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On-site construction productivity in Malaysian infrastructure projects

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DOI: 10.1108/SS-12-2015-0058

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 Structural Survey
On-site construction productivity in Malaysian infrastructure projects
Serdar Durdyev Syuhaida Ismail
Article information:
To cite this document:
Serdar Durdyev Syuhaida Ismail , (2016),"On-site construction productivity in Malaysian infrastructure
projects", Structural Survey, Vol. 34 Iss 4/5 pp. 446 - 462
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(2012),"Analysis of factors critical to construction project success in Malaysia",
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(2005),"Factors affecting construction labour productivity for Malaysian residential projects", Structural
Survey, Vol. 23 Iss 1 pp. 42-54 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02630800510586907

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SS
34,4/5
On-site construction
productivity in Malaysian
infrastructure projects
446 Serdar Durdyev
Received 29 December 2015
Department of Civil Engineering,
Revised 24 February 2016 Zaman University, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and
31 March 2016
6 July 2016 Syuhaida Ismail
6 September 2016 Razak School of Engineering and Advanced Technology,
Accepted 13 September 2016
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors constraining the on-site construction
productivity and measures for its improvement in Malaysian construction industry.
Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaire survey is administered to 171 respondents,
comprising government authorities and construction players. A total of 39 constraints are found to be
significant factors in various risk levels.
Findings – Consequently, improvement measures are recommended addressing those constraints to
on-site construction productivity. It is believed that the findings of this study will assist in achieving
high level of on-site construction productivity by focusing and acting upon the most risky constraints,
where construction players in Malaysia could be guided well in their efforts in a time-, cost- and
quality-effective manner.
Originality/value – It is believed that the findings of this study will assist in achieving high level of
on-site construction productivity by focusing and acting upon the most risky constraints, where
construction players in Malaysia could be guided well in their efforts in a time-, cost- and quality-
effective manner.
Keywords Infrastructure projects, Malaysia, Construction industry, Productivity
Paper type Research paper

Structural Survey
Vol. 34 No. 4/5, 2016
pp. 446-462
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-080X
DOI 10.1108/SS-12-2015-0058
Introduction
In parallel with the Malaysian Vision 2020, efficient performance of the construction
industry is an essential building block of the socio-economic development of any
nation, which also enables the growth of other sectors. Khan et al. (2014) concludes that
the Malaysian government has to focus on construction sector to qualify for the
developed nation status. The sector’s significant role in aggregate economy during the
last two decades indicates that (Khan et al., 2014) the construction industry provides
impetus for economic growth owing to its size and its effect on the economy.
Improvement of the productivity in Malaysian construction industry is essential
(the industry employs over one million people; Ministry of Finance, 2014), which is in
line with the strategic thrust to improve construction sector in the era of Vision 2020.
This will help to attract investments, create more working opportunity and enhance
industry’s competitiveness. Duncan (2002) states that “productivity” improvement in
the construction industry positively affects all other sectors and consequently the
overall economy. Therefore, enhancement in the productivity shall help to sustain
Malaysian economic growth in the face of challenging global environment and to build
sustainable local construction industry to compete in the global market (Construction
 Industry Development Board of Malaysia (CIDB), 2007). There are sufficient evidences On-site
(McCullouch, 2007; Carlos and Paul, 2010; Durdyev and Mbachu, 2011) suggesting that construction
the on-site construction productivity measurement should be the basis for making
productivity improvement decisions. On-site construction productivity issues are very
productivity
crucial as they provide the bulk of the sources of constraints. Therefore, this study aims
to examine the factors constraining the on-site construction productivity and measures
for its improvement. In order to attain this aim, this paper is undertaken with the 447
following objectives:
(1) to identify the key on-site construction productivity factors constraining the
Malaysian construction industry;
(2) to analyse the relative levels of impact and frequencies of occurrence of the
identified on-site construction productivity constraints; and
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(3) to investigate innovative ways of improving productivity that would resonate

well with the peculiarities of the Malaysian construction industry.

Productivity in context
Productivity is the main statistical information for a country’s performance
assessments and many other international analogies, which is a key source of
competitiveness and economic growth overall. Productivity data are very useful for
labour-impact investigation and product market regulations on the economic
performance of any country (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and
Development, 2001). Growth in productivity generates a significant element for
modelling the productive capacity of the economies, and production capacity is used to
gauge demand and inflationary pressures. It also enables to determine the utilization of
capacity for analysts, which helps to benchmark the position of overall economy in the
business cycle and to predict economic growth.
The concept of productivity is very old but still relevant, which has long concerned
the key players in the construction industry, as well as economists and government
authorities. Overall, productivity represents growths at different levels, such as at
society and organization levels. At the level of society, productivity represents the
quality of life. However, at the organization level, productivity corresponds to the
improvement ability of its value and the quality of its services or products (Bernold and
AbouRizk, 2010). In another words, productivity refers to the ability of an industry to
convert inputs into outputs or a quantitative relationship between input and output.
It is very difficult to measure aggregate productivity in the construction sector
because it involves different kinds of sub-products and requires varied implementation
activities (Mustapha and Naoum, 1998). There are several types of products such as
residential, highways, sewers and factory buildings, which require utilization of
different technologies and type of implementation. In addition, inputs and outputs are
affected by different cost indices over time, which makes studies (particularly
longitudinal) difficult. Hence, all of these factors make researches on overall
productivity difficult (Eastman and Sacks, 2008). It is also necessary to measure the
project productivity to have an in-depth analysis of the productivity performance in
various aspects of site work. Due to this reason, productivity has been used as a
performance indicator to evaluate construction works throughout all phases of
construction (Kim and Bai, 2009). It is important to track productivity performance for
any construction company consistently, which will ultimately lead to maintained
 SS profitability and prepare for future biddings. Hence, project-site productivity
34,4/5 measurement has been a significant task in the construction sector (McCullouch,
2007), which provides the bulk of the sources of productivity issues in the construction
industry (Carlos and Paul, 2010; Durdyev and Ismail, 2012).
Over the years, considerable research effort (Teizer and Vela, 2009; Gong and
Caldas, 2009) has been devoted to develop several methods and techniques for the
448 on-site construction productivity measurement. For instance, techniques are stopwatch
studies, time-lapse videos, questionnaires, photography and video-taping (Kim and Bai,
2009) and methods are direct observation, survey/interview and project-level
information systems (Carlos and Paul, 2010). These systems are not appropriate
processes of achieving high-level productivity performance. Therefore, to measure the
process of construction implementation, either survey-/interview-based methods for
asking forefront players/workers involved in the process or observation-based methods
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need to be used (Long et al., 2004).

Constraints to construction productivity

Construction labour productivity has been the subject of numerous studies (Abdul
Kadir et al., 2005; Dai et al., 2009; Rivas et al., 2011; Durdyev, 2014). To find
opportunities for construction productivity improvement, first, it is important to
identify what factors have an impact on it. Subsequently, the forefront players (project
managers, contractors and government authorities) can effectively act upon them to
enhance scheduling, reduce costs and ultimately predict the productivity more
accurately during the estimation of the construction costs (Rivas et al., 2011).
Identification of the factors having impact on the construction productivity is crucial
(Enshassi et al., 2007), namely, skills and experience of the material shortage, low level
of project leadership skills, escalation of material prices, unavailability of highly
experienced workforce and poor quality of equipment, which will help in making use of
those that influence positively and in taking control or eliminating factors that
influence negatively on the construction productivity.
Determining and evaluating the constraints to the productivity in construction have
received a wide range of attention of the practitioners and researchers, even though it is
inadequate for Malaysian construction industry (particularly for infrastructure
projects). From a strategic viewpoint, particularly, as it is associated with the project
implementation, construction productivity constraints are related to the factors
constraining the accomplishment of project objectives. To this effect, practitioners and
researchers have identified different construction productivity constraints and
research approaches, namely, change orders impact on construction productivity
(Ibbs et al., 2007), the factors affecting engineering productivity in the USA (Dai et al.,
2009), as well as action-response approach on the loss of construction productivity
(Halligan et al., 1994). Olomolaiye (1987) ranked three major problems impairing
construction productivity in Nigeria, which are work repetition (rework), inadequate
equipment and material shortage. Ghoddousi and Hosseini (2012) conducted a research
among the sub-contractors in the construction projects in Iran, where factors having
major impact on productivity of those surveyed sub-contractors are listed under seven
main categories, which are material/equipment, method and technology adopted in
construction, planning, reworks, weather, system of supervision and site condition.
Considering productivity as an efficient utilization of the resources or operation of
any project in a cost-effective manner, it is important to provide the factors having
negative impact on productivity in construction industry. No matter what productivity
 definitions are, the factors affecting the construction productivity remain the same On-site
throughout the different productivity definitions. construction
Based on the literature review in this research, one of the methods to measure
productivity is to identify and evaluate factors/constraints having impact on
productivity
construction productivity according to their impact levels and frequencies. However,
this should be done starting from job site, as it is recommended by sufficient number of
studies (Carlos and Paul, 2010; McCullouch, 2007) that exist in the construction 449
industry context. Construction on-site productivity factors are the main source of
constraints; therefore, it has a critical importance in the construction industry. To this
end, this paper aims to examine the on-site productivity factors constraining the
infrastructure projects in Malaysia.

Research methodology
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This paper relied on experienced-based feedback on the key on-site construction

productivity factors from those at the forefront of project implementation – the
consultants, contractors and sub-contractors – as the source of the primary data. The
descriptive survey was therefore chosen as the most appropriate research method
(Durdyev et al., 2012). This involved the use of questionnaire surveys at the qualitative
and quantitative data-gathering stages. At the qualitative data stage, a convenience
sample of twelve interviewees comprising four each of project managers, contractors
and consultant were interviewed on the on-site labour productivity factors in the
government infrastructure projects in Malaysia. The purpose of the qualitative data
stage (structured interviews) is to ensure the relevance of the constraints to on-site
construction productivity collected from literature, as well as the additional constraints
which were found significant for Malaysian on-site construction productivity context.
The constructs generated were used to design a questionnaire, which was
subsequently pre-tested to ensure its clarity and relevance. The feedback formed the
basis for redesigning the content and structure of the questionnaire in improving its
appeal and ensuing survey response rate.
A total of 150 questionnaire survey forms were distributed via the databases of the
Public Works Department (PWD), the Construction Industry Development Board
(CIDB), Economic Planning Unit (EPU) and contractors and sub-contractors in
Malaysia. The questionnaire survey forms were hand distributed and collected as well
as provided through online survey method to the target respondents (government
authority, civil engineer, contractor and subcontractor). By selecting these methods of
questionnaire distribution, it was easier to have a direct access to the respondent to
make sure that the requirements of the questionnaire are made clear to the respondents.
In addition, it helps to enhance the interest of the respondents to answer the
questionnaire in detail.
To collect an adequate number of responses throughout Malaysia, additional
approaches were taken to obtain the membership directories of the PWD in all states as
well as the Malaysian Green Building Confederation (MGBC) and the Pahang – Selangor
Raw Water Transfer project team. These attempts were done via executive directors or
project managers of the aforementioned organizations and projects. Consequently,
e-mails were sent to the 73 restrictedly selected respondents (from the aforementioned
organizations) for inviting them to participate in the online questionnaire survey.
To minimize the number of invalid questionnaires, the respondents were required to give
an answer to all the questions on the web-based survey, by which they were not allowed
to skip any question or section of the questionnaire web survey.
 SS Data analysis
34,4/5 As part of its objectives, this paper analyses the relative levels of impact and
frequencies of occurrence of the on-site construction productivity factors constraining
the Malaysian construction industry. To fulfil this objective, the multi-attribute
technique is used as an appropriate method (Chang and Ive, 2002). The aforementioned
technique analyses the ratings received through the questionnaires and establishes a
450 mean rating point, which represents rating for each group participants.
As it is shown in the following equation based on Durdyev and Mbachu (2011), in
every computation, the responses for every single constraint are used to calculate the
percentages of respondents associating a particular rating point to each constraint:
5 
X 
FI ¼ II ¼ Rpjki  %Rjk
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k¼1

where II is the impact index; Rpjk the rating point k (ranging from 1 to 5); %Rjk the
percentage response to rating point k, for constraint factor j.
Risk score (RS). In this paper, RS is used to evaluate the risk level for each of the
constraints to the achievement of high-level on-site construction productivity within a
subset (Kamarazaly, 2014). As it is shown in the following equation, RS is the
multiplication of II and FI, which takes into account both impact level and frequencies
of occurrence of the constraints in the on-site construction productivity in the
Malaysian context (Table I):
RS ¼ II  FI
One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). As this paper involves more than two means,
which are four groups of respondents, namely, government authority, contractor,
consultant and sub-contractor, the data analysis via ANOVA is adopted rather than
t-tests in order to reduce the chances of Type I error, as ANOVA analyses differences
between all condition means simultaneously. Rather than testing the difference
between each pair of means as a t-test does, ANOVA determines whether any of a set of
means differs from another using a single statistical test regardless of how many group
means are involved in the test (Field, 2009). The differences in the means of the
respondent groups on the construction productivity constraints are analysed using the
ANOVA technique, and to identify those differences, this paper adopts Tukey’s test.

Preliminary analysis
The number of questionnaires returned to the researcher is 201 from the 223
questionnaires distributed. Unfortunately, only 171 returned questionnaires are valid,
and 30 returned questionnaires are disqualified due to multiple answers, blank or

RS value Overall risk profile

o5.8 Very low (VL)

5.8-10.6 Low (L)
Table I. 10.6-15.4 Moderate (M)
RS and overall 15.4-20.2 High (H)
risk profile W20.2 Very high (VH)
 invalid, making the total useful response rate at 76.68 per cent. However, those 171 On-site
collected and valid questionnaires are enough to satisfy the binomial 122 percentage construction
distribution table (rang of 100-300 samples) in achieving aforementioned confidence
level (95 per cent) and margin error of 5 per cent (Wyse, 2012).
productivity
The majority of the respondents (67) aged between 20 and 30 years possess less than
five years of work experience, whilst the respondents aged between 50 and 60 years
possess more than 20 years of work experience. Furthermore, almost 19 per cent of the 451
respondents have work experience of more than 15 years, which is not the majority but
still show the reliability level of the responses. Extensive work experience of the
respondents reinforces the quality level of the collected responses as well as
demonstrates the reliability level of the answers.
As this paper aims to evaluate the factors constraining the on-site construction
productivity in the infrastructure projects (government infrastructure projects), it is
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important to identify whether the respondents are forefront players and responsible for
the productivity of any project. Frequent role of majority of the respondents is as a
government authority, which accounts for an approximately 52 per cent of total
number of respondents in the questionnaire survey. The high percentage of the
government authority is due to the fact that the questionnaire survey is distributed
among the respondents from the PWD, CIDB, EPU and MGBC. As this paper is limited
to the infrastructure projects in Malaysia, these respondents are expected to provide
more authoritative feedback on the subject matter.
Furthermore, the participation of the sub-contractors to the questionnaire survey is
also notable, with second highest percentage of 21.6 per cent. Sub-contractor’s
responses are also crucial as they are one of the forefront players on site during the
project implementation or in another words, they are the middleperson for the whole
procurement process of the various services in construction industry from the market
to the general contractor.
It is observed that the significant portion of the respondents are high-ranking
personnels in the capacities of manager/associate director and director/executive director
levels, which are 58.5 per cent of the overall responses. This profile (Table II) means that
the position of the respondents shows the quality level of the responses received through
the questionnaire survey and the reliability of the answers. Furthermore, another
significant portion of the respondents are civil engineers and team leader/supervisor,
which contribute to 40.4 per cent of the overall responses. This percentage reinforces the
level of quality of the feedback from those who are dealing with the infrastructure
projects and who are responsible for the on-site construction productivity.

Category Sub-category %

Work experience W20 years 14.0

15-19 years 19.0
o5 years 67.0
Frequent role in a project team Government authority 52.0
Sub-contractors 21.6
Consultant 12.4
Contractor 14.0
Position in the organization Manager/associate director 38.0 Table II.
Director/executive director 20.5 Demographic
Civil eng./team leader 40.4 background
 SS Research findings and discussion
34,4/5 Construction industry forefront players were asked to evaluate those constituting
problems (constraints) that occur in the infrastructure projects throughout Malaysia.
Thus, this section provides the risk levels of each constraint as a function of their
impact levels and frequency of occurrences, which are depicted in Table III. The
emerging internal constraints with the highest RS are level of skill and experience of
452 the workforce, lack of adequacy in supply or high cost of needed resources, supervision,
performance monitoring and control, competency of the project manager, reworks and

Risk score Risk profile

Project-related internal constraints

1 Level of skill and experience of the workforce 19.23 High (H)
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2 Lack of adequacy in supply or high cost of needed resources 17.82

3 Supervision, performance monitoring and control 17.39
4 Competencies of the project manager 16.33
5 Reworks 15.99
6 Lack of capability of the contractor to manage the site 15.68
7 Loss in productivity caused from change orders 15.39 Moderate (M)
8 Level of motivation/commitment of the workforce 14.28
9 Inadequate site staffs 13.42
10 Lack of coordination among the construction parties 13.02
11 Late supply of construction materials 12.98
12 Poor buildability design 12.97
13 Adequacy of planning and risk management process 12.90
14 Late payments 12.84
15 Project management style 12.83
16 Material shortage at project site 12.74
17 Client’s overinfluence on the construction process 12.68
18 Project complexity: scale and design 12.57
19 Unrealistic deadline for project completion set by client 12.49
20 Level of empowerment (training and resourcing) 12.42
21 Level of familiarity with current job and conditions 12.37
22 Adequacy of method of construction 11.68
23 Workforce absenteeism 11.15
24 Project organizational culture 10.80
25 Adequacy of technology employed 9.83 Low (L)
26 Location and environment of the site 9.55
27 Health of the workforce 9.15
28 Type of procurement/contract adopted 8.43
Project-related external constraints
1 Slow local authorities approval 19.31 H
2 Poor weather conditions 19.14
3 Ground conditions necessitating revisions 13.82 M
4 Inflation/fluctuations in material prices 13.02
5 Frequent changes in government policies/legislations 11.03
impacting construction
6 Stop work order because of infringement of government regulation 10.79
7 Inappropriate government policies 10.73
Table III. 8 Fluctuations in exchange rate 10.04 L
Risk score of the 9 On-site accidents/acts of God 9.99
internal and external 10 Interest rate/cost of capital 9.91
constraints 11 Rapid technological advances 9.87
 lack of capability of contractor’s site management to organize site works. It has to be On-site
mentioned that the results indicate that the workforce- and management-related construction
constraints are critically important among the internal project-related constraints to the
on-site construction productivity.
productivity
On the other hand, the emerging external constraints with the highest RS are the same
two constraints among respondents, namely, slow local authorities’ approval and poor
weather conditions. Local governments should take some actions related to the problems in 453
the approval process of the construction projects, particularly for the infrastructure projects.
Further improvement measures are provided in the recommendation section of this paper.

Level of skill and experience of the workforce

Level of skill and experience of the workforce is ranked as the most risky constraint to the
on-site construction productivity in Malaysia. This outcome substantiates the findings by
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Horner et al. (1989), who ranked the skill and experience level of the workforce factor first
according to its importance to construction productivity in the UK. The result is further
supported by Mojahed and Aghazadeh (2007), whose studies identified this factor among
the most important factors having impact on the construction productivity.
Construction industry is considered among the labour-intensive industries.
Therefore, labour factor plays remarkable role in the project implementation process
(Bernold and AbouRizk, 2010) and cost (it accounts for 30 to 50 per cent of the total
project cost; Jarkas and Bitar, 2012). To this end, unskilled and poorly trained
workforce is commonly associated with faulty or low outputs, ultimately resulting in
expensive and extensive rework, or in another words, low productivity. Thus,
considering the aforementioned cost of the workforce, improvement in skill and
experience of the workforce deserves attention.
It is perceived that the shortage of the skilled workforce is unique for the developing
countries. However, this problem has been experiencing by the developed economies,
such as the UK, Singapore and Australia. According to the CRISP Commission report,
lack of skilled workforce was a cause of low-quality construction projects in the UK,
running over-budget and late (Macmillan, 2001). There is no difference for the case of
Australia, where the acute shortage of skilled workforce costs the country about AUD
10 billion annually, and in addition to this, hundreds of construction projects are
delayed or stopped due to this reason (CIDB, 2007).
It is necessary to go for the development in the level of human resource capabilities.
This is due to the fact that productivity and innovation are also becoming increasingly
important for the Malaysian construction industry. Authorities in the industry should
promote new programmes and strategies to attract the attention of the local skilled
workforce. However, while the authorities put in place those programmes to meet the
need of a skilled workforce in the construction industry, it is necessary to employ
foreign workers, even if they are temporary. This is justified with the Singaporean
construction industry case, where foreign workers are used for the productivity
improvement in the local industry.

Lack of adequacy in supply or high cost of needed resources

Lack of adequacy in supply or high cost of needed resources emerged as the second
most risky on-site construction productivity constraint in Malaysia. This is justified, as
the main factors of project implementation in the construction industry are labour and
materials. The main inputs used by the contractor are labour and materials, profit,
machinery, services, sub-contractors (if any), profits and other costs (Bernold and
 SS AbouRizk, 2010). Therefore, any inadequacy or high cost in the supply of these
34,4/5 resources will negatively affect construction productivity overall.
Furthermore, this result agrees with the findings of Page (2010), who compared cost
of the residential projects in New Zealand with Australia. Page (2010) concluded that
the reason for the project cost escalation is due to high material and labour costs as well
as land prices. In another study, Forsberg (2007) claimed that the Swedish construction
454 industries experience low productivity and therefore high production cost. This is due
to the escalation of labour wages and raw material prices. Forsberg (2007) recommended
the improvement of labour productivity in order to reduce the production cost and enable
better and dynamic competition within the industry.
To achieve more solid position in the international arena (via improved productivity),
technical strength is not only important but financial strength also plays a significant role.
Therefore, cost of the financial resources is crucial for the construction companies to
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compete in the global marketplace, for example, as in Japan and South Korea (CIDB, 2007).
Extensive support by the Malaysian government to their construction industry will
ensure sustainability of the local construction companies in the domestic market. This
support will help to build a strong financial base to minimize the pressures of financing
overseas projects, which eventually will allow the development of their global reputation.
The construction industry has forward and backward linkages with other industries
in any country; therefore, all industries (complement the construction industry by
supplying materials and equipment) are expected to grow evenly with the expected
growth rate in the construction industry. Result shows that the Malaysian construction
industry is closely related to the capabilities of complementary industries in terms of
adequacy construction materials supply as well as availability of competitive prices
(CIDB, 2007).

Supervision, performance monitoring and control

This constraint is ranked as the third most risky constraint to the on-site construction
productivity in Malaysia. The outcome is justified, as insufficient supervision results in
decreased construction productivity (Leonard, 1988). The related impact of this
constraint is in agreement with the outcomes reported by Ng et al. (2004).
Construction productivity is primarily influenced by the abilities to plan and direct
the work of the construction managers (Dai et al., 2009), and ineffective management/
coordination is widely observed as a principal source of poor productivity in the
construction projects (Bernold and AbouRizk, 2010). Considering the project cost, time
and quality as the determinants of the construction productivity, it is essential to
improve the coordination and supervision of the workforce as well as to monitor and
control the performance in order to avoid cost and time overruns and also the quality of
the work. Huang et al. (2008) found coordination as the main reason that can lead to
serious inefficiency such as lack of a management system updating new information
and poor planning and scheduling. Bernold and AbouRizk (2010) also supported this
outcome, by strongly suggesting the usage of electronic technologies to monitor the
performance of the construction operatives. By doing so, the execution, according to
plan of the construction process, can be ensured, and it will help to prevent poor
quality, idleness and accidents. Consequently, supervisors have to study well the
planned activities and then digest them to properly dispatch those tasks among the
labours so that they can be easily coordinated, which should be followed with a
monitoring of the feedbacks of the site activities to take control on their performances
in order identify the constraints and drivers to the on-site construction productivity.
 Competency of the project manager On-site
The fourth most risky factor constraining the on-site construction productivity in construction
Malaysia is the competency of the project manager. Leadership qualities of the
project managers are considered as one of the factors for the project success in
productivity
the construction industry as well as their ability to do the best in their team.
Therefore, combination of the expertise and technical knowledge of the project
managers with their behaviours will lead to the effective communication and 455
multi-organizational teamwork if successful results are to be achieved (Dainty et al.,
2005). There is no doubt that the identification and assessment of such competencies
is crucial for the productivity and performance optimization of current construction
companies (Trejo et al., 2002). Bernold and AbouRizk (2010) further identify the
management competence as one of the most critical success factors in building
construction.
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In accordance with the relationship between capability and competency, two

different cases can be performed in order to improve construction-site productivity
through proper human resource allocation. First case is that an organization identifies
its competency level and then identifies the capability requirements to maximize output
of competency group. Second case is that an organization assesses the capability
requirement for existing competencies. It is recommended that project managers have
to focus on the improvement of their behavioural competencies (due to its importance
and complexity) rather than technical skills, which have the least effect (El-Sabaa, 2001)
on the project managers’ performance.

Reworks
Another barrier to the on-site construction productivity enhancement is the reworks,
which is ranked fifth. The findings corroborate the outcomes of Rivas et al. (2011),
where it is stated that the causes of the reworks are mainly due to the change orders by
clients and design errors. Another reason of the reworks is the low-quality inputs by
the unskilled workforce, which are mostly led to lower productivity and high cost of the
workforce ( Jarkas and Bitar, 2012). Reworks may also occur due to low-quality input
by the unskilled workforce, which ultimately will lead to a lower productivity level
(Jarkas and Bitar, 2012).
In another study, Moore (2012) stated that construction industry in the USA also
suffers from the staggering costs of rework, which is ranging from 2 to 20 per cent
(about USD 15 billion) of the total contract cost of the project. This percentage is further
broken down as 12.4 per cent for civil engineering and heavy industrial construction
projects and 2.4 per cent for standard industrial construction projects. In addition,
Moore (2012) mentioned about another indirect aspect of rework, which deserves
attention, that is, its effect on a construction company’s reputation. Furthermore,
rework plagues construction projects in several countries, which are mostly caused due
to the long construction schedules, late delivery and on-site errors. In the long term,
there is a need to reduce the rework costs, as it will not only affect the productivity at
the construction company level but also at the construction industry level and at the
national level.

Lack of capability of the contractor to manage the site

The sixth riskiest factor constraining the on-site construction productivity is
lack of capability of the contractor to manage the site. The management influence
 SS (Kazaz et al., 2008) and daily works at the construction site (Dai et al., 2009) are the
34,4/5 main factors which can make a significant difference on the construction project’s
productivity; therefore, this result is justified. Depending on the capability of the
contractor, management of the on-site activities is very crucial, as it may cause value-
added or non-value-added outputs. In another words, managers with lack of
knowledge, managerial skills and experience will obviously cause various managerial
456 errors, which will ultimately affect the on-site construction productivity. This factor is
further ranked among the most significant constraints to the on-site construction
productivity in both developing ( Jarkas and Bitar, 2012) and developed ( Jang et al.,
2011) countries, particularly in the ASEAN region (Abdul Kadir et al., 2005).
The bulk of the construction works is implemented at the construction project
site. Therefore, one of the most significant ways of raising construction site
productivity through management is to provide and control convenient
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working conditions. This is due to the fact that the on-site productivity in
construction projects is highly influenced by site conditions that may vary from
project to project (Kazaz et al., 2008). Consequently, it is recommended for managers
to invest in site facilities (technologically advanced equipment and replacement of the
broken or lost tools). By doing so, it will help to enhance the workforce productivity,
as even highly skilled operatives cannot continuously produce quality outputs due to
poor facilities.
Another way of productivity improvement is a flexible management style and
the establishment of the structure of the organization. However, formalities, lack of
confidence in employees and central management are the hindrance to this type
of management. Therefore, there should be positive dialogue between the site
management and the labours, which has to be constituted by the foremen, which will
consequently improve the on-site construction productivity (Dai et al., 2009).

Poor weather conditions

Poor weather conditions emerged as the most risky on-site construction productivity
external constraint in Malaysia. This result is justified, as poor weather conditions were
found to negatively influence construction productivity, particularly the on-site
activities ( Jarkas and Bitar, 2012; Ghoddousi and Hosseini, 2012). Weather conditions,
which are usually unexpected, can cause delay and change in the project as well as the
construction site damages. Particularly, the impacts of unusual weather conditions can
be severe. However, clients mostly deny its impacts and therefore it is suggested to
consider this in project planning and cost estimating stages. Although contractors have
an astonishing ability of hoping for the best, the best way is to be prepared for normal
bad weather patterns. The main constraints for the construction project are schedules
and timelines that have to be met; hence, it is important to know the level of the
excusable weather impact on the project-site activities.
Lee (2007) identified the productivity losses due to weather, which are mainly
influenced by the physical condition and motivation of the workforce as well as the site
and material conditions. The impact of weather is apparent, but it is also important to
keep in mind some more subtle impacts that are harder to quantify. These subtle
impacts may cause productivity losses due to the loss of job rhythm, which is
associated with work interruption. Finally, it is recommended to consider a low
efficiency of the workforce (weather-related) and to quantify the loss in productivity,
which will help to quantify the cost of damages and delays after or during
unforeseeable weather events.
 Slow local authorities approval On-site
The most risky external constraint to the on-site construction productivity construction
enhancement in Malaysia is the slow local authorities approval. This result is
justified, as the lack of coordination in the bureaucracy means that the approval
productivity
process takes a long period of time, which is ultimately causes a delay in the
construction-site activities. Therefore, it is important to benefit from the private
certification in order to accelerate the approval process (thus minimize the time and 457
cost overrun risks), which has productivity enhancing impacts.
Construction industry is one of the highly fragmented industries. Therefore,
construction process may require the coordination of the various stages, from the
project initiation, through design, approval of the planning and building, construction
and inspections, occupancy approval and operation and maintenance. However,
bureaucratic bottleneck is a problem for the construction industry players, as any
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disruption or delay in one of those processes will demotivate the operation and
negatively affect the construction productivity. It is important to employ an
information and communication technology tool in order to standardize the information
flow and mitigate the barriers that lead to disconnection and fragmentation. In
addition, standardization will decrease the human intervention, which ultimately will
help to ensure human errors do not hamper efficiency. Finally, the implementation of an
intelligent system in the Malaysian construction industry will reduce waste of the
resources (time and money) and improve construction productivity at all levels.

One-way ANOVA
In accordance with the one-way ANOVA, there were no statistically significant
differences between the group means (ρ W 0.05). The results show that all the
respondents have the same view on the constraints to the on-site construction
productivity in Malaysia. There are 39 constraints, only the constraints that have a
high-risk level are symbolically presented to show the results of the one-way ANOVA
test (Table IV).
Furthermore, agreement between the respondents’ views indicates that all the
parties (even labours) have to be in collaboration in terms of the improvement of the on-
site construction productivity. This is due to the fact that the construction productivity
constraints are not related only to one of the parties. It is, however, related to labour;
therefore, some of the authors prefer to use labour productivity instead of construction
productivity, which is due to the labour-intensive nature of the industry and significant
effect of labour in the whole procurement process.

Conclusion
In achieving its aim, this paper not only provides the literature on the constraints to the
on-site construction productivity but also evaluates them according to their levels of
impact and frequencies of occurrence in the Malaysian context of productivity. Based
on the evaluation of the constraints, the improvement measures are provided with the
assistance of the responses from the government authority, consultants, contractors
and sub-contractors.
Thus, applying some statistical techniques, this paper discovers the most risky
constraints to the on-site construction productivity, which are listed, and with respect
to those constraints, the most-effective solutions are further recommended, providing
general solutions for the productivity enhancement in Malaysian construction context.
 SS Most risky constraints df Mean square F ρ
34,4/5
1 Reworks due to on-site Between respondent groups 4 0.223 0.389 0.816
construction errors Within respondent groups 170 0.572
Total 174
2 Lack of adequacy in supply or Between respondent groups 4 0.401 0.544 0.704
high cost of needed resources Within respondent groups 170 0.736
458 Total 174
3 Level of skill and experience of Between respondent groups 4 0.117 0.184 0.946
the workforce Within respondent groups 170 0.639
Total 174
4 Supervision, performance Between respondent groups 4 1.572 1.916 0.112
monitoring and control Within respondent groups 170 0.82
Total 174
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5 Competencies of the project Between respondent groups 4 0.185 0.269 0.897

manager Within respondent groups 170 0.687
Total 174
6 Lack of capability of contractor Between respondent groups 4 0.572 0.690 0.600
to manage the site Within respondent groups 170 0.829
Total 174
7 Poor weather conditions Between respondent groups 4 0.455 0.646 0.630
Within respondent groups 170 0.703
Total 174
Table IV. 8 Slow local authorities approval Between respondent groups 4 0.369 0.414 0.799
One-way Within respondent groups 170 0.892
ANOVA results Total 174

It is apparent that the human resource has one of the major impacts on construction
productivity. Therefore, as the most-effective solution, it is recommended to improve
the skill level of the workforce via continuous trainings and collaboration with higher
education institutes, which will lead to the improvement of the workforce at the early
stage before joining the construction industry. Moreover, considering the challenging
environment of the overseas projects, it is important for the construction companies to
be equipped in all aspects, such as money, equipment and workforce. Therefore, lack of
such resources is limiting the enhancement of productivity of Malaysian construction
companies in competing with the global construction players. Therefore, the most-
effective solution is the support of the government to the construction companies to
compete for overseas projects, which is experienced in Japan and South Korea cases.
This will also help them to benefit from globalization, including export of construction
products and services. Another most-effective solution to continuous enhancement of
the construction productivity is to improve and ultimately to shorten the approval
process of the local authorities. To overcome this constraint to construction
productivity, it is recommended to standardize the approval process and promote the
online submission and approval process for the construction companies, which will
ultimately minimize the human involvement and further human errors. Finally, it is
important to enhance construction productivity in domestic market via prevalent
adoption of Industrialized Building System, encourage the local construction
companies to establish strategic partnerships among each other to venture into
overseas markets and other solutions. It is believed that the findings of this paper will
assist in achieving high level of on-site construction productivity by focusing and
acting upon the most risky constraints.
 Recommendations for future studies On-site
This study focused on the constraints to construction on-site productivity in the construction
Malaysian infrastructure projects and improvement measures; however, there are
several aspects to construction productivity. Future studies should explore other
productivity
problems of construction productivity at all stages of the procurement process and
rectification of those identified problems.
As demonstrated in the demographic background of the respondents, the responses 459
were largely from government authorities. The results did not include many inputs
from contractors and sub-contractors. It may be necessary to aim for representative
responses from sub-contractors in future studies, as they are the key players on
construction sites.
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Corresponding author
Serdar Durdyev can be contacted at: sdurdyev@zamanu.edu.kh
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