Towards Development of a Database for Civil and Structural Construction Works’ Production Rates

Production rate (also known as construction or productivity rate) is one of the important data needed for determining activity duration and hence for scheduling of the activities in a project. However, because production rates are greatly affected by various controlled and uncontrolled factors, no specific calculations can be derived to evaluate them. Because of this, their values have all been based on the experience and judgment of the individual construction manager, as well as from previous company records. These values are often subjective and also not freely available to others outside the company. The aim of this paper is to report on the pioneering work at UTP to develop a formal database of “moderated” production rates for in-situ civil and structural construction works, which will not only be reliable but also accessible to everyone in the industry. The Survey Research Methodology has been used in this research to elicit data on production rates. For this, structured closed-ended questionnaires were sent to individuals in contracting companies. Face-to-face interviews were also conducted with some of the respondents. Data collected were compiled and analyzed using descriptive statistics and variance analysis. It was found that the survey had produced quite a wide range of production rate values for each activity. As the study is one of the pioneering works to be conducted in Malaysia, the results obtained may not yet be taken as final or universally accepted for use by the construction industry. However, it does provide an indication of the range of values of production rates data in the industry.