Measuring Construction Site Productivity
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Foreword But the construction sector has opportunities to improve adoption of management best practice and technology, including automation that are proven to boost performance.
Katy Dowding Construction Productivity Taskforce and pilot project sponsor. Executive Vice President, Skanska The Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Krugman said, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it’s almost everything.” Higher productivity is what drives higher profitability for business and wages for workers. In a construction context, that means projects being built more quickly, affordably, and safely, with a lower environmental impact. Charting a more productive course for the sector cannot afford to wait. UK productivity has stagnated for over a decade. At the same time, challenges such as an aging workforce and competition for talent have competed with external factors including Brexit and the Covid pandemic for the attention of business leaders in every sector.
This ambition is what brought members of the Construction Productivity Taskforce together in 2020. These leading industry figures have come together with the support of not for profit, Be the Business to undertake practical interventions designed to make the sector more productive. We have three initial pillars of activity: • Collecting productivity and waste metrics to inform better decision making throughout the construction process • Improving the contracting process through a private sector playbook that builds on work already carried out in the public sector • Trialling methods of improving productivity on working construction sites across the UK
