Investigation of wastes due to unfinished work and their impact on the cycle time of construction processes

Abstract Construction waste constitutes an obstacle for the improvement of productivity. Among the different kinds of construction waste, making-do stands out as a source of other types of waste. When Fireman et al. (2013) studied making-do waste, they concluded that it could be triggered by a kind of general waste called unfinished work. The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of unfinished work in construction processes and its impact on the cycle time of services. The study consisted in a field survey carried out on five construction sites, involving direct observation. The research tools used were forms, questionnaires and checklists, all adapted from the literature, with the aim of identifying and classifying unfinished work. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with site managers and supervisors. Time measurements were taken to check the impact of unfinished work on cycle time. The results showed that failures in the sequence of tasks associated with failures in quality management were triggers for the unfinished work. The study showed that the construction sites that had formalised short-term plans were able to mitigate the impacts of this type of waste. On most of the construction sites investigated, the planned cycle time was not met, and also that those sites that had larger management teams presented lower added time.