| Title |
Improving Road Construction Productivity by Developing a Programmatic Resource Distribution System for Equipment Sharing in Multi-sectioned Road Construction Projects |
| DOI |
http://dx.doi.org/10.6106/kJCEM.2013.14.3.134 |
| Keywords |
Multi-section Road Construction ; Equipment productivity ; Lean Construction ; Program Management ; Equipment Sharing System |
| Abstract |
Road construction projects are parcelled into sub-sections which are then tendered to individual contractors for construction. The type of work and equipments used are similar for each sub-section. However, such equipment are not shared on a regular basis among the contractors and only partially performed in an informal and ad hoc manner. Consequently, road construction equipment suffer from low utilization and increased leasing costs. Lean construction and Program Management approaches stress the importance of collaboration among individual participants in a way that increases the collective cost savings of the entire project. This research attempts to apply such theories with the notion that under utilization of expensive equipment can be improved by formalizing a way to enable the sharing of equipment in large, public sponsored, multi-sectioned road construction projects. A system was developed consisting of a set of criteria and processes that enables automatic allocation of equipment to multiple sites on daily basis, in a way that minimizes equipment costs and improves their individual utility. The system was then applied in allocating three different types of equipment to an actual road construction project with four sub-sections for three months. A new metric, nDPR showed that utilization improved for all equipment and also equipment related costs were decreased by 4.45%. Results also showed that increased shared opportunities of equipment correspond to an increase in utilization and cost savings. |