“Comparative Study of Actual and Theoretical Productivity of Construction Equipments and its Remedial Measure

Abstract

Modern construction is characterized by effective and efficient utilization of equipment to accomplish numerous construction activities. Construction industry in Ethiopia suffers with low productivity performance; improving heavy-duty construction equipment productivity in the sector has a significant effect on the industries economy as construction projects are equipment intensive. This paper help to minimize losses of equipment productivity by identifying factors contributing to equipment productivity loss and examine the overall performance of heavy duty construction equipment on the case study federal road construction project, namely Beddelle –Mattu upgrading road project. This study also lists some remedial measures to improve productivity of construction equipments. The assessment involved in this study was field observation and measurements to quantify equipment actual production per hour and downtime. Desk study to identify main factors contributing for productivity loss and their remedial measures. From the computation the OEE index shows that low percentage of productivity in between (48-65%). Out of the three primary component performance rate lower (less than 75%) while quality rate (greater than 90%) which is acceptable and availability rate between (84-88%) which indicate weak performance at the selected site. Management factor ranked first (64.24%) for the performance losses and human factor (17.85%),machine factor (10.71%) and work factor (7.14) respectively ranked second, third and the least factor that contributing to equipment productivity losses. Dozer and excavator have lowest efficiency with an actual to theoretical hourly production ratio of 0.615, 0.682 respectively while wheel loader has the highest efficiency with a ratio of 0.749. Actual production of construction equipments were more suitable for project planning and scheduling. It was concluded Minimizing the difference between actual productivity and theoretical productivity by identifying factors contributing to this difference and taking proper remedial measures to increase actual productivity was the responsibility of project managers and all stakeholders in construction industry