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Critical Factors Affecting Construction Labor Productivity in Egypt

Received: 29 January 2014     Published: 30 March 2014
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Abstract

The construction industry plays an important role in any developing country. This sector will promote the infrastructure required in socioeconomic development which also a major contributor to the overall economic growth. One of the main factors that had influence in the construction industry growth is productivity which mainly associated with the labor performance. Labor in construction industry could be defined as all workforces involve in the process that had to carry out to accomplish and to achieve goal. The labor productivity insufficiency will affect the performance of the overall project. The objective of this research is to identify and rank the relative importance of factors perceived to affect labor productivity on Egyptian construction projects. To achieve this objective, a statistically representative sample of contractors was invited to participate in a structured questionnaire survey, comprising 27 productivity factors, classified under the following four primary groups: (a) Technological; (b) Management; (c) Human/Labor; and (d) External. Among the factors explored, the subsequent ten are discerned to be the most significant in their effects on labor productivity: (1) Payment delay; (2) Skill of labor; (3) A shortage of experienced labor; (4) Lack of labor supervision; (5) Motivation of labor; (6) Working overtime, (7) Construction managers lack of leadership, (8) High humidity, (9) Clarity of technical specification, (10) High/low temperature. The results obtained fill a gap in knowledge of factors affecting labor productivity in Egypt, which can be used by industry practitioners to develop a wider and deeper perspective of the factors influencing the efficiency of operatives, and provide guidance to construction managers for efficient utilization of the labor force, hence assist in achieving a reasonable level of competitiveness and cost effective operation.

Published in American Journal of Civil Engineering (Volume 2, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14
Page(s) 35-40
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2014. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Construction, Labor Productivity, Factors, Management; Relative Importance Index (RII), Rank, Improvement, Egypt

References
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[2] Mctague, B. and Jergeas, G. (2002) "Productivity Improvements on Alberta Major Construction Projects", Construction Productivity Improvement Report, Project Evaluation Tool, Alberta Economic Development, Alberta, Canada.
[3] Stoeckel A., and Quirke D. (1992) "Services setting the agenda for reform" Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service.
[4] Sumanth, D. (1985)"Productivity Engineering and Management", McGraw-Hill Book Company, NY, USA
[5] Adrian J. (1987) “Construction Productivity Improvement” Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
[6] Peles C. (1987)"Productivity Analysis – A Case Study" Transaction of the American Association of Cost Engineers, 31st Annual Meeting, Atlanta, USA.
[7] Handa V. and Abdalla O. (1989)"Forecasting Productivity by Work Sampling" Construction Management and Economics, 7 (1), 19-28.
[8] Allmon E., Hass, C., Borcherding, J. and Goodrum, P. (2000)"US Construction Labor Productivity Trends, 1970 – 1998, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, ASCE, 126 (2), 97-104.
[9] Arditi D. and Mochtar K. (2000) "Trends in Productivity Improvement in the US Construction Industry" Construction Management and Economics, 18 (1), 15-27.
[10] Horner R. and Duff R. (2001)"More for Less, A Contractor’s Guide to Improving Productivity in Construction, Construction Industry" Research and Information Association (CIRIA), London, UK.
[11] Lim E. and Alum J. (1995)"Construction Productivity: Issues Encountered by Contractors in Singapore" International Journal of Project Management, 13 (1), 51-58.
[12] Makulsawatudom A., Emsley M., and Sinthawanarong K. (2004)"Critical Factors Influencing Construction Productivity in Thailand" The Journal of King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, 14 (3), 1-6.
[13] Abdul Kadir M., Lee W., Jaafar M., Sapuan S., and Ali A. (2005) “Factors Affecting Construction Labor Productivity for Malaysian Residential Projects”. Structural Survey, 23 (1), 42–54.
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[15] Wen Y. and Chan A. (2014). ”Critical review of labor productivity research in construction journals” Journal of Management in Engineering, ASCE, 30 (2), 214-225.
[16] El-Gohary K. and Aziz R. (2014) “Factors Influencing Construction Labor Productivity in Egypt” Journal of Management in Engineering, ASCE, 30 (1), 1-9.
[17] Mistry S. and Bhatt R. (2013) "Critical Factors Affecting Labor Productivity in Construction Projects: Case Study Of South Gujarat Region Of India". (IJEAT) ISSN: 2249 – 8958, Volume-2, Issue-4, April 2013 583.
[18] Enshassi A., Mohamed, S., Abu Mustafa Z. and Mayer E. (2007) “Factors Affecting Labor Productivity in Building Projects in the Gaza Strip” Journal of Civil Engineering and Management, 13 (4), 245-254.
[19] Durdyev S., Ismail S. and Abu Bakar N. (2012) “Factors Constraining Labor Productivity: Case Study of Turkmenistan” Razak School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, University Technology Malaysia, International Campus, Jalan Semarak, 54100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. DOI: 10.7763/IPEDR. 2012. V55. 1.
[20] Soekiman A., Pribad K., Soemard B., and Wirahadikusumah R. (2011) “Factors Relating to Labor Productivity Affecting The project Schedule Performance In Indonesia”. The Twelfth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction, Procedia Engineering 14, 865–873.
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Sherif M. Hafez, Remon F. Aziz, Enas S. Morgan, Madeha M. Abdullah, Eman K. Ahmed. (2014). Critical Factors Affecting Construction Labor Productivity in Egypt. American Journal of Civil Engineering, 2(2), 35-40. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14

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    ACS Style

    Sherif M. Hafez; Remon F. Aziz; Enas S. Morgan; Madeha M. Abdullah; Eman K. Ahmed. Critical Factors Affecting Construction Labor Productivity in Egypt. Am. J. Civ. Eng. 2014, 2(2), 35-40. doi: 10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14

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    AMA Style

    Sherif M. Hafez, Remon F. Aziz, Enas S. Morgan, Madeha M. Abdullah, Eman K. Ahmed. Critical Factors Affecting Construction Labor Productivity in Egypt. Am J Civ Eng. 2014;2(2):35-40. doi: 10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14,
      author = {Sherif M. Hafez and Remon F. Aziz and Enas S. Morgan and Madeha M. Abdullah and Eman K. Ahmed},
      title = {Critical Factors Affecting Construction Labor Productivity in Egypt},
      journal = {American Journal of Civil Engineering},
      volume = {2},
      number = {2},
      pages = {35-40},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajce.20140202.14},
      abstract = {The construction industry plays an important role in any developing country. This sector will promote the infrastructure required in socioeconomic development which also a major contributor to the overall economic growth. One of the main factors that had influence in the construction industry growth is productivity which mainly associated with the labor performance. Labor in construction industry could be defined as all workforces involve in the process that had to carry out to accomplish and to achieve goal. The labor productivity insufficiency will affect the performance of the overall project. The objective of this research is to identify and rank the relative importance of factors perceived to affect labor productivity on Egyptian construction projects. To achieve this objective, a statistically representative sample of contractors was invited to participate in a structured questionnaire survey, comprising 27 productivity factors, classified under the following four primary groups: (a) Technological; (b) Management; (c) Human/Labor; and (d) External. Among the factors explored, the subsequent ten are discerned to be the most significant in their effects on labor productivity: (1) Payment delay; (2) Skill of labor; (3) A shortage of experienced labor; (4) Lack of labor supervision; (5) Motivation of labor; (6) Working overtime, (7) Construction managers lack of leadership, (8) High humidity, (9) Clarity of technical specification, (10) High/low temperature. The results obtained fill a gap in knowledge of factors affecting labor productivity in Egypt, which can be used by industry practitioners to develop a wider and deeper perspective of the factors influencing the efficiency of operatives, and provide guidance to construction managers for efficient utilization of the labor force, hence assist in achieving a reasonable level of competitiveness and cost effective operation.},
     year = {2014}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Critical Factors Affecting Construction Labor Productivity in Egypt
    AU  - Sherif M. Hafez
    AU  - Remon F. Aziz
    AU  - Enas S. Morgan
    AU  - Madeha M. Abdullah
    AU  - Eman K. Ahmed
    Y1  - 2014/03/30
    PY  - 2014
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14
    T2  - American Journal of Civil Engineering
    JF  - American Journal of Civil Engineering
    JO  - American Journal of Civil Engineering
    SP  - 35
    EP  - 40
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2330-8737
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajce.20140202.14
    AB  - The construction industry plays an important role in any developing country. This sector will promote the infrastructure required in socioeconomic development which also a major contributor to the overall economic growth. One of the main factors that had influence in the construction industry growth is productivity which mainly associated with the labor performance. Labor in construction industry could be defined as all workforces involve in the process that had to carry out to accomplish and to achieve goal. The labor productivity insufficiency will affect the performance of the overall project. The objective of this research is to identify and rank the relative importance of factors perceived to affect labor productivity on Egyptian construction projects. To achieve this objective, a statistically representative sample of contractors was invited to participate in a structured questionnaire survey, comprising 27 productivity factors, classified under the following four primary groups: (a) Technological; (b) Management; (c) Human/Labor; and (d) External. Among the factors explored, the subsequent ten are discerned to be the most significant in their effects on labor productivity: (1) Payment delay; (2) Skill of labor; (3) A shortage of experienced labor; (4) Lack of labor supervision; (5) Motivation of labor; (6) Working overtime, (7) Construction managers lack of leadership, (8) High humidity, (9) Clarity of technical specification, (10) High/low temperature. The results obtained fill a gap in knowledge of factors affecting labor productivity in Egypt, which can be used by industry practitioners to develop a wider and deeper perspective of the factors influencing the efficiency of operatives, and provide guidance to construction managers for efficient utilization of the labor force, hence assist in achieving a reasonable level of competitiveness and cost effective operation.
    VL  - 2
    IS  - 2
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt

  • Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt

  • Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt

  • Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt

  • Structural Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt

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