Identifying causes of material wastage on construction sites in Vietnam

Luu Truong Van; Truong Le Minh; Kim Soo Yong

1 (1) 2011

Identifying causes of material wastage on construction sites in Vietnam

Author - Affiliation:

Luu Truong Van - Ho Chi Minh City Open University , Vietnam

Truong Le Minh - Site Manager, Hoabinh Construction and Real Estate Coporation , Vietnam

Kim Soo Yong - Pukyong National University, Busan, Korea

Corresponding author: Kim Soo Yong - kim.npt@ou.edu.vn

Abstract

The wastage of materials on construction sites caused unnecessary losses to contractors. Curbing material waste is important to save costs for contractors and then to improve their competitive advantages in the construction market. Identifying causes plays a key role in mitigation of material waste on building sites. This study is part of an ongoing research aiming to identify major causes of material waste and to reckon the percentage of material waste on building sites in Vietnam. Literature reviews and a pilot survey provided thirty-five preliminary factors. Thirteen factors resulted from statistical techniques (i.e., mean scores and one sample t-test) were considered as major causes of material waste at site through a questionnaire survey of construction professionals, who worked for medium or large construction firms. The top-five main causes are: (1) incapable workers and site engineers; (2) changes to design; (3) late information about types and sizes of products to the contractor; (4) incapable storekeepers; and (5) waste from inappropriate construction processes. It is concluded that there is a need for enhancing the capability of workers and site engineers for mitigating the material wastage at site related to operation problems. The findings of this research can be used as a guideline to overcome material waste in the VCI as well as in other developing countries. The results of this study may expect to be useful not only to practitioners and researchers in Vietnam but also to participants in other developing countries.

Keywords

Construction project; factor analysis; material waste; productivity; Vietnam

Full Text:

PDF

References

Alarcón, L. F. (1994). ‘‘Tools for the identification and reduction of waste in construction projects’’, Lean construction, L. Alarcón, ed., Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, pp 365–377.

Alwi, S., Hampson, K., and Mohamed, S. (2002). “Non-value-adding activities in Australia construction projects”, Proceedings International Conference on Advancement in Design, Construction, Construction Management and Maintenance of Building Structure, Bali, Indonesia, pp 270-278.

Bossink, B. A. G., and Brouwers, H. J. H. (1996). “Construction waste: Quantification and source evaluation”. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 122, No. 8, pp 55–60.

Ekanayake, L.L., and Ofori, G. (2000). “Construction material waste source evaluation”, Proceedings: Strategies for a Sustainable Built Environment, Pretoria, 23-25 August 2000, South Africa, pp 1-6.

Formoso, C.T., Isatto, E.L., and Hirota, E.H. (1999). “Method for waste control in the building industry”, Proceedings of IGLC-7, University of California, Berkeley, 26-28 July 1999, CA, USA, pp. 325-334.

Formoso, C.T., Soibelman, L., Cesare, C.D., and Isatto, E.L. (2002). “Material waste in building industry: main causes and prevention”. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 128, No. 4, pp 316–325.

Gavillan, R.M., and Bernold, L.E (1994). “Source evaluation of solid waste in building construction”. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 120, No. 3, pp 536–552.

Graham, P., and Smithers, G. (1996). “Construction waste minimization for Australia residential development”. Asia Pacific Building and Construction Management Journal, Vol.2, No. 1, pp 14-19.

Koskela, L. (1992). Application of the new production philosophy to construction, Technical report No. 72, Center for integrated facility engineering (CIFE), Stanford University, http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~tommelein/Koskela-TR72.pdf, 08/14/2008.

Luu, V.T., Kim, S.Y., Tuan, N.V., and Ogunlana, S.O. (2008). “Quantifying schedule risk in construction projects using Bayesian belief networks”. International Journal of Project Management, doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2008.03.003 (article in press).

Ohno, T. (1988). Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, Productivity press, New York, USA.

Picchi, F. A. (1993). ‘‘Quality systems: use in construction companies”, doctorate thesis, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo.

Pinto, T. P. (1989). ‘‘Material waste in traditional construction processes”, research report, Federal University of Sao Carlos, Sao Carlos (in Portuguese).

Serpell, A., Venturi, A., and Contreras, J. (1995). Characterization of Waste in Building Construction Projects. In Alarcon, Luis (1997, Ed.) Lean Construction, A.A. Balkema, Netherlands.

Skoyles, E. F. (1976). ‘‘Material wastage: A misuse of resources’’. Building Research and Practice, July/April, pp 232–243.

Thomas, R.H., Riley, D.R., and Messner, J.I. (2005). “Fundamental principles of site material management”. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 131, No. 7, pp 808–815.

Womack, J. P., and Jones, D. T. (1996). Lean thinking, Simon and Schuster, New York.

Tri, C. (2006). “Ho Chi Minh City attracts more than US$ 880 million of FDI”. Sai Gon Giai Phong (SGGP), http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Business/Economy/2006/7/49823/, 12/11/2007.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.