Measuring production rates for the construction of concrete bridge piers.
Abstract
Production rates in the construction industry vary from project to project and vary in effect to the
quality of work, cost of the project and time spent to complete the project. Production rates for the
construction of concrete bridge piers in particular is an aspect that has not been explored in the
past due a lack of standard measurement systems to measure production rates and thus leading to
a decline in production rates of overall bridge projects. A difficulty in the planning processes of
scheduling and budgeting is identified, a result of lack of metrics based on while measuring
production rates, which in turn morphs into cost over runs and time overruns. This research
provided a standard measurement of work and a linear regression predictive models to make the
planning process less tedious and more accurate thus offering a partial solution to cost and time
overruns. The data necessary to build these models was collected from a total of five piers with
various shapes and sizes. Three linear regression models whose dependent variable was production
rates in all instances and independent variables were steel works duration, concrete casting
duration and duration for formwork installation respectively were trained using this data. These
models were built to assist construction project teams to be able to predict optimum crew
configurations for the different activities involved and maximise production rates during the
planning stage in construction projects. Furthermore, the data was used to run a Monte-Carlo
simulation to obtain a production rate of 0.273339 m3
/hr. for the construction of concrete bridge piers