A model for construction performance improvement stimulation for a developing economy

This paper describes work initiated by the government in Tanzania aimed at benchmarking labour productivity amongst building contractors, and to thereby establish a construction labour productivity performance related data base and stimulate competitive performance. A clear need for performance improvement for construction industries in African developing countries is set out. Labour productivity has been identified as a critical issue in performance improvement and arguments have been put forward to justify the concentration of efforts to improve labour productivity at site level. Productivity benchmarks were established by observing site output using the activity sampling technique. The proposed benchmark is an asymptotic upper productivity figure which can be used for establishing a continuous productivity improvement programme. The project concepts used are then compared with Total Quality Management (TQM) and benchmarking concepts.