A Review of Labor Productivity Research in Construction

In recent years, construction projects in India have been facing number of problems including time overruns, cost overruns, low productivity, poor safety, poor quality, lack of skilled labor, and low level of technology adoption. Productivity is a major factor that affects overall performance of any small or medium or large construction organization. Globally, a substantial amount of research have been conducted in construction labor productivity. Research topics in construction labor productivity can generally be classified into industry-level, project-level and activity-level. Through a systematic review of research papers in selected construction management journals, major areas of research in industry, project and activity-level are identified. On close examination, it is found that the quantum of research in industry-level and project-level are relatively higher as compared to activity-level research. Major areas of research in industry and project-level include factors affecting construction labor productivity, estimating, predicting and forecasting labor productivity,baseline and benchmarking labor productivity, impact of critical factors on labor productivity, impact of new management practices and technology on labor productivity, and worker motivation. However, little attention is seen so far in research and practices at activity-level despite its significance in overall project performance. In the Indian construction context, as many of the construction actives are labor-intensive, research in activity-level is highly significant. Some of the topics that need explicit attention in activity-level productivity in the Indian context include craft time utilization, impact of crew interactions on productivity, role of workforce management practices on productivity, and learning effect of crews on productivity.