Masonry Magazine April 2001 Page. 25
An elusive ritual that's performed by construction supervisors all over the world... he's attempting to quantify worker productivity.
A MOVING TARGET
But of course, there's more to the job-site productivity equation than worker ability alone. Productivity comes in many forms and guises. Variables such as work environment, weather, project communication, document quality, and more enter into the productivity mix and to make things even worse - lapses in productivity often strike with little fanfare or warning. Indeed, at times it can seem like getting hold of this slippery thief can be tougher than calming a hummingbird. In fact, a particularly nasty trait of poor productivity is that you may not even know you have problems until after they occur showing up only after you've reconciled your books and performed final closeout for the job-and then it's too late.
But though it may require some effort, productivity can't be left to chance. Why? Because poor productivity will always translate directly into lost profit for your company. Always. Inversely, if you find ways to increase the productivity of your workers - you will increase profits. It's that simple. This is why all members of the construction team, the project owner, architect, PM, office staff, and the trades have to work in united effort to continually and doggedly identify (and eventually reign-in) productivity lapses when they occur - and learn to recognize ahead of time those work environments that spawn such lapses.
PRODUCTIVITY
But what is "productivity"? Well generally (for our purposes), it's the attempt by a contractor employer to measure worker efficiency. But how do they do that? Well, one accepted method is to express productivity as a ratio that's found by dividing the number of worker man-hours actually spent on a jobsite task by the number of man-hours actually earned for that same task for the same period. In an ideal world, the amount earned would equal the amount originally budgeted, so the two terms are used interchangeably for our base equation. The lower the number the better. If you apply the math and your result is less than one, you have an (albeit simplistic) indication that productivity is good. Should the number be greater than one (and all other criteria is reasonably trust-worthy), it may indicate a productivity decline and a cause for concern.
THE CRITERIA
Assuming the general conditions (those indirect costs affecting virtually all work in the field such as mobilization, supervision, fuel, on-site storage, etc.) associated with that task are weighed separately in a similar fashion, determining the actual man-hours spent on a task (direct cost) is a relatively straight-forward affair and can be found and monitored via job-site field reports, time sheets, and payroll records assuming the tasks in question have been broken down and allocated to the proper cost codes. If that isn't the case, then I believe we've stumbled onto our first lesson: always (and I mean always) track and maintain thorough and accurate labor records in the field. Besides benefiting you in other ways (such as legal and costing), this documentation is absolutely essential if you're going to seriously tackle productivity.
The Finer Points of Getting Organized
Elastic straps
hold your
level in place
Steel frame
holds bag
open for easy
access to
tools
Three outside
pockets ideal
for pins,
twigs and
line blocks
Made of
rugged wear
resistant
nylon
Bucket Bags, tool belts, nylon tool bags, canvas carryalls.
Over 70 ways to tote your tools. Now there's no excuse not to be organized.
BONDURA
by BonTool Co.
Bon Tool Co. Gibsonia, PA 15044 USA www.bontool.com
MASONRY APRIL, 2001 25