Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By
Patchigolla Harsha
Examination Committee:
Nationality: Indian
Table of Contents
Chapter
1.
2.
3.
Title
Page
Title page
List of tables
iii
List of figures
iv
Introduction
1.1 Background
1.3 Objectives
Literature Review
2.1 Overview
12
Research methodology
17
3.1 Introduction
17
18
19
20
References
22
Appendix
24
ii
LIST OF TABLES
Table
Title
Page
11
12
iii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
Title
Page
Categorization of waste
10
13
14
16
Overview of research
17
Method of research
18
19
20
21
10
iv
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Background
The second largest economic activity after the agricultural industry is construction.
Construction industry contributes about 11% to the total GDP in India by creating
employment opportunities of approximately 33 million people. Despite its huge
contribution and success the construction industry also faced some problems such as poor
productivity and safety, lack of skilled labour etc. Apart from these, considerable amount
of waste is also generated in the construction sites. The poor productivity is due to lack
of proper planning and proper method statements implemented during the construction.
Few researchers found out that there are a lot of non-value adding activities in the
construction process resulting in low productivity and increase in the cost overruns. Many
construction companies in India has implemented different policies and techniques to
reduce waste generation in construction activities. There is a tremendous amount of
research that explains about waste minimization during the construction. Many
practitioners and contractors focus on the waste as the physical waste (material waste)
that is generated from construction. Although the physical waste generated directly
affects the cost and duration of the project, there are many wastes that indirectly affect
the cost and duration of the project. Such types of waste are termed as process waste or
non-value adding activities. This term is derived from the principles of lean construction.
Koskela et al. (2002) defined the lean construction in the view of production paradigm as
the method to eliminate wastage of materials, human effort and time in order to increase
the final value of the product. The main objective of lean construction is to maximize the
value and reduce the wastage. The process waste affect the productivity of the project by
increasing the time taken for the completion of a particular activity. Koskela (1982) has
found that about 2/3rd of the total working time is used for the non-value adding activities
on site as shown in the table1.
Table 1: Construction waste and its effects
Formoso et al. (1999) defined the waste as any losses that are generated during the
construction activities will result in increase of direct and indirect costs but does not add
any value to the product. Serpell et al. (1995) and Ishiwata (1997) defined construction
waste as in relation with the delays, rework, unnecessary transportation of materials onsite, inappropriate choice of management methods, equipment, poor constructability
techniques. Alwi et al. (2003) simplified and divided these into three main categories:
1. Unproductivity of labour leading to waste
2. Wastage in the materials
3. Equipment waste.
Many researchers have found out that there are many non-value adding activities in the
construction process. The non-value adding activities are divided into two types 1)
Avoidable activities 2) Unavoidable activities. Avoidable activities are those activities
which can be avoided without affecting the construction process. Whereas unavoidable
activities are those activities that does not add value but cannot be avoided. Serpell et al.
(1995) stated that there are many factors that affect the construction process resulting in the
generation of different types of waste. It is imperative to remove all the non-value adding
activities in the construction process. In order to remove all the avoidable non-value adding
activities we must first identify the non-value adding activities in the construction process.
By eliminating the non-value adding activities we can improve the construction process
sequence and as a result improve the performance of the construction projects.
1.3 Objectives:
This study aims to examine all the non-value adding activities (also called as waste) in the
construction process. To identify the non-value adding activities two repetitive process
(Brickwork and reinforcement work) are considered that are involved in the building
construction. The main objectives of this study are
1) Examining the process involved in brickwork and reinforcement work and
categorizing the work into value added and non-value added work.
2) Analysing the various non-value adding work in the brickwork and
reinforcement work and finding the causes for these wastes.
3) Developing a process mapping model for the brickwork and reinforcement
work.
Chapter-2
Literature Review
2.1 Overview
Construction industry is considered as most complicated and complex environment as it
involves proper communication and coordination between various stakeholders and
interacting functions (Hampson, 1997). The major challenge faced by the project
managers is to improve the efficiency of the project process by innovative methods. In
order to improve the efficiency of the project process a detailed study must be done to
identify the problems related to the project process. Numerous reports and studies have
revealed the poor performance of Indian construction industry and identified several
problems such as poor planning and design, Weak performance management, Low
prevalence of lean principles etc. (Nihas et al, 2013).
Alwi et al.,(2002) stated that in the year 1982, the business roundtable have identified
several factors that affect the construction process such as inadequate planning, material
management, improper scheduling and poor quality control and assurance. Major failures
in the projects is due to delays, cost overruns, quality problems and many more. Oglesby
et al. (1989) has stated that performance includes all the aspects in the construction
process including the on-site activities.
The wastes are generated due to improper planning and scheduling. Many contractors and
project managers tend to focus on material waste that are damaged or lost in the
construction sites. Other wastes also include improper usage of the available resources by
the contractors and subcontractors. The waste of resources is unavoidable if the work is
commenced before receiving complete and adequate information about the project.
Graham and Smithers (1996) has classified the sources of wastes in the construction
projects such as design stage, material handling, procurement stage, operation and others.
2.2 Lean Construction
The basis for lean construction is been derived from the lean production. Previously the
concept of lean is been rejected by the construction industry as it is a method for
manufacturing assuming that construction is different from manufacturing. The lean
production involves the detailed look on the project. The waste in construction and
manufacturing is generated from the same activity centred thinking process that is
keeping intense pressure for production of activity resulting in reduction of cost and
time for each step. According to Koskela (1992) there are 11 important concepts or
principles that are essential for the lean philosophy they are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
measured as a function of the cost. Other types of waste are related to the efficiency of
the construction process and equipment.
According to the lean production philosophy, waste is defined as any inefficiency that
results in the over usage of the equipment, materials, labours or capital in larger quantities
than the original value in the execution of the process or an activity. For many people the
concept of waste generated on the sites is directly related with the removal of waste
generated from the site and disposed of into the landfills. Taylor (1913) stated that the
financial or monetary loss caused by the inefficiency of the human work is larger than the
ones related to the material waste. Ford (1927) also stated that the prevention of waste
also depends upon the human work, since the value of materials depends on the work that
has been spent on them.
Skyoles (1976) explains the difference between direct and indirect material waste. Direct
waste involves of a complete loss of material whereas indirect waste implies monetary
loss due to usage of excess material during construction. For example, Waste due to
constructing a concrete slab thickness larger than specified in the design.
Another type of waste includes the waste that is created by the non-value added services.
Carlos et al.(2002) has defined the concept of waste is related to the notion that the use
of resources that do not add value to the final or end product. There are two approaches
for improving the processes. One can improve the efficiency by removing all the nonvalue adding services and the other method is by improving the value adding activities.
Ohno (1988) explains the waste due to inefficiency of human work based upon the
unnecessary movement of workers. Waste is the movement that contributes to nothing
often called as unproductive work. Generally the work includes both the value adding and
non-value adding activities. Womack and Jones (1996) describes the waste as any human
activity that absorbs the resources but does not create any value such as mistakes that
need rectification, production of unnecessary items, unnecessary movement of
employees.
Ohno (1988) identifies several categories of waste that are observed in the Toyota
production system: (1) Excessive movement of people that leads to waste of human
energy; (2) Employees waiting time for process equipment to finish its work (3) defective
products (4) Over production of goods that are not required; (5) Long term storage of
goods that needs to be processed (6) Unnecessary processing; (7) unnecessary transport
of goods.
Carlos et al., (2002) defined the waste as any activity that generate direct and indirect
cost leading to loss of resources, time and capital but does not add value final product as
proposed by Ohno (1988) the incidence of waste is associated with any inefficiency
that results in the use of resources in larger quantities than those considered necessary.
In order to control the waste generated during the construction process one must
identify the waste during the execution of the process. Waste is generally classified into
two types 1) avoidable waste 2) Unavoidable waste. The waste in the construction
process is classified into different types based upon a study in Brazilian building sites
they are
6
mapping method is an efficient tool which can be used to identify what are value added
services and what are non-value added services. The importance of flow is explained by
Polat and Arditi (2005) materials account for a significant proportion of total cost and
duration of the project hence proper management of these flows can be beneficial to the
contractors.
The first main principle of the flow concept is the introduction of time as a resource in the
process. The flow concept mainly focuses on amount of time that is consumed by the total
transformation into a final product. The second core principle of the flow concept is the
time taken for the overall production of flow which are transformation activities and nontransformation activities. Gilbert (1922) categorized the non-transformation activities as
transfer, delay and inspection as shown in the figure 1. The flow process in production
mainly consists of three steps namely moving, waiting and inspection. Due to these steps
a lot of time is been wasted during the production of the product which results in low
productivity of the process.
procedures and variations orders during the construction process finally resulting in the
rework.
physical wastes within the construction process is not been done by the construction
practitioners until the implementation of lean concepts in the construction.
Abbasian et al., 2015 has categorized waste related to the construction site, external factors
and construction process as shown in the fig. 2. Lean construction mainly focus on
eliminating the process waste in the construction. The construction process waste is again
divided into two categories 1) Waste due to nature of the process 2) waste due to non-value
adding works in the process.
10
S.no
1
Accidents on-site
Non-contributory wastes
Waiting for others to
complete their works
before the execution of
other works
Waiting for the
equipment to be
delivered on-site
Contributory wastes
Time wasted for
supervising and
inspection of the
construction works
Time for instructions and
communication among
different tiers and trades
of workers
Time for transporting
workers, equipment and
materials
11
12
Start
Place
order
Material transport
Preparation of
work area
storage
Marking
Preparation of
mortar
No
Marking
Testing
YES
Marking
Finish
The time taken for the completion of these activity depends upon these 7 parameters. For
instance poor site layout can lead to unnecessary movement of workers, materials and
equipment thus by increasing the time taken for the completion of the activity. Likewise
there are many non-value adding activities that effect the duration of the task or an activity.
15
Start
Ordering
No
Delivery
Preparation of bar
bending schedule
Installing formwork
Inspection
Finish
CHAPTER-3
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
This chapter explains about the step by step procedure for data collection and analysis.
Methodology is the systematic approach that is followed for achieving the desired
objectives. The research progress includes a sequence of steps which are done to prove the
objectives in the research.
The two activities that are considered for this research are Brickwork and reinforcement
work .Qualitative method approach is been adopted for the collection of the primary data.
Exploratory case study is been adopted because there is no prior research that explain
process of brickwork and reinforcement work in detail. Video recordings and direct
observations for the process of brick laying and reinforcement work are done on site
followed by the interview with the experienced people such as project managers, site
engineer, contractors etc. During the process of brick laying and reinforcement work video
recording for the process is done in order to know the time taken for each step for the
completion of the process.
Literature
review
Data
collection
Data
analysis
Conclusions
17
Study
Understanding
the practice
Selection of
analysis method
Data collection
Analysing data
Fig. 7: Method of research
Process study preparation
A detailed study upon the process is done in order to understand the material and process
flow in the construction activity. Each process consists of a general template to collect the
background information of the process flow. This is done to understand in detail about the
process with regard to the operational steps involved in the construction process. The
general information such as working hours, number of crew involved for that particular
activity are obtained from the secondary data.
18
Selection
of a
building
site for
case study
Making an
appointm
ent for
briefing
the study
Video recording,
direct
observations,
Interviews and
discussion notes
Secondary data
Bar charts, work
programs and
method
statements
Organizing
and
reviewing
Data
analysis
For collecting the data in the construction companies a case study protocol was developed
to ensure the completeness of data collection process as explained in the fig. 8. The case
study protocol consists of the following steps:
1) Selection of an appropriate building site for the collection of primary and secondary
data.
2) Making an appointment with the construction company to explain in brief about the
study.
3) Visiting the site for the collection of the primary and secondary data. The primary
data consists of video recordings and interviews with the project personnel such as
project managers, site managers, and contractors. The secondary data consists of
weekly schedules and general information about the construction company.
4) The primary data is organized for identifying the non-value adding activities in the
construction process.
The primary data is collected by following the series of steps as shown in the fig. 9. Firstly,
observation of the process and video recording is done simultaneously. After direct
observations and video recording of the process, all the steps that are involved in the
construction process is identified and categorized into value added, non-value added
necessary activities and non-value added unnecessary activities. The method used for the
categorization of the all the activities is that those activities which have value to the client
from the clients point of view is considered as value added activity. Further, those
activities that does not create value to the client but support the value added activities are
categorized under non-value added but necessary activities. Finally the activities that does
not add value to the client and does not support the main activity in any way is considered
as non-value added unnecessary activities. Lastly, face to face interviews are conducted to
the project personnel to find out the causes for these non-value adding activities.
Observe the
process
identify all
the steps in
the process
along with
duration of
each step
Identifying
the non-value
adding
activities
Interviewing
the key
personnel
involved in
the process
Finding the
source of
non-value
adding
activities
21
Conceptual Stage
Published articles,
Papers and books
Previous
Researches
Problem
Statement
Literature
Review
Primary data
Data Collection
Internet
& URLs
Related
Documents
Objectives
of the study
Secondary data
Video recording
Project reports
Interviews
Conclusion &
recommendation
Data Analysis
Direct observations
Developing a process
maps
Conclusions
22
Objective 1 & 2
Objective 3
References
Salem, Solomon, Genaidy, & Luegring, 2005; Senaratne & Wijesiri, 2008; Wu, Feng, &
Zhong, 2012)Alarco?n, L. (1997). Lean Construction, 508.
http://doi.org/10.1002/9781444341102.ch8
Al-Sudairi, A. a. (2007). Evaluating the effect of construction process characteristics to the
applicability of lean principles. Construction Innovation: Information, Process,
Management, 7(1), 99121. http://doi.org/10.1108/14714170710721322
Al-Sudairi, A., & Diekmann, J. (1999). Simulation of construction processes: traditional
practices versus lean principles. Proceedings , 3950.
http://doi.org/10.16953/deusbed.74839
Alwi, S., Hampson, K., & Mohamed, S. (2002a). Non Value-Adding Activities in
Australian Construction Projects. Proceedings International Conference on
Advancement in Design, Construction, Construction Management and Maintenance
of Building Structure, 270278.
Alwi, S., Hampson, K., & Mohamed, S. (2002b). Waste in the Indonesian Construction
Project. Proceedings of the 1st International Conferences of CIB W107 Creating a
Sustainable Construction Industry in Developing Countries, 305315.
Aziz, R. F., & Hafez, S. M. (2013). Applying lean thinking in construction and
performance improvement. Alexandria Engineering Journal, 52(4), 679695.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2013.04.008
Bossink, B. a. G., & Brouwers, H. J. H. (1996). Wate Quantification and Source
Evaluation.pdf. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management.
Dawood, N., Hobbs, B., & Fanning, A. (1999). STANDARDIZATION OF BRICKWORK
CONSTRUCTION: PROCESS IDENTIFICATION, 2(September), 395404.
Formoso, C. T., & Hirota, E. H. (1999). Method for Waste Control, (JANUARY), 325
334.
Josephson, P., & Saukkoriipi, L. (2003). Non Value-Adding Activities in Building
Projects: a Preliminary Categorization. 11th Annual Conference of the International
Group for Lean Construction., 112.
Picchi, F. A., & Granja, A. D. (2004). Construction Sites: using lean principles to seek
broader implementations. 12 Th Conference of the International Group for Lean
Construction.
RAVLO, A. (2003). Construction management.
Salem, O., Solomon, J., Genaidy, a, & Luegring, M. (2005). Site Implementation and
Assessment of Lean Construction Techniques. Lean Construction Journal, 2(2), 221.
Retrieved from http://www.leanconstruction.org/lcj/V2_N2/LCJ_05_V2N2.pdf.
Senaratne, S., & Wijesiri, D. (2008). Lean Construction as a Strategic Option: Testing its
Suitability and Acceptability in Sri Lanka. Lean Construction Journal, 3448.
Retrieved from
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=35866286&site=eh
23
ost-live
Wu, P., Feng, Y., & Zhong, Y. (2012). Identification and reduction of non-value adding
activities in the precast concrete construction projects in Singapore. Procs 28th
Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2012, Edinburgh, UK, Association of
Researchers in Construction Management, (September), 763773.
24
APPENDIX
EXAMINING THE NON-VALUE ADDING ACTIVITIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION
PROCESS IN RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS IN VISAKHAPATNAM, INDIA
PART-1
Basic information
b) Consultant
c) Project manager
d) Site engineer
b) 10-15 years
c) 15-20 years
e) Above 25 years.
25
d) 20-25 years
Part-1
Based upon your experience and knowledge in the brickwork process please answer
the following questions
Q1) What are the value added activities involved in the brick work process?
A1) Step 1:
Step 6:
Step 2: ...
Step 7: ...
Step 3:
Step 8:
Step 4:
Step 5: .
Q2) Please explain the Sources and reasons for the following non-value adding activities
that are observed in the construction process
1) Activity 1:
Source: .
Reason:
....................................
.
.
3) Activity 3:
Source: .
Reason:
Activity 5:
Source: .
Reason:
6) Activity 6:
Source: .
Reason:
28
Part-2
Based upon your experience and knowledge in the reinforcement process please
answer the following questions
Q1) What are the value added activities involved in the reinforcement process?
A1) Step 1:
Step 6: ..
Step 2: ...
Step 7: ..
Step 3:
Step 8: ..
Step 4:
Step 5: .
Q2) Please explain the Sources and reasons for the following non-value adding activities
that are observed in the construction process
1) Activity 1:
Source: .
Reason:
....................................
.
.
3) Activity 3:
Source: .
Reason:
Activity 5:
Source: .
Reason:
6) Activity 6:
Source: .
Reason:
31
Table form for recording all the steps involved in the brickwork process
S.no Activity
Description
Classification
32
Start End
Duration
Table form for recording all the steps involved in the reinforcement process
S.no Activity
Description
Classification
33
Start
End
Duration
34