Impacted Productivity - Highly variable Labor Scheduling (Level Your Schedule)

The biggest risk for a specialty contractor is the performance of on-site labor.

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One of the biggest impacts to labor productivity is having a schedule that requires large variations in labor. The most ideal situation is to have a steady ramp up, stable crew size during peak production followed by a steady demobilization.

Field Productivity: Impacts - Unleveled Manpower Schedule.

 

No project will be perfect and impacts to highly variable labor requirements include:

  • Overloading the project to meet demands resulting in too many people during downtimes, which then lowers productivity.  
  • Learning curve for new team members coming on and off the project. Studies show that productivity can be impacted by as much as 10% during the first week for a craftsperson learning a new project. 
  • Overtime required to meet the schedule. Not only will you have the increased cost per hour, but you will experience a decrease in productivity and safety. Four weeks at 5-10’s will impact productivity by 20%.
  • Poor scheduling often goes hand-in-hand with stacking of trades which can cost another 10-50% decrease in productivity for those areas.  
  • There is an increase in the coordination time it takes to move manpower on and off the project which has a direct cost as well as an indirect cost from dilution of management.  

 

 

 


Labor Productivity
Field labor is the often the biggest variable on a construction project - making it the biggest risk and opportunity....

Related Training
Labor Productivity
Field labor is the often the biggest variable on a construction project - making it the biggest risk and opportunity....

Impacted Productivity - Fighting Back
Fighting back effectively against labor productivity impacts will significantly improve project outcomes including customer satisfaction if handled properly. There are four interrelated aspects to effectively fighting back.
Planning and Preparing for Unknowns
When faced with many unknowns, it is important to plan and prepare for multiple scenarios while holding off on being decisive until the last responsible moment.
Change Management Workflow (From Identification-to-Payment)
For contractors to manage changes effectively, they must understand the entire change management workflow up through the project owner’s approval and payment process.