MEASUREMENT OF PRODUCTIVITY RATE OF DRAINAGE TRENCH

EXCAVATION USING LEAN STRATEGY

MUHAMMAD SHAHIR BIN SHAFFRUDDEEN

This project is submitted in fulfillment of the

requirements for the award of degree of
Master of Engineering (Construction Management)

Faculty of Civil Engineering

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

JANUARY 2018
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DEDICATION

I dedicate my work to my family and friends. A special

feeling of gratitude to my loving parents,

whose words of encouragement and push for tenacity ring in my ears.

My sisters, who never left my side and very special to me.

I also dedicate this research to my friends,

who have supported me throughout the process.

I will always appreciate all they have done.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Assalamualaikum. In the name of Allah the most gracious and the most merciful,
first and foremost, I would like to extend my deepest praise to Allah S. W. T who has
given me the patient, strength, determination and courage to implement this task. I
would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Prof. Madya Dr Abdul
Kadir Marsono for the continuous support of my research study for his patience,
motivation, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me in all the time of
research and writing of this thesis. I could not have imagined having a better advisor
and mentor for my research. I thank my fellow classmate in for their supports, for the
sleepless nights where they helped before deadlines, and for all the fun, we have had
in the last four years. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family,
especially my parents and to my sister for supporting me spiritually throughout
writing this thesis and my life in general.
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ABSTRACT

Productivity in construction industry is the ratio of output over resources that

determine the outcome of product. LEAN is the principle used by the manufacturing
industry to improve their product. This research apply the measuring productivity
principle used by the manufacturing industry on machinery to measure the
productivity of drainage civil construction activity. Hence, it aims to evaluate the
quality of the constructed drainage base on the measured productivity outcomes. In
this study, Time Cycle analysis is used to measure the productivity of a backhoe
machine used for trench excavation and the labour productivity rate to install the
drainage is also measured. Additionally, Cycle Time Tracking & Variance Analysis
model are use to analyse the data obtained. The research targets a construction of
drainage around Johor Bharu as a case study. The significant of study is to measure
the optimum productivity rate of drainage construction. The optimum productivity
rate for excavation is 3.59meters per hour with the quality of 4.2 out of 5, while the
productivity rate to install the culvert is 8 pieces per hour with the highest quality of
4 out of 5. Productivity measurement can improve the overall construction
performance in the construction.
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ABSTRAK

Produktiviti dalam industri pembinaan ialah nisbah output ke atas sumber yang
menentukan hasil produk. LEAN adalah prinsip yang digunakan oleh industri
perkilangan untuk meningkatkan produk mereka. Kajian ini menggunakan prinsip
produktiviti pengukuran yang digunakan oleh industri pembuatan pada mesin untuk
mengukur produktiviti aktiviti pembinaan saliran saliran. Oleh itu, ia bertujuan untuk
menilai kualiti asas saliran yang dibina pada hasil produktiviti yang diukur. Dalam
kajian ini, analisis Kitaran Masa digunakan untuk mengukur produktiviti mesin
Jentolak yang digunakan untuk penggalian parit dan kadar produktiviti buruh untuk
memasang saliran juga diukur. Di samping itu, model Pengesanan Masa & Analisis
Analisis Kitaran digunakan untuk menganalisis data yang diperolehi. Penyelidikan
ini mensasarkan pembinaan saliran di sekitar Johor Bharu sebagai kajian kes. Kajian
penting adalah untuk mengukur kadar produktiviti optimum pembinaan saliran.
Kadar produktiviti untuk penggalian adalah 3.59meter sejam dengan kualiti 4.2
daripada 5, manakala kadar pemasangan saliran pula adalah 8 biji sejam dengan
kadar kualiti 4 daripada 5. Pengukuran produktiviti dapat meningkatkan prestasi
pembinaan keseluruhan dalam pembinaan.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE

DECLARATION ii
DEDICATION iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv
ABSTRACT v
ABSTRAK vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
LIST OF TABLES x
LIST OF FIGURES xi

1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 General 1
1.2 Background Of Study 2
1.3 Problem Statement 3
1.4 Objectives and Aim 4
1.5 Scope of Study 4
1.6 Significant of Study 5
1.7 Research Structure 6
1.8 Summary 7

2 LITERATURE REVIEW 9
2.1 Introduction 9
2.2 LEAN Technique 10
2.3 LEAN and Construction Time 11
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2.4 LEAN Time Cycle Analysis 11

2.5 Productivity 12
2.6 Productivity and Construction Duration 13
2.7 Trench Drain 13
2.8 Trench Excavation for Drainage 14
2.8.1 Case 580K 14
2.8.2 Concrete Drain Construction
According to JKR Drainage Standard
Requirement 18
2.9 Labour Productivity 21
2.10 Productivity and Quality 22
2.11 Summary 22

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 23
3.1 Introduction 23
3.2 Data Collection 23
3.3 Research Design 24
3.4 Population Sampling 25
3.5 Research Instrument 26
3.6 Drainage Construction 27
3.7 Data Analysis 35
3.8 Summary 35

4 ANALYSIS 37
4.1 Introduction 37
4.2 Data Collection 38
4.3 Project Detail 38
4.3.1 Drainage Details 39
4.4 Analysis Excavation Productivity 40
4.4.1Quality of Excavation 42
4.5 Analysis Block Drain Installation 46
4.5.1 Quality of Pre-Cast Culvert Block
Drain Install 47
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4.6 Project Productivity Discussion 50

4.6.1 Quality of Drainage Construction
Discussion 51
4.7 Summary of Drainage Productivity Rate and
Construction Quality Measurement 52

5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 53

5.1 Introduction 53
5.2 Research Limitation 53
5.3 Research Discussion and Conclusion 54
5.4 Conclusion 56

REFERENCES 61
APPENDICES 63
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LIST OF TABLES

TABLE NO. TITLE PAGE

2.1 Case 580K Engine Specification 16

2.2 Condition of Backhoe to Operate Optimally 16
2.3 JKR Drainage Standard Requirement 19
4.1 Excavation Statistic 41
4.2 Excavation Quality 42
4.3 Pre-Cast Block Drain Installation Quality 47
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LIST OF FIGURE

FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE

1.0 Research Process 6

2.1 Backhoe model Case 580K 15
2.2 Case 580K Bucket 17
2.3 V-Shaped Block Drain Size 18
3.1 Excavation Activity 27
3.2 Material Removal 28
3.3 Excavation Measurement 28
3.4 Excavation Vertical Cut 29
3.5 Lean Concrete 30
3.6 Marking and Leveling 30
3.7 Material Delivered 31
3.8 Culvert Installation 32
3.9 Backfilling 33
3.10 Surface Drain 34
3.11 Plastering 34
4.1 Drainage Cross Section 39
4.2 Excavation Productivity 40
4.3 Pre-Cast Block Drain Installation 46
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1. 1 General

According to Motwani (1995), productivity measurement in construction

industry is important for the sector to continuously improve thier performance and
compete within their sector. The practical approach to measure the productivity
within construction industry is needed to be identified. There are several model that
can be used to measure productivity in construction such as Time Cycle Analysis.
However, this research focus on LEAN strategy that currently being used in
manufacturing industry to measure their productivity. Hence, LEAN have been used
by the manufacturing sector to improve their product performance and quality. In this
project, LEAN strategy to measure productivity will be implement in construction
industry.
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1.2 Background Of Study

According to Krugman (1994), productivity rate is the number of product can

be produce by the time given. Hence, Chia (2012), mention that productivity have
great influence on national economic growth. Measuring the construction industry
productivity will also reflect toward the measurement of the industry economic
growth itself. In construction planning and scheduling, it is necessary to know the
production rate for specific activity to estimate the period for the task completion.

LEAN thinking mostly implemented in manufacturing industry for

improvement in the industry in terms of production involving machinery.
Construction industry partially manual trade and equipment to facilitate each
construction activities. Plant and equipment require a proper management to utilize
their maximum potential and to operate according to the plan and scheduling of a
project. Thus, excavation activity involves several types of plants to facilitate the
process. The example of common plant been used for excavation activities are
excavator and backhoe. This research focus on measurement of productivity for
drainage trench excavation, involving the use of backhoe as machinery and manual
labour productivity to install the drainage pre-cast.

This research focus on the measurement of productivity rate in construction

of V-Shaped Trench Drainage activity. The activities for V-Shaped drainage
construction are identified and the productivity rate for each activity is measured.
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1.3 Problem Statement

According to Chau (2003), researches of construction productivity have

problems in measurement and availability of data. This issues is reflect toward the
challenge of indentifying the factors affecting the level and growth of efficiency in
construction industry. Thus, according to Motwani (1995), identifying the critical
factors that influence the productivity in construction industry is a challenge. In
addition, according to Noh (2014), higher productivity rate reduce the quality of
product. This research intends to use the LEAN principle used in manufacturing
industry to measure their productivity and evaluate the quality. This process will
determine the quality of product at a certain rate. This research will measure the
productivity rate on drainage activities with specific indentified critical factors that
influence the productivity and act as constant variables.

According to Sambasivan (2006), labour and equipment related to

productivity contribute to causes of delay in construction project. Hence, according
to the research, labour and equipment was ranked 3 out of 8 categories of delay
causation in Malaysia construction industry. Hence, the quality of work and the
productivity among the workers in Malaysia, have significant impact on project
progress and efficiency. This will eventually result in delay on completion sequence,
where the successor activity will be affected and causing delay for the entire project.
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1.4 Objectives and Aim

This study aim is to measure the productivity of drainage trench excavation.

To achieve the aim, the objectives are:

i. To measure the productivity rates of trench excavation using plant (Backhoe)

using Time Cycle Analysis
ii. To calculate the optimum manual labour productivity rates to install V-
Shaped Trench Drain using Activity Oriented formulation.
iii. To evaluate the quality of finished drainage construction base on the drainage
construction productivity rates.

1.5 Scope of Study

The research purpose is to determine the productivity rate of drainage

construction activity using LEAN principle. This research focus on the construction
of V-Shape Trench Drain activity. The activity for construction of V-Shaped
drainage is identified. Each activity will be measure its productivity rate. Hence, the
quality of the finish product will be evaluated.

The variable for productivity rate will be scope to specific resources and act
as a constant variable. The constant variable this research is plant, materials and
number of labour. In addition, each resource variable will be selected according to
common resource generally being used in Malaysia construction activity.
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1.6 Significant of Study

Measuring the productivity within construction industry will improve the

construction process. The study aim to provide useful information regarding
construction productivity for a specific activity. The research measure the
productivity of drainage work for precast drainage. The activities measured include
the excavation process and the installation process.

The measurement for the excavation process involve the specific plant chosen
that suit the activity. Pratt (2010) mentioned the suitable machine for trench
excavation in backhoe, due to its mobility. The research measure the productivity of
a backhoe to excavate trench drain. The result can be use as standard efficiency for
backhoe to excavate trench drain.

Measuring labour productivity will determine the optimum productivity rate

for drainage installation. The productivity rate is influence by the total man-hours,
which the result will determine the standard rate of productivity to install drainage
within one hour.

Hence, this research will also clarify the problem statement on the higher the
productivity rate, the lower the quality produce. The result of productivity will then
be evaluated towards its quality. This is to measure the quality of product at a certain
productivity rate. Hence, this result can be use to improve the quality of drainage
work with respect to time taken to complete the work process.
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1.7 Research Structure

The main purpose of this research is to measure the productivity of drainage

trench excavation and measure the quality of drainage base on the productivity rate.
In order to achieve these objectives, the activities involving construction stage for
drainage work is identified. Figure 1 shows the research process to achieve the final
objective for this research.

Drainage Trench Labour Quality

Productivity Excavation Productivity Assesment

• LEAN Princple • Variance Analysis • Activity Oriented • JKR Draiange Work

Model Specification

Figure 1.0: Research Process

Collecting data of the research will require several procedures. The first data
is regarding the first objective, to measure the productivity rates of trench excavation
using backhoe with Time Cycle Analysis, is a primary data collection. The
information gathered through measurement of backhoe excavation for specific
drainage activity on site. The data will be analyzed using SPSS.
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Second objective also use the primary data collection method, which is to
measure the labour productivity rates to install V-Shaped Trench Drain using the
Labour Productivity Rate Activity Oriented Model formula:

The third objective is to evaluate the quality of drainage base on the drainage
construction productivity rates require the result gathered through first and second
objective. The evaluation will rated based on the standard JKR standard specification
2014.

1.8 Summary

Productivity measurement is important in construction industry to improve

their performance. Hence, it can be use as key performance indicator, measuring the
output of performance for a specific task in the industry. The problem statement is
resolved through achieving the objectives of this research.

The first objective is to determine the productivity rates of trench excavation

of a backhoe. This objective is achieve by measuring the performance of backhoe
excavating a trench on sites, thus, implanting LEAN strategy to measure the
productivity rate.

The second objective is to determine the optimum labour productivity rates to

install V-Shaped Trench Drain. This objective is achieve by measuring the total man-
hours to install the V-Shaped Trench Drain per-hour by using Activity Oriented
formula.
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The third objective is to determine the quality of the drainage manage to

achieve through the productivity rate of both machine and labour productivity. This
objective is achieve by evaluating the quality of the final product after the installation
of V-Shaped Trench Drain completed.
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