10 Tips to Increase Productivity

1. Make sure you’re working areas are adequately prepared

The goal is to keep all the work moving at the pace required to meet your deadlines or faster. Loading areas should be at least two truck lengths to allow quick loading cycles and truck exchanges.

2. Lay out the jobsite for efficiency

A lot of time is invested in job planning, which means there is one and only one optimal site layout. For example, if materials are stored a long walking distance from the work, hours of nonproductive labor time will result from all those long walks.

3. Always provide on-site supervision

Even the best crews are more efficient when there is someone on-site to handle issues, facilitate communication and keep an eye out for safety.

4. Allow your team to challenge the work process

When your team is empowered to challenge work processes, you get real-time process improvement from a variety of perspectives. Encourage them to ask:

• Why are we doing it this way?
• Is this the best time to do this?
• Are we using the best equipment for this task?
• Who is best qualified for this?
• Have we still got eyes on the goal?

.5. Manage your buckets and ground engaging tools

You will get the fastest cycles and highest productivity from loading equipment if you treat buckets and GET as systems. And make sure they are the right match to the machine, application and material.

6. Schedule your work

This may seem obvious, but many jobsites run without a master schedule. Technology has greatly improved scheduling programs and their application. Jobsite productivity can be significantly increased if the supervisor plans work ahead of time so that there is the least amount of movement of equipment and materials.

7. Analyze project reports at regular intervals

What you don’t know can hurt you and your operation. Job costing data and equipment health data should be monitored so that any issues can be addressed and corrected as quickly as possible.

8. Manage equipment productively

Unscheduled downtime time is the enemy of the deadline, productivity and budget. In addition to monitoring equipment health on-site, operating techniques should also be monitored to keep productivity levels high and wear and tear on machines low. Remember, a good maintenance program can increase profits by more than 10%.

9. Improve safety

The construction industry has one of the highest worker accident rates per number of worker hours completed. Accidents have an adverse effect on construction productivity as they are likely to cause low morale and a slower pace.

10. Pay attention to quality

A program designed to boost productivity needs to focus on performing high-quality work. Poor quality can increase the possibility of rework, directly increasing the time needed to finish the project.