What is productivity?
Simply defined, productivity is the rate of output per unit of input.
In construction, the output is usually expressed in weight, length, or volume, and the input resource is usually in cost of labour or man-hours.
The physical progress achieved per person each hour, better known as labour productivity, weighs heavily on the overall calculation of construction productivity.
The two most important measures of labour productivity are the effectiveness with which labour is used in the construction process and the relative efficiency of labour doing what it is required to do at a given time and place.
To calculate labour productivity in your construction business, you could ask yourself the following questions:
- How much work can a group of 20 workers get done in a day?
- If the number of workers is fixed, how many days do you need to complete the job?
- If the days you have to complete the job are fixed, how many workers will you need to finish in time?
- How much time can you save on finishing one part of the job if you invest in equipment that works faster?