Masonry Magazine June 2000 Page. 15
6. Consistent Practices
For the masonry firm to improve productivity on each project, it is good for all practices. When the firm practices consistent practices from job to job and from supervisor to supervisor, people know what is expected of them. Variation in practices leads to free rein management, exceptions, and excuses. By requiring the same use of field reports, reporting policies, work start and stop times, and project management practices, the masonry firm can improve communications, conformity of practices, commitment, and productivity improvement.
7. Improve Safety
The construction firm has one of the highest accident rates per number of worker hours expended. This is due in part to the difficulty of the work and the conditions in which many projects are constructed.
Regardless of the reasons for the many construction accidents that occur at job sites, the fact remains that they have an adverse affect on construction productivity. In addition to the detrimental effect of the injury for the worker himself, accidents are likely to cause low worker morale, work disruptions related to the accident, and higher insurance premiums.
More often than not, a productive job is a safe job. A worker is as likely or more likely to get hurt when he is non-productive versus when he is performing productive work. A worker in a state of boredom or in a lackadaisical state may find his mind wandering or be careless to the point of putting himself in an accident prone situation. An effective safety program that complies with safety regulations and promotes safety to the workers is compatible with the firm's productivity improvement program.
8. Communications, Field Record Keeping, and the Job Cost System
Job site productivity is dependent on effective written and oral communications. Poor communications leads to unnecessary redo work, poor worker attitudes, and an inability to properly monitor the work process. Oral communications at a job site are complicated by the fact that communications are carried out in the open and at a relatively noisy job process, and by the fact that the individuals communicating may have different vocabularies and have different communicating skills.
Effective communications entails listening as well as talking. All too often the supervisor only talks at the worker instead of asking the worker for ideas or listening to his concerns. On occasion the person who knows how to form the walls or place steel may not be the supervisor but instead the craftsman. Failure to take advantage of the workers knowledge runs the risk of not only taking advantage of an improved construction method but also may adversely affect the work attitude of the craftsman. Knowing a better way to do something but not being asked one's ideals tends to promote an "I don't care attitude".
Effective supervisor communications also entails taking the time to properly explain the work process to the worker. The construction craftsman may think he is supposed to know how to do something that is told to him even if he doesn't. Given confusion as to what to do, rather than ask for an explanation, the worker may proceed to do the work incorrectly.
The construction industry has been characterized for many years as an industry with inadequate written communications at the job site. Inaccurate time cards, late reports, failure to give the worker or supervisor written feedback, and lost or misplaced documents are typical of the construction job site. Part of the reason for this written communication inadequacies relates to the decentralized nature of the work process. Unlike most industries that create and monitor their communication system to include their cost accounting process at the same place they make their product, the construction industry is such that written communication is often created at the job site, transferred to the contractor's main office, and hopefully communicated back to the job site. This process results in untimely and sometimes incorrect results.
Following are three rules for improving the accuracy and timeliness of the job site record keeping process: (1) an individual that is required to fill out a form should be showed where the data goes and how it is used; (2) an individual that is required to fill out a form should be shown by example that the data was in fact used; and (3) any individual that fills out a form or inputs data should be given a subsequent feedback or report.
9. Improved Productivity Through Quality
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A program for productivity improvement should include performing high quality work. Poor quality construction can negatively impact the productivity program by: (1) creating an environment in which workers know that a less than desirable quality is accepted and therefore perhaps a less than good work effort is also acceptable; (2) a tendency to have the worker lose pride in his work effort; and (3) the possibility for the need to do redo work that directly increases the required number of worker hours to do the finished work. By giving attention to making the project safe, and by being attentive to the performance of high quality work, the supervisor can serve the objective of making a project look like a firm to the worker rather than look just like a other job.
10. Improving Productivity Through Pride
Pride in work is critical to productivity improvement as well as quality. Whining, blaming others, and always taking a neg
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