Productivity improvement within the construction industry is a critical aspect of successful project planning and execution. Specific productivity practices have demonstrated improvements at the activity, trade, and project levels. However, results have been inconsistent and productivity gains have not been significant at the industry level. This research studies the productivity improvement challenge from a corporate perspective, which influences entire project portfolios. The objective is to characterize and assess Corporate Productivity Programs, which are comprised of the people, processes, and technologies that support an organization’s productivity improvement efforts.
In pursuit of a feasible corporate-level system to generate portfolio-wide impact, the research team leveraged existing programs in safety and lessons learned to understand roles, responsibilities, and interface management common among corporate programs. Then proven productivity practices and systems were integrated to focus the system on improving construction productivity. These components were developed into the Corporate Productivity Program through surveys, interviews, and review with subject matter experts.
Research findings suggest a corporate-level program can provide a systematic and consistent approach to selection and implementation of productivity practices. The Corporate Productivity Program can also help manage internal and external productivity interfaces above the project level and scope. This is powerful from the enterprise-level because it exists before and after specific projects. Thus, long-term objectives and relationships can be better managed toward company and portfolio goals.
Through the Corporate Productivity Program, productivity interfaces and responsibilities are managed across six Elements, which are comprised of detailed Actions. In general, improved communication and understanding of group and individual impacts on construction productivity are a critical aspect of program interface management. However, these interfaces and the importance of them is company-specific. So, RT-340 structured these key Elements and Actions to be assessed and customized through the Implementation Framework, which was developed to improve company program maturity.
Through improving the Corporate Productivity Program, a company should have increased utilization and consistency with implementation of productivity practices. Successful systematic implementation of proven productivity practices can generate more reliable management of productivity efforts across project portfolios. These systemic productivity improvements have the potential to increase performance and predictability for portfolio management in the multi-trillion-dollar construction industry.
The Corporate Productivity Program Implementation Framework was developed and tested through case studies to aid companies in properly leveraging the RT-340 research. Guidance on this implementation methodology is detailed in Final Report 340.
In addition to the Implementation Framework, forms to simplify data collection through a survey are included in FR-340 as Appendix A. These forms enable programs to identify the strong and weak Corporate Actions. The Action Scores provide data to evaluate Program Score and misalignment. Then potential program-specific Barriers can be identified based on weak Actions using the mapping matrix in Appendix B.
Finally, FR-340 includes an assessment report template for companies to leverage during workshops for implementation plan development. This template is included as Appendix C.