Skip to content
Menu

Labour and productivity

Getting a subcontractor to commit to crew numbers, and tracking them

By Review.LivePublished 3 min readHow we write

Last Tuesday's coordination minutes say the electrical subcontractor will staff rough-in on levels 2 to 4 "as required". Rough-in has to finish before drywall starts in three weeks. On Thursday's walk you count four electricians, and there is no number to hold the trade to.

Exposed ceiling services and metal framing in an interior under renovation.
Photo: Olek Buzunov on Unsplash

Ask each trade for a number, workers on site week by week for its work in the look-ahead; write it in the minutes, count the crew every day and raise any gap the same week. "As required" cannot be checked; a number can, and a daily count turns an impression into a fact both sides accept. The count comes before the conversation with a trade that is falling behind; your own crews' numbers belong in the weekly labour plan.

  1. Ask for a number per week from the person who controls the trade's crews, tied to its activities in the look-ahead.
  2. Test it against the work: the quantities, the trade's usual output and the dates. If six electricians cannot finish three floors by the drywall start, say so now.
  3. Write it in the minutes as a number and a period: "Electrical: 6 electricians on site, weeks 12 to 15."
  4. Count every day, the same way: from the sign-in record or a head count at a fixed time, by company, into the daily report.
  5. Compare every Friday: committed worker-days against actual, beside the work completed.
  6. Raise a gap in the same week: first with the foreman, then with the trade's project manager, with the daily numbers in hand.

Common mistakes

  • Accepting "as required" or "enough to keep up" as a commitment.
  • Counting by eye on the days you happen to walk the floors.
  • Waiting for the monthly schedule update to raise a gap.
  • Demanding more workers for an area your side has not made ready.

Action list

This week

  1. Ask every trade for a number per week
  2. Test each number against the work
  3. Write it in the minutes
  4. Count each trade's crew every day
  5. Compare committed and actual every Friday
  6. Raise any gap before next week's meeting

Check your understanding

A trade has met its committed head count every day, but its work is two days behind. What does that tell you?

Show the answer
The commitment is being kept, so the problem is output: access, material, information, rework or a number that was too small for the work. Look at the reasons for the misses and at the output per worker before asking for more people; adding workers to a blocked area only adds cost.

Sources

  1. FAR 52.236-15 Schedules for Construction ContractsAcquisition.gov (U.S. General Services Administration) · United States federal government construction contracts (shown as an example of a prime contract clause) · accessed

Related articles