Learning to see value-adding and non-value-adding work time in renovation production systems

Abstract

For decades construction labour productivity has been stagnated or declining. Changing this issue requires new knowledge on the labour-intensive construction production system. The work sampling method was applied to collect data from three renovation construction production systems. It quantifies observations of on-site work and enables deep analyses of how time is used. The analysis revealed that the renovation projects had a baseline of value-adding-work (VAW) time on 29.5%. It further identified five system behaviours outlining how VAW and Non-Value-Adding work (NVAW) time behaves. The new knowledge of how both VAW and NVAW time behaves advances knowledge on how time is wasted in construction projects and opens new branches of future research. The findings are furthermore of potential use to industry professionals who work with process improvement in renovation projects because they provide, among others, answers to how targets can be defined for both VAW and NVAW.

Keywords:

• production system
• behaviour
• work sampling
• direct work
• waste
• lean
• renovation
• refurbishment
• improvement
• management
• productivity
• TFV theory

Acknowledgements

This research is part of the REVALUE research project, which focuses on renovation projects.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data generated or analysed during the study are available from the corresponding author by reasonable request.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The study was sponsored by the Innovation Fund Denmark. The authors are responsible for the content of this publication.

Notes on contributors

Hasse Neve

Hasse Neve is a PhD student at the Department of Engineering at Aarhus University, Denmark. Hasses research is focussed on understanding and improving project-based production in the construction and wind turbine industry.

Søren Wandahl

Søren Wandahl is Professor (Docent) in Construction Management. His focus is on optimisation of construction processes. Areas of key competencies: Construction Labour Productivity, Lean Construction, Value Management, Innovation in construction processes, Planning of complex and constrained construction projects, The client's brief and Engineering educations and their relation to industry.

Søren Lindhard

Søren Lindhard is an Associate Professor at the department of the Built Environment at Aalborg University, Denmark. He received his PhD from Aalborg University in 2013, focussing on Lean Construction. Sørens research is focussed towards Construction Management where he works with production planning, scheduling and risk assessment in construction.

Jochen Teizer

Jochen Teizer is Associate Professor at Aarhus University where he investigates processes, methods, and technologies for lean and injury-free (LIFE) construction work environments in just three steps: prevention through design and planning, prediction and proactive risk avoidance, and personalised learning and education. He earned his Dipl.-Ing. from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, in 2002 and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, USA, in 2006. Until 2014 he chaired the construction engineering and management program at Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and since 2007 he serves as Vice-President and Board of Director for the International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction (IAARC). He has held several visiting researcher positions in the USA (e.g. National Institute of Standards and Technology), Japan (e.g. Osaka University), and Germany (e.g. Technische Universität München). With over 250 publications and numerous academic and construction industry teaching and research awards, among these is the Tucker-Hasegawa Award in 2019, he serves as a visionary and consultant for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry.

Jon Lerche

Jon Lerche holds a Ph.D. degree in offshore wind construction and currently works within the energy sector, focussing on offshore renewable energy. He is an expert in wind turbine project delivery and construction and also works in operations management. His academic and research interests lies in investigating the origin of variability in mega projects offshore, and how to improve project delivery through planning at both strategic and operational levels.