Impact of crew composition on productivity and unit labour cost in construction projects - a case study

© Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate, CRIOCM 2017.All right reserved. The construction projects are usually labour-intensive. Consequently, construction workers become an important resource who drive productivity through effective use of materials and equipment. Although considerable research has been conducted in the area of construction labour productivity, very few studies have examined the impact of crew composition on productivity and unit labour cost. The present study was undertaken to examine the impact of crew composition on both labour productivity and unit labour cost in shuttering activities in a construction project. A total of 20 sub-contractors working on a construction site were evaluated in terms of the number of workers engaged, productivity rates, and unit labour cost incurred during the shuttering job. A correlation between these three attributes for each sub-contractor provided some useful insights into the impact of unbalanced crew composition on labour productivity and total project cost.