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- Can You
Effectively Bring Productivity Analysis into the Construction Management
Classroom?
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- Dennis M. Gier, MS, PE and Mike
Borzage, AIA
- California State University, Chico
- Chico, California
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In this article the
authors present an active method by which common in-the-field, construction
productivity improvement methods can be brought directly into the classroom
environment. It points out ways that faculty can increase their effectiveness
in providing instruction on productivity analysis using a simple, Lego-based
model. The authors write that this activity is particularly effective with CM
students who are often action and results oriented. The authors believe this
exercise engages students because they remain physically and mentally active
by participating in “productivity group” activities, e.g. pre-planning, doing
activity sampling, performing field ratings, observing, analyzing, reflecting,
and discussing results. Students learn first hand about how to improve their
productivity. The article includes a twelve-year historical perspective and
key lessons learned for improving classroom effectiveness. This exercise can
be incorporated into any CM Methods course. The authors utilize a qualitative
evaluation survey of students from a recent Construction Methods Analysis
class and historical documentation to support their position.
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Key Words:
Productivity Analysis,
Productivity Improvement, Construction Methods Analysis, Innovation in
Construction Education, Active Learning, Experiential Education
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Introduction
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- In general it is
difficult to bring construction field practices directly into the classroom.
Restrictions on time, space, and equipment make some things next to
impossible. But, such is not the case with productivity improvement practices.
The authors believe in bringing classroom activities that mimic the activities
one finds in the construction office and in field practice to the classroom.
They also believe in the power of active learning methods to engage
Construction Management (CM) students in a learning process that is more
effective than the standard lecture and homework problems learning model.
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- The literature also
supports this approach to the learning process. Mel Silberman, in his book,
“Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject,” has this to say about
the type of learning environments we need to be enabling in our classrooms.
“To learn something well, it helps to hear it, see it, ask questions about it,
and discuss it with others. Above all students need to “do it” – figure things
out by themselves, come up with examples, try out skills, and do assignments
that depend on the knowledge they already have or must acquire.” (Silberman,
1996).
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- The authors of this
article explored these ideas in a Construction Methods Analysis class of third
and fourth year students during the fall 2004, building and expanding on a
legacy of twelve years of productivity analysis class exercises. This most
recent class had thirty-eight students, divided into three or four person
teams. Three teams made up a productivity group. The authors’ intent was to
learn how to effectively bring construction field practices in productivity
improvement directly into the classroom. Productivity groups in a CM Methods
Analysis class are the quintessential format for such activity. Given a
challenge, the students pursue a solution with their team and on the journey
with their teammates they naturally take steps to improve their productivity.
A sense of cooperation with their teammates and a natural competition with the
other teams and productivity groups drives the activity. They learn first hand
how to improve their team’s productivity.
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- A Historical Perspective
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- Twelve years ago the
co-author and several other CM faculties developed a simple, Lego-based
exercise that introduced students to the concepts of productivity improvement.
This exercise was originally used as an icebreaker in the early weeks of the
term to introduce team members to each other before they started working
together on a term productivity project. Essentially, this brief exercise
introduced basic productivity improvement practices and teamwork to students,
who most likely had never worked together before. So, the learning objectives
were to get team members acquainted and get them thinking about making
improvements in their productivity.
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- Until recently, this
was the extent of the learning objectives of this exercise. When the lead
author, who recently joined the faculty, noticed the potential to expand the
learning objectives of this exercise, he changed it into a month long, team
activity assignment with an All-Star student competition at the end. He wanted
his students to “know first hand” how it felt to be productive or
unproductive. He wanted them to identify their own strengths and weaknesses.
He also wanted his students to learn to make “incremental improvements” by
understanding and applying the fundamentals of productivity improvement
analysis being taught in the lecture part of this class.
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- The author expanded
the exercise into a productivity group, hands-on activity, wherein students
must work together to overcome physical or mental challenges related to
productivity improvement. After each weekly activity, the author and the
students discussed how they did, what they could have done better, and how
this lesson may be applied to the next round of exercise competition and a
typical construction project. The primary learning objective of this new,
expanded exercise was to get these CM students to think, do, and learn
about productivity improvement on a regular, reoccurring basis over a longer
period of time than the original exercise. The expanded exercise was based on
the idea that “Students retain information longer when their whole being is
engaged.” (Gier, 2004).
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- The Need for Productive Improvement
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- Productive Improvement
is an on-going need in the construction industry. “Productivity improvement
has come to the attention of the construction industry because of the growing
awareness of the industry’s poor record in increasing its productivity.
Government statistics indicate that the construction industry has been one of
the worst industries in regard to their annual increase in productivity…while
the overall U.S. economy has been increasing its annual productivity at an
annual rate of close to 3%, the construction industry has averaged an annual
increase of less than 1%. (Adrian, 1995).
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- The productive
improvement exercise described in this paper addresses the heart of the
problem, i.e. the need for more awareness and training in the techniques of
productivity analysis. This activity emphasizes the terminology, the
techniques, and the analysis of productivity in such a way that the student is
engrossed in the process. This activity also encourages students to explore
new ideas and innovative approaches. The need for new approaches to
productivity improvement is well referenced in the literature, “…no contractor
can gain a competitive advantage while cheating on quality and slipping
completion dates with various excuses. In these situations, organizations
should pursue a breakthrough or innovative approach to overcome these barriers
and breakout to retain competitive advantage.” (Olomolaiye, 1998).
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- Method: Learning Objectives and
Exercise Description
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- The students gathered
in class only a couple of times prior to this Productivity Improvement
Exercise and did not know each other very well at the start of the activity.
The lead author introduced them to the exercise in the second week of classes
by explaining the activity and passing out a description that included the
ground rules. The ground rules were fairly simple and not many in number by
design. The authors wanted the students to have some structure, but not too
much structure. The idea being that methods or solutions would not be too
obvious and it would encourage teams to explore different alternatives and
approaches to the project.
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- Learning Objectives
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- The learning
objectives for this activity were the following:
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