Effects of Separation of Work on Construction Industry
The outcome of construction projects heavily relies on the inputs used in these projects. The various inputs used for buildings and construction projects include raw material and labor necessary to convert the raw material into a finished project. The workers in the construction industry have traditionally been specialized in their specific areas of work and are jobs are assigned based on this specialization. The division of work is the mere process of separating work and assigning it to workers who are most suitable and appropriate. The workers in the construction industry are usually part of a union which represents these workers at various levels and most large construction projects employ members of these unions. “These trade unions are comprised of thousands of local jurisdictions, each with its own unique set of market requirements and contractual relationships” (Finkel p.6). The construction processes thus follow union patterns to assign jobs and fix wage rate for workers. The division or separation of works has both positive and negative effects on the construction industry. The quality of work is maximized by applying specialized workers to specific jobs and job completion time can be decreased significantly. The work completed by specialized workers has a lower rate of failure and reprocessing. The level of supervision required for specialized workers is quite low as compared to general workers. One of the negative effects of work separation on construction industry is increased idle time of workers as these workers remain idle when their job has been completed as other work cannot be assigned to them. The rate of specialized workers is predetermined according to union patterns and the cost of construction projects may exceed budgeted amounts due to wastage of time. Although division of work is quite beneficial for the construction industry, the negative impacts of specialization can be lessened by employing workers specializing in more than one area of