Development of an Industry Level Productivity Metric for the Construction Industr

摘要

Construction industry labor productivity is an important metric that provides feedback about task, project, and industry level trends and improvements. However, labor productivity for the construction industry has historically been elusive to define, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Existing research studies and methods have provided different calculation methods at a variety of levels (task, project, industry), but none proved universally satisfying. This study generated a new metric using RS Means Building Construction Cost Data. The metric was derived using labor and cost information from a sample of RS Means construction activities. The sampled data were indexed and combined to generate labor productivity metrics (output per labor hour and output per labor cost). The research findings present a construction industry productivity metric based on RS Means data that is reliable, repeatable, and developed from a consistent and accurate data source. The study results showed a slightly sporadic but consistent decline in both output per labor hour and cost from 1990 through 2012. With this new metric, construction professionals will now be able to analyze industry level productivity by means of a commonly used industry reference manual.