Management in Construction Research Association (MiCRA)

Postgraduate Conference

A STUDY ON PRODUCTIVITY OF PRECAST CONCRETE INSTALLATION

Ali Najafi1,a* and Robert Tiong2,b

1,2
Nanyang Technological University/School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Singapore
a
[email protected] and b [email protected]

Abstract— In order to shorten project duration and attain - Adverse impact of weather can be mitigated
higher quality projects, Precast Concrete (PC) elements such during PC manufacturing.
as beams, columns, structural and non-structural walls and - Varied surface textures can be produced by
slabs are generally used. Currently, these elements are widely
specific surface treatments at the production
installed in high rise residential and commercial buildings
with repetitive floor plans. However, there are many factors
plants.
affecting productivity of PC construction which should be - Environmental benefits such as reducing wastage
considered to provide more accurate estimates of activities of materials and minimizing site debris and dust.
such as production and erection of PC elements. The main - Overall increase in productivity due to the
objective of this study is to analyze precast erection cycle times combine effect of the above mentioned benefits.
for four different components namely: walls, columns, beams, However, there are several factors that affect the
and slabs to show the productivity rates which will be helpful productivity of PC projects both in terms of off-site
to general estimators and managers for more efficient production and on-site erection and installation. Problems
planning of onsite precast erection. Primary data of the study
such as inclement weather condition, lack of worker’s
were collected from a school project. Some of the delay causes
observed by the research team are discussed and direction for experience, site storage capacity restrictions, tools and
future research is presented. equipment mechanical problems, equipment operator
efficiency, poor site layout planning, and massive size of
precast components are common in precast projects. These
Keywords — Precast Concrete; Productivity Analysis. problems together with general construction problems and
issues, greatly affect the productivity of precast concrete
I. INTRODUCTION erection process.
Productivity” is one of the most important areas of interest There are several papers on production planning and
in the construction industry especially among some Asian scheduling practices in the precast industry. Li et al. [2]
countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong that developed a model using genetic algorithms to meet the site
highly invest on construction projects using prefabricated construction demands for precast elements, satisfy internal
and precast elements. resource constraints, and optimize total production costs of
Precast Concrete (PC) products are typically produced production resources. Chan and Hu [3] provided a flow
by casting concrete in a mold at the precast manufacturing shop sequencing model for specialized method of precast
companies or in the temporary precast plants which are set production which was optimized using genetic algorithms.
up near the construction sites. These components are Flowshop sequencing model was also designed for bespoke
produced in a controlled environment which provides the precast concrete production planning to deal with several
opportunity to be properly cured and monitored by plant concerns such as the reliability of the product delivery
labor. As a result, there are some advantages of precast program and efficient usage of precast molds [4].
concrete systems over traditional cast-in-situ concrete In the last decade, Information Technology (IT) has
(Allen and Iano 2009) such as [1]: played an important role in effective management of
- High quality products can be produced because of precast yards as well as efficient component tracking for
close monitoring of the production process. better supply chain management. Akinci et al. [5] discussed
- Components production is performed on the the utilization of radio frequency identification technology
ground level, therefore, more safety can be (RFID) for tracking precast concrete elements from
provided. production to erection on site. Ergen et al. [6] combined
- A mold can be used many times in the precast RFID with Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to
production process (with little or no changeover at develop an automated system with minimum labor input.
all) which ensures cost savings in terms of mold Scholars have also discussed the use of Building
per unit of production. Information Modeling (BIM) which is among the latest
- PC production can proceed while the foundation technologies for the construction sector, in the PC design
works are underway. which had led to clear improvement in error-free drawings
- The project time can be reduced because of faster
erection time.
Management in Construction Research Association (MiCRA)
Postgraduate Conference

and steadily increasing improvement in labor productivity

[7].

Figure 1. Sequence of activities for erection process of a typical precast element

Cycle times for 105 cases were recorded from a
school project using precast frame system (beams, columns,
The general objective of the abovementioned papers slabs and walls). This project consisted of 3 blocks of 10-
was to increase overall construction productivity through storey buildings that was located in Kuala Lumpur,
effective off-site production design and planning of precast Malaysia. General Characteristics of cases are shown in
components. On the other side, it is also important to Table 1.
investigate on-site erection of PC elements. To address the Installation of these components were studied at levels
stated research gap, this study was designed to analyze 7 to 10 (elevation range: 22 – 36 m) to reduce the learning
installation cycle time of horizontal and vertical PC effect. A crawler crane was used for precast erection and
components and calculate productivity rates for different other construction tasks. 5 workers (excluding crane
elements. operator) were in charge of precast installation including 2
rigger mans (at the loading and unloading points) and 3
II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY & DATA ANALYSIS general workers.
Table 2 shows general statistics about installation of
To calculate the productivity rates and to collect and
different types of PC elements namely: walls, columns,
analyze the factors affecting productivity of installation
beams, and slabs. To compare mean of installation time
process for PC products, the erection process should be
between these groups, ANOVA procedure was used and the
presented to find the resources required as well as the
results are shown in Table 3. Based on this table, p-value of
sequence of the activities. Based on preliminary site visits,
the ANOVA test is less than 0.05 which shows that at least
different tasks involved and the required resources to finish
a typical erection process are shown in Figure 1.

Table 1. Characteristics of precast components

Type Number of Length (range Width (range in Height (range Weight (range
Cases in m) m) in m) in Kg)
Wall 19 3 – 4.4 0.15 3.575 3732 - 5428
Column 27 0.4 – 0.8 0.4 – 0.5 3.020 – 3.550 1233 – 3398
Beam 20 5.6 – 9.2 0.3 – 0.8 0.320 – 0.600 2064 – 5664
Slab 39 2.4 – 8.7 0.375 – 1.6 0.100 – 0.265 919 – 3088
Table 2. Statistics of erection cycle time

Type Mean SD 95% CI Interval 95% CI Interval Minimum Maximum

(min.) (min.) – Lower Bound – Upper Bound (min.) (min.)
Wall 27.69 7.18 24.23 31.16 18.32 50.48
Column 21.74 5.06 19.73 23.74 15.37 40.55
Beam 11.37 1.88 10.49 12.25 9.17 14.80
Slab 7.53 1.11 7.17 7.89 5.62 10.73
Table 3. ANOVA table

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 6691.854 3 2230.618 131.963 .000
Within Groups 1707.238 101 16.903
Total 8399.093 104
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one pair of elements differ significantly in terms of mean of temporary support of a precast wall.
installation time. To know that, the test of homogeneity of
variances is performed which is shown in Table 4. Research team has recorded the timing of initial
adjustment, props installation, alignment and unrigging for
Table 4. Test of homogeneity of variances total of 36 cases. Statistics about these tasks are shown in
Table 6.
Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.
11.966 3 101 .000

Since the p-value is less than 0.05, equality of

variances assumption is not met and the groups are not
homogenous. Therefore, to know the pairs that significantly
differ from others, Dunnett’s T3 test is used. Table 5 shows
the result of this test from which it can be concluded that all
of the mean differences are significant at 0.05 level. From
Figure 2 (the mean plot) and Table 2, it can be stated that
mean time for installation of walls is the longest following
by columns, beams, and slabs. This is mainly because
installation of vertical elements requires props installation
to support the components temporarily. This activity
includes drilling of elements and the below slab to let the
props being properly fixed to the components. Therefore,
the fixing procedure of these elements includes initial
adjustment, props installation, final alignment and
unrigging after which the crane may return for the next
cycle. As a result, installation time will be longer than
beams and slabs that only require adjustment and unrigging.
Figure 3 shows the installation of a prop for Figure 2. Mean plot of precast installation time

Table 5. Dunnett's T3 mulitple comparison test

95% Confidence Interval

Mean Difference
Type (I) Type (J) (I-J) Std. Error Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound
*
WALL COLUMN 5.95813 1.91364 .023 .5930 11.3233
*
BEAM 16.32518 1.70039 .000 11.4064 21.2440
*
SLAB 20.16163 1.65718 .000 15.3195 25.0038
*
COLUMN WALL -5.95813 1.91364 .023 -11.3233 -.5930
*
BEAM 10.36706 1.06013 .000 7.4205 13.3136
*
SLAB 14.20350 .98934 .000 11.4139 16.9932
BEAM WALL -16.32518* 1.70039 .000 -21.2440 -11.4064
COLUMN -10.36706* 1.06013 .000 -13.3136 -7.4205
*
SLAB 3.83645 .45618 .000 2.5440 5.1289
*
SLAB WALL -20.16163 1.65718 .000 -25.0038 -15.3195
*
COLUMN -14.20350 .98934 .000 -16.9932 -11.4139
*
BEAM -3.83645 .45618 .000 -5.1289 -2.5440
*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
Management in Construction Research Association (MiCRA)
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One of the most common delay causes for vertical

elements noticed by the research team was the required
procedure to modify the spaces between the fixed rebars
which are to be placed into the elements for jointing of
horizontal and vertical components (Figure 5). This is
mainly because after concreting the below slab, there will
be some displacement to rebars which hinders them to be
properly fixed into the element without any modification.
To facilitate this task, drilling of the component itself might
be necessary in some cases which will increase the delay
process further.

Figure 3. Props installation

Table 6. Analysis of fix time for vertical elements

Tasks Mean Min Max % of Mean

(min.) (min.) (min) of Total Fix Figure 4. Box plot for installation time of walls and columns
Time
Initial 3.95 1.45 11.55 %27
adjustment
Props 8.80 6.12 14.67 %61
installation
Alignment/ 1.72 0.52 3.97 %12
Unrigging
Total fix 14.47 9.63 24.25 %100
time
This table shows that props installation for vertical
elements is a very critical and time consuming activity
which will take %61 of total fix time on average following
by initial adjustment and alignment/unrigging that count for
%27 and %12 of average fix time respectively.
Figure 4 shows the box plots for walls and columns
from which it can be mentioned that there are two outliers
in these elements. The records show that case number 16
(the outlier for walls) was due to a delay of 11.45 minutes
for site preparation before the elements can be fixed. This
case experienced another 5.65 minutes delay for non-
availability of proper drilling equipment. Case number 20
(extreme value for columns) was delayed for 10 minutes for Figure 5. Correcting rebar spaces before wall installation
the same reason.
Management in Construction Research Association (MiCRA)
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The productivity rates are calculated based on the of the PC elements that were used are very common in most
mean installation time shown in Table 2 and for 50 min per of the precast projects. Therefore, the calculated
hour efficiency. The results are shown Table 7. productivity rates can be used by construction managers for
Table 7. Productivity calculation
more efficient planning of PC installation process which
will lead to better resource utilization. Based on the
Type Mean Productivity limitations of the study, suggestions and directions for
(min.) (Cycle/Hour) future research were discussed.
Wall 27.69 1.81
Column 21.74 2.30 REFERECNES
Beam 11.37 4.40
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IV. CONCLUSION
This study analyzed precast erection cycle times and
productivity measures for four different types of PC
elements namely: walls, columns, beams and slabs that are
frequently used in most of the PC projects. The results
showed that there is a significant difference in terms of
mean time for installation of these components which is due
to props installation and alignment for vertical elements
which is not required for horizontal components. One of the
main causes of delay in the precast installation process was
recognized as rebar spacing modification and practitioners
should properly rectify this issue in order to increase their
erection process productivity. The studied sample was quite
small in terms of total number of cases, however, the range