: | digitalization, interview, construction company, survey, Sweden, literature review, manufacturing industry, construction performance, productivity, performance measure, drawing, building industry, boundaries |
| Subjects: | industry analysis, performance measurement, management, Geography, digital technology, technical documentation, data analysis and analytics, property law, performance assessment, data collection methods, organization |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Legal Issues, Design Practice, Digital Applications, Quality Management, Site Management |
| 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