A comparative evaluation of concrete placing productivity rates amongst French, German and UK construction contractors

The present investigation utilizes a bespoke methodology to analyse and compare the productivity rates of contractors' planning engineers for concrete placing operations amongst three European construction industries, namely Germany, France and the UK. An analysis of variance (anova) was used to investigate differences between the productivity rates. Based on such rates, the analysis shows that German contractors achieve the most efficient levels of labour productivity for this particular operation, whilst amongst the sample surveyed, British contractors are less productive than French and German companies. Although leading British contractors can compete with the best on the continent, the least productive companies in the UK sample were inferior to the least productive in France and Germany. Using national all-in rates for labour, actual (labour) costs for this concrete operation were calculated to be lowest in France despite French wage rates being marginally higher than in the UK. This was because of the superior labour output of French contractors. The apparent lower productivity of British firms sampled in the present research concurs with the findings of two other international studies, indicating that the methodology utilized can provide meaningful and accurate productivity information.