Study Concludes Productivity Is Up, Just Not Enough
Construction productivity has increased 30% over the past 40 years, according to a new analysis of the issue. "But thats not good enough," concludes author Preston H. Haskell, chairman of The Haskell Co., Jacksonville, Fla. Construction still needs to boost productivity to keep pace with other industries, he believes.
Haskells study challenges the often-quoted metric of Paul Teicholz, civil engineering professor emeritus from Stanford University, who found that the industrys productivity from 1964 to 1998 (as measured by constant contract dollars per field-work hour) "declined by an average of nearly 0.5% per year" (ENR 12/13/99 p. 59). In the same time period, labor productivity in other nonfarm industries increased 1.7% annually.