Impact of Balance between Productivities on Repetitive Construction Projects

Abstract

Fast delivery of construction projects provides more value to project owners. Batch production, which is production not in single pieces, but in batches, is a common approach in repetitive construction projects such as multi-unit residential building construction projects. In batch production, the use of a small batch size allows the early start of subsequent activities, and thus can lead to early completion of projects. In addition to batch size, balance between productivities in construction activities can affect project duration. However, the impact of the balance between productivities with regard to their order on project duration has not been studied. The main goal of this study is to test a hypothesis, which is that the order of construction activities' unbalanced productivities affects the amount of time reduction that can be achieved by using a small batch size. A computer-based simulation model was developed, and five different cases were simulated to test the hypothesis. The conclusion of the simulation result is that the order of productivities does not affect the time reduction achieved by using a small batch size. It is expected that the findings of this study can help general contractors make decisions in terms of batch size.