Karimi, H; Taylor, T R B and Goodrum, P M (2017) Analysis of the impact of craft labour availability on North American construction project productivity and schedule performance. Construction Management and Economics, 35(6), pp. 368-380. ISSN 01446193
Abstract
The North American construction industry has experienced periods of craft shortages for decades. While this problem has received significant attention from researchers, less attention has been given to quantifying the impact of availability of craft labour on project performance. The primary contribution of the current work to the body of knowledge is the quantification of the relationship between craft labour availability and project performance, as measured by project productivity and schedule. Data from 97 construction projects completed in the U.S. and Canada between 2001 and 2014 were collected from two industry databases. The primary analysis shows that projects that experienced craft shortages underwent substantial and statistically lower productivity compared to projects that did not. The analysis also shows a significant growth in schedule overrun due to the craft labour shortages among the same population of projects. Further exploration by means of several regression analyses shows a statistically significant correlation between increased craft recruiting difficulty and lower project productivity and also higher schedule overruns in both project databases. The results are confirmed across both databases and serve as informative models that provide valuable insight for project management teams to perceive the risk that lack of skills poses on project productivity and time performance. Understanding the level of impact that craft shortages are having through robust statistical analyses is a first step in developing the motivation for industry leaders, communities and construction stakeholders to address this challenge.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | craft skills; productivity; risk identification; time; workforce |
| Index terms: | project performance, labour shortage, regression analysis, construction industry, quantification, Canada, schedule overrun, statistical analysis, database, productivity, population, construction project, exploration, time performance, shortages, body of knowledge, schedule performance, craft skill, motivation, risk identification, project management team |
| Subjects: | management, economics, production management, Geography, financial risk, project management theory and practice, demography, project controls, data management, measurement and scaling, industry analysis, statistical analysis, profession, psychology, environmental resource management, data science, knowledge management, economic analysis |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Urban Studies, Human Resources, Supply Chain Management, Time Control, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Research Practice, Project Management, Geographical Context, Information Management, Roles and Professions, Sustainability |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
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