It's apples to oranges. A building in 1931 Toronto was going to be built with locally sourced materials, the construction was much simpler, and the relative scarcity of safety and engineering regulations meant that projects flowed more organically. Yes, building were still designed and drafted, but individual trades had much more leeway over details and process.

Today, it's not uncommon for materials to be shipped across the globe. The electrical and mechanical systems in buildings are far more complex. Almost a third of a worker's day can be chewed up on safety and compliance. There is nearly zero latitude for trades to fill in the blanks. Drawings are being updated and revised and changed throughout the build, so that a lot of work ends up on hold while waiting for approval.

If anything, the really amazing thing to me is how unitization and prefabrication have managed to speed up construction. You think construction is slow today? It would blow your mind to realize how much of the labour is actually off-site and happening in factories. You see half a dozen guys putting up rebar columns or erecting steel or hanging windows, and you don't realize the off-site efforts to supply those materials in a way to minimize the work on the construction site. You see half a dozen workers in vests and hardhats downtown, and there are literally hundreds of people out in the suburbs backing them up.

An excellent summation; but it does leave me with a question; at different points when a building is going up, say cladding just to pick one, you've got a repetitive task, that would seem straight forward (on most sites) and which would seem to be something which could be accelerated with more on-site labour.

Yet, the process often seems comparatively slow, and on-site labour is far from crowding (again sites vary).

Do you feel this is the case?

That is to say:

Are there commonly various stages of construction which could be accelerated with more labour, shaving weeks or months off a large project?

If so, is there typically a conscious reason as to why this does not occur, or is it a labour shortage issue?
 
Are there commonly various stages of construction which could be accelerated with more labour, shaving weeks or months off a large project?

Just to make it easier to think about, let's use an example. You mentioned cladding, so run with that.

Right at the outset, the cladding installation can't outpace the erecting of the structure. So you give the structure a headstart so that you have a buffer in case they hit a snag (if you catch the structure you either pay your crew to sit around twiddling their thumbs while the structure gets back underway, or you lay your crew off and risk that they're going to take a different job elsewhere).

The next problem is that even if you wanted to speed up installation, more hands won't necessarily do it. A solid installation crew can put up 40 frames a day. But paying someone to stand there isn't going to make the chain on the hoist move any faster. I guess it helps a little if you have a couple apprentices to break up crates and move material out of the way and take down safety fences and all of that, but the installation crew has enough latent downtime in their day that they can mostly do those tasks while waiting for other things to happen (while the guys up top are moving their rigging the guys below can prepare frames, and so on).

If you want to get really aggressive you can try running multiple install crews, but because of the way the frames lock together you'd have to co-ordinate that dance so tightly that it's not really worth it. And again, you can't get ahead of the structure, so why bother?

From my experience, most of the time that you're flooding a jobsite with labour it's more of a dog-and-pony show. The job is already way behind, so the subs throw bodies everywhere so they can shrug and say "Not our fault" when they miss the delivery dates. Or, if the job has gotten really nasty, the sub brings on a pile of bodies for any extra work that the GC orders (the subs will pay a worker $50 an hour to look busy, and then bill the GC $75 an hour on the timesheet)

But to cladding manpower, in the 80s a two-man crew (one on the top, one on the bottom) would put in 40 frames a day. Then, because the frames got heavier and the rules around lifting changed it was changed to a three-man crew (one up top, two on the bottom). Then the rules around rigging changed, and the new rigging required a second guy up top, so now you're up to a four-man crew to get the same 40 frames. And then more recently the rigging requirements shifted again and now you need a dedicated crane operator in addition to your four installers. The job hasn't changed, but it takes more and more bodies to perform it because the rules have changed.
 
Just to make it easier to think about, let's use an example. You mentioned cladding, so run with that.

Right at the outset, the cladding installation can't outpace the erecting of the structure. So you give the structure a headstart so that you have a buffer in case they hit a snag (if you catch the structure you either pay your crew to sit around twiddling their thumbs while the structure gets back underway, or you lay your crew off and risk that they're going to take a different job elsewhere).

The next problem is that even if you wanted to speed up installation, more hands won't necessarily do it. A solid installation crew can put up 40 frames a day. But paying someone to stand there isn't going to make the chain on the hoist move any faster. I guess it helps a little if you have a couple apprentices to break up crates and move material out of the way and take down safety fences and all of that, but the installation crew has enough latent downtime in their day that they can mostly do those tasks while waiting for other things to happen (while the guys up top are moving their rigging the guys below can prepare frames, and so on).

If you want to get really aggressive you can try running multiple install crews, but because of the way the frames lock together you'd have to co-ordinate that dance so tightly that it's not really worth it. And again, you can't get ahead of the structure, so why bother?

From my experience, most of the time that you're flooding a jobsite with labour it's more of a dog-and-pony show. The job is already way behind, so the subs throw bodies everywhere so they can shrug and say "Not our fault" when they miss the delivery dates. Or, if the job has gotten really nasty, the sub brings on a pile of bodies for any extra work that the GC orders (the subs will pay a worker $50 an hour to look busy, and then bill the GC $75 an hour on the timesheet)

But to cladding manpower, in the 80s a two-man crew (one on the top, one on the bottom) would put in 40 frames a day. Then, because the frames got heavier and the rules around lifting changed it was changed to a three-man crew (one up top, two on the bottom). Then the rules around rigging changed, and the new rigging required a second guy up top, so now you're up to a four-man crew to get the same 40 frames. And then more recently the rigging requirements shifted again and now you need a dedicated crane operator in addition to your four installers. The job hasn't changed, but it takes more and more bodies to perform it because the rules have changed.

Excellent post.

Thanks for taking the time to do that.
 
And keep in mind, those rules changed there are likely a good thing.
 
Some are good things, some aren't. The changes weren't made for safety, they were made to vitiate liability. I'd argue many changes have made the work less safe, but that's another rant.
 
Some are good things, some aren't. The changes weren't made for safety, they were made to vitiate liability. I'd argue many changes have made the work less safe, but that's another rant.
Fair enough!
 
My friends who live in Market Wharf are moving in September. That means this is probably the last time I will have a chance to enjoy their view, and share it with all of you. I wish it had been a less hazy day, but I still managed to get a number of decent shots I will share in the appropriate threads.

Taken Saturday:

1 - Market.JPG


1 - Market 2.JPG


1 - Market 3.JPG
 
Holy jumpin'! I didn't think they would assemble the frame works quite like that. And so high!
 
Finally nice to see some activity above street level. This project has been moving at a snail's pace.
 

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