The impact of labour productivity on the Swedish construction industries

There have been debates concerning what can be done about the current low labour productivity in the Swedish construction industries. High production cost in the construction industries has been a burning issue for a long time. On the other hand, process industries and organisations have taken the advantage of labour productivity measurement to reduce their production cost and eliminate non value-added activities. The purpose of this paper is to examine, why and how the process industries and organisations have taken action to measure labour productivity and to suggest ways of improving labour productivity. Case studies have been performed for six different companies and organisations, and these are discussed. The results show that increases in global competition have led industries and organisations to educe production cost by improving labour productivity. To improve the construction project process, beside profit maximization, labour productivity measurement is essential. Furthermore, there is a need for measuring labour productivity in order to reduce production cost.Godkänd; 2007; 20071012 (ysko