20th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction - San Diego, California, USA - 2012

Analyzing Barriers to Construction Productivity Improvement in the Dominican Republic

Bolivar A. Senior1 & Tulio A. Rodríguez2

1Associate Professor, Department of Construction Management, Colorado State University. 102 Guggenheim Hall, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1584, USA. Phone +1 (970) 491-7337. [email protected].
2Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Phone +1 809-866-1530. [email protected].

Abstract

The present study examined the perceived importance, easiness to overcome and criticality of 29 barriers to productivity improvement in the Dominican Republic. It surveyed 134 construction professionals with 5 or more years of experience, who provided their assessment in the dimensions of importance and easiness to overcome on a Likert scale from 1 to 5. Barriers were grouped into environment driven, topmanagement driven and field-management driven. Two secondary questions explored attitudes towards education in productivity improvement. Respondents gave high average grades of 4.01 to 4.69 to all questions in the dimension of Importance. Average responses for Easiness to overcome were lower, had a broader range, from 2.31 to 3.74 and showed a more nuanced deliberation of possibilities. The criticality of some barriers seems difficult to justify using Lean Construction principles, and need further examination. Barriers with high criticality tended to be driven by field management, and those with low criticality tended to be driven by top management. Results point to an overall perceived need for improvement which is not followed by optimism for achieving it. The present study is the first of its kind in the Dominican Republic. Its results provide a roadmap for educational and managerial action in the immediate future. It can also serve as a foundation for similar studies in other developing countries.

Keywords

Productivity improvement, benefits realization Dominican Republic, survey.

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Reference

Senior, B. A. & Rodríguez, T. A. 2012. Analyzing Barriers to Construction Productivity Improvement in the Dominican Republic, 20th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction , -. doi.org/

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