One-third of a typical m&e industry working day is ‘consumed’ by delays

Research findings from BSRIA show that the building services sector suffers from low productivity and delays. The delays translate to 15% of construction costs.

The findings were revealed by Glenn Hawkins, head of project improvement at BSRIA, at the recent ECA/HVCA Building Services Summit.

Hawkins said 35% of available time on site was lost to delays, with 16% of the day lost to low productivity.

Despite technological advances in the past 10 years, this was only marginally better than in 1997, where 40% of time was lost due to delays and 25% of the working day was lost to poor productivity.

“We have a major productive time problem,” said Hawkins. “One-third of a typical day is consumed by delays. The challenge is to build more consistently at a highly productive level.”

Hawkins said that the big challenge was making improvements in the areas of organisation and behaviour.

“If we don’t address these, then, despite the technical improvements, we’re never going to drive forward performance improvements in a sustainable manner.”

Source

Electrical and Mechanical Contractor