Factors affecting construction labour productivity for Malaysian residential projects

TLDR

Construction labour productivity is a key concern for practitioners and researchers because it influences project cost and time overruns. This study evaluates and ranks the importance, frequency, and severity of project delay factors affecting construction labour productivity in Malaysian residential projects. The authors surveyed 100 industry respondents (70 contractors, 11 developers, 19 consultants) who rated 50 project‑related factors, and the responses were used to compute importance indices for ranking. The analysis identified material shortage, non‑payment to suppliers, change orders, late drawing issuance, and inadequate contractor site management as the top five important factors, while material shortage, non‑payment, late progress payments, workforce shortages, and coordination problems were the most frequent, suggesting that early mitigation can reduce time and cost overruns.

Abstract

Purpose Construction labour productivity is of great interest to practitioners and researchers because it affects project cost and time overrun. This paper evaluates and ranks the importance, frequency and severity of project delay factors that affect the construction labour productivity for Malaysian residential projects. Design/methodology/approach A total of 100 respondents consisting of 70 contractors, 11 developers and 19 consultants participated in this study. The respondents were asked to indicate how important each item of a list of 50 project related factors was to construction labour productivity. The data were then subjected to the calculation of importat indices which enabled the factors to be ranked. Findings The five most important factors identified by them were: material shortage at site; non‐payment to suppliers causing the stoppage of material delivery to site; change order by consultants; late issuance of construction drawing by consultants; and incapability of contractors' site management to organise site activities. On the other hand, the five most frequent factors were: material shortage at project site; non‐payment to suppliers causing the stoppage of material delivery to site; late issuance of progress payment by the client to main contractor; lack of foreign and local workers in the market; and coordination problem between the main contractor and subcontractor. Originality/value The inferences drawn from this study could be used by the project managers to take account of these factors at an early stage, hence minimising the time and cost overrun.