Benchmarking of Construction Efficiency
in the EU Member States
(Scoping Study)
EU construction sector: towards a better use of valuable resources
A study commissioned by the European Commission’s Enterprise and Industry Directorate-General has highlighted the growing gulf in the efficiency of use of resources between the traditional and industrialised camps across the EU.
The report by UK building economists Bernard Williams Associates (BWA) finds that the more industrialised approach generally adopted in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the Nordic countries results in buildings which consume significantly less labour and materials compared with those in countries like UK, Ireland, Spain, France and Italy which still tend to cling to the traditional craft structures and processes.
The research team analysed project costs of over 80 building types in 12 countries. They also created a massive Access database of earlier reports in the field; using this, plus interviews with construction experts across the EU, the BWA team has suggested a prototype benchmarking model which links the actual cost efficiency levels as calculated in the project cost analyses with the observed efficiency of the processes used in each country. The model compares the use of labour resources (total of on- and off-site workers) between the countries in the study and shows how well they handle each resource driver.
The ‘overall efficiency’ ratings adopted in the prototype benchmarking model are shown in the histograms at Figure ‘A’ from the Report. It can be seen that this overall index is the average of the ‘labour efficiency’ index computed from the project cost analyses and the ‘resource efficiency’ index calculated using the information gathered in the ‘desk research’ process and from the interviews with construction experts.
Figure ‘A’. Total Project Labour Input Index
Perhaps a more dramatic depiction of the differences is that shown at Figure ‘B’, which draws on data from the Report on project costs to show how average labour costs (on- and off-site combined) relate to the overall average cost of construction in each country.
Figure ‘B’. Average labour costs in the context of construction costs
In general, the rates of pay for construction workers are higher where construction is more industrialised; however, because these workers are better trained and motivated they need less on-site supervision. Additionally, time on site is a lot less than with the traditional ways of constructing so although on-site pay rates are higher the overall costs of labour consumed in the whole production process are generally rather less.
However, performing well can be achieved in different ways. Whereas the Dutch ‘orderly and inflexible’ approach is accompanied by exemplary health and safety site records the Belgians’ ‘flexible chaos’, based on a highly paid, highly skilled workforce largely looking after itself on site, results in rather more accidents.
The research shows that those countries which encourage closer collaboration between the design and construction activities are the ones which tend to make greater use of off-site pre-fabrication and have a workforce which is well-equipped and trained to take full advantage of it.
The Report also considered the applicability of those alternative methods of international construction cost comparison involving a macro-economic statistical approach. The research team considered that there were advantages in the methodology adopted for the particular purposes of this study emanating from the avoidance of heavy dependency upon national construction industry statistics.
One important conclusion to be drawn is that the less efficient countries would do better to start benchmarking performance against the best in Europe rather than internally to the best of what appears to be an overall inefficient peer group.
The Report is in English but an Executive Summary is also available in French and German.
| These EU Construction Research web pages are sponsored by International Facilities & Property Information Ltd., publishers of highly acclaimed textbooks and CD-ROMs for construction and facilities management, including: Whole-life Economics of Building Services, Facilities Economics in the EU and An Introduction to Benchmarking. Go to Navigation Item: www.int-fpi.com for further details of these and other standard reference works. |
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