Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management

Development of waste occurrence level indicator in Vietnam construction industry

Ha Duy Khanh Soo Yong Kim
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To cite this document:
Ha Duy Khanh Soo Yong Kim , (2015),"Development of waste occurrence level indicator in Vietnam construction industry",
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management , Vol. 22 Iss 6 pp. -
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 Development of waste occurrence level indicator in Vietnam construction
industry

Introduction

According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (2011), industry and construction are the
largest economic activity group that accounted for 41.1% of GDP. It can be easily seen that this is
because Vietnam is a developing country. Many construction projects were built to meet the growing
needs of population and economics in last two decades. Similar to other countries, especially
developing countries, the construction industry in Vietnam has also coped with many problems during
performance such as low productivity (Ho et al., 2007), lack of supply capacity (Luu et al., 2008), and
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low technological innovation (Nguyen et al., 2009). Koskela (1993) indicated that poor safety,
insufficient quality, lack of skilled workers, inferior working conditions, and defective design cause a
considerable waste for construction projects. These wastes have reduced success of project; thus they
need to be removed during construction (Khanh, 2011). In reality, while a few construction companies
have begun to look into waste reduction problems by employing new concepts and techniques in lean
production to improve performance processes, most companies have not concentrated on these
problems yet (Ramaswamy and Kalidindi, 2009).
The philosophies of lean production in construction initiated by the International Group for Lean
Construction (IGLC) have been adopted to define and classify the problems of wastes in recent years.
Basically, Koskela (1992) defined waste as the implementation of needless works that create extra
expenses but do not put value in the product. Formoso et al. (2002) stated that evaluation of waste is
one of useful approaches to review the performance of production systems because it indicates
domains of prospective improvement and main reasons of inefficiency. Ramaswamy and Kalidindi
(2009) indicated that each country has a different magnitude of wastes in construction. Unfortunately,
Khanh (2011) concluded that waste has harmful impact on project efficiency, but very few studies have
been carried out to investigate it in construction processes in developing countries.
Measuring level of waste is also the good way to assess the performance for construction projects,
and some corrective actions can be then proposed through finding its causes (Khanh, 2011). Because
every project is unique in terms of design specification, delivery methods, administration, and
participants, evaluation of performance has been a challenge for the construction industry for several
decades (Luu et al., 2008). However, the wastes related to poor performance have not been well
perceived by project managers (Khanh and Kim, 2014a). In addition, Alwi (2002) stressed that there
was even no appropriate method developed to evaluate incidence of waste. This is possibly because the
new waste concepts are also related to time (idle, waiting, transport, etc.), hence it is most unlikely to
measure exactly waste happened during construction. Even the professionals in the construction
industry have tended to accept a permissible level of wastes in their construction site. Because of this
acceptance, no positive solutions have been proposed to reduce or eliminate them (Ramaswamy and
Kalidindi, 2009). However, Forsberg and Saukkoriipi (2007) generally claimed that two main methods
for minimizing production cost include increase of productivity and reduction of waste.
Based on above discussion, this research focuses on the following objectives: (1) identifying the
mean value of frequency of waste occurrence according to respondents’ characteristics; (2) identifying
the main predictive factors for waste occurrence based on latent relationships between initial waste
factors; and (3) identifying the waste occurrence level indicator (WOLI) for the construction industry
based on the main waste measurement factors. This paper presents a part of results developed in the
previous research, which has examined perception and control of waste, frequency of waste occurrence,
and causes of waste (Khanh and Kim, 2014a).

1
 Literature review

Under the philosophy of lean manufacturing of Toyota production system (TPS) in 1980s, waste
includes three types: (1) Muda (also known as the seven wastes); (2) Mura; and (3) Muri. Muda is
defined as any activity or process that does not add value to product, i.e., transport, inventory, motion,
waiting, overproduction, over-processing, and defects (Ohno, 1988). Mura is defined as the waste of
unevenness or inconsistency, and it is the latent source of Muda. For example, failing to balance
between supply and demand causes the creation of inventory and other wastes. Muri is defined as the
waste of overburden and created by Mura. Some of causes make Muri in production such as lack of
training, unclear ways of working, or use of inappropriate tools (Womack and Jones, 2003). In recent
studies, wastes have been defined as “any inefficiency that results in the use of equipment, materials,
labor or capital in larger quantities than those considered as necessary in the production of a building”
(Koskela, 1992), or “any loss produced by activities that generate direct or indirect costs but do not
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add any value to the product from the point of view of the client” (Formoso et al., 1999). In addition,
Formoso et al. (2002) stressed the need to consider a broader view of waste that is not only related to
materials but also related to other resources such as labor and equipment. Based on the possibility to
add value to product, Koskela (1992) classified construction activities into: (1) value-adding activities,
and (2) non value-adding activities (also called wastes).
Evidence for the loss due to waste of materials could be found from several past studies. Formoso
et al. (2002) showed that professionals in the construction industry perceived the wastes as only the
debris removed from the site activities. In addition, Pheng and Tan (1998) defined that waste in
construction is the difference between the value of materials delivered and accepted on site and
materials used properly as specified and accurately measured in the work. Several previous studies
have been conducted to assess the incidence of wastes that are related to materials. Skoyles (1976)
claimed that the amount of waste measured in UK construction industry varied from 2% to 15% in
relation to amount of materials defined by design. In addition, Bossink and Brouwers (1996) indicated
that 9% of total purchased materials end up as waste, and 1-10% of every purchased construction
material leaves the site as solid waste in the Dutch construction industry. Because materials often
account for 50-60% of a construction project cost, any improvement for avoiding material waste
results in major cost savings (Wong and Norman, 1997). It could be concluded that wastes in
construction were mainly defined as items related to materials.
As previously stated, waste is also derived from time of working. Christian et al. (1995) indicated
that labors spend approximately 46% of working time for the value-adding activities, and remaining
54% for non value-adding activities from seven construction projects. Ciampa (1991) showed even
worse results that only 3-20% of steps add value to the completed works. Furthermore, Koskela (1992)
in United States revealed that cost of nonconformance counted for 12% of project costs. In addition,
Formoso et al. (2002) proved that the cost of waste was estimated to be 8% of total cost. Therefore,
reduction of non value-adding activities offers a major improvement potential for project profits. Most
recently, Khanh and Kim (2014b) claimed that the increase of project performance cost due to waste
factors is around 9.4% of total project cost.
According to previous studies, the wastes in construction production have been classified into three
groups involving nineteen factors as described in Figure 1 (Khanh and Kim, 2014b). They include: (1)
direct conversion wastes concerning manpower, materials and equipment; (2) non-contributory time
wastes concerning waiting, idle, and travelling; and (3) contributory time wastes concerning
supervision, inspection, transport, instruction, and communication (Koskela, 1993; Alarcon, 1994 &
1995; Serpell et al., 1995; Formoso et al., 1999 & 2002; Alwi, 2002).

<Insert Figure 1 here>

2
 Research methodology

Questionnaire design
A structured questionnaire was designed to examine the problems of waste in project performance.
It includes five sections: (1) waste recognition and control, (2) frequency of waste occurrence, (3)
level of impact on project performance cost, (4) causes of waste, and (5) personal information. In two
previous studies in Vietnam construction industry, waste factors under lean production concepts were
examined in terms of recognition, control ability, and causes (Khanh and Kim, 2014a); and level of
impact of waste on project (Khanh and Kim, 2014b). In this paper, data gathered according to section
II and V were analyzed to evaluate level of waste occurrence. For section II, the frequency method
was used to assess the occurrence probability of each waste factor on construction site. In this situation,
a five-point Likert scale was employed with values ranged from 1 for ‘never’ to 5 for ‘very frequently’.
The respondents were then asked to rate possible score for a given factor based on their experience.
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For section V, some questions related to respondent’s personal information were employed to discover
their characteristics.

Data collection
Data were gathered through the questionnaire and expert opinions in one month according to two
ways: (1) distribution by hand, and (2) electronic mail with an online survey link attached. The
personal information of respondents was also found through their company profile. The surveyed
population was professionals in Vietnam construction industry, i.e., project managers, site mangers,
team leaders, and site engineers. The non-probability sampling method was applied to collect data
because of several certain limitations and difficulties. The sampling strategy has focused on people
who play managerial role in construction projects, and people who have many years of experience in
construction field. The projects for sampling have been performing by construction firms in Ho Chi
Minh City, Vietnam. The result of data collection showed that out of 297 distributed questionnaires,
159 feedbacks were received from respondents. Among them, 128 responses were found to be usable.
As a result, the response rate of this study is 43%.
In order to check the internal consistency reliability of data, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient test has
been adopted in this study. The result of reliability analysis has shown that Cronbach's alpha
coefficient is 0.86. According to the commonly accepted rule of thumb, internal consistency is very
good when Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is between 0.8 and 0.9. Therefore, the collected data are
validity for carrying out the prospective analyses.

Analysis tools
Because the data sets are smaller than 2000, this research has adopted Shapiro-Wilk Test to check
assumption of normality. This is one of the important assumptions of ANOVA and Tukey HSD test.
ANOVA has been then used to analyze the difference between group means, and their associated trend
as well. Because multiple two-sample t-tests could result in an increased chance of committing a
statistical type I error, ANOVA is useful in testing three or more means for statistical significance. In
this study, there are three groups: (1) owner group, (2) consultant group, and (3) contractor (or
subcontractor) group. Because ANOVA test may reject the hypothesis that shows population groups
are equal (Lee et al., 2007), Tukey HSD post-hoc test (denoted as ‘d’) was employed to identify any
practical difference between two means that is greater than the expected standard error. This practical
difference is determined by dividing the mean differences of two particular parties in a group by their
pooled standard deviations. A cut-off value of 0.5 was used to accept or reject the hypothesis about
practical difference (Cohen, 1988).

3
 Factor analysis technique was employed to reduce the large numbers of waste factors into a smaller
set of manageable factors based on their latent relationship (Lee et al., 2007). Extraction method is
principal component analysis. Rotation method is Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Maximum
number of iteration for convergence of variable rotation is 100. Principal components are extracted
based on the criterion of factor loading greater than 0.5.

Analysis results

Respondents’ profile
Table 1 presents the summary of respondents’ information. Regarding to project party, 62% of
respondents are contractor or subcontractor, 18% of those are owner or owner’s representative, and
remaining 20% of those are consultant both in project design and management. Regarding position of
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work, 34% of respondents are project/ site manager, 29% of those are team leader (QA/QC, QS), and
remaining 37% of those are site engineer. The quite large proportion of top and functional managers
confirms better the reliability of collected data about waste problems on their construction sites.
Regarding number of years involved in construction field, 10% of respondents have less than or equal
to 3 years, 73% of those have between 3 and 6 years, 9% of those have between 6 and 9 years, and
remaining 8% of those have 9 years or more. It would be better if the percentage of respondents whose
experiences are 9 years or more could be increased. Regarding type of projects, 69% of respondents
involved in building projects, and remaining 31% of those involved in other projects. These results
demonstrate that gathered data are enough reliability for performing next analyses.

<Insert Table 1 here>

Results of normality test

Shapiro-Wilk test was performed to explore whether or not the gathered data exhibited an
assumption of normality. The hypothesis for this test could be stated as below:
• Null hypothesis (H0): The gathered data is normally distributed.
• Alternative hypothesis (HA ≠ H0): The gathered data is not normally distributed.
The results of the test at significance level of 0.05 are shown in Table 2. From the results, all p-
values are greater than 0.05; thus the alternative hypothesis is rejected. It is concluded that the gathered
data comes from a normal distribution.

<Insert Table 2 here>

Results of ANOVA test

Levene's test at significance level of 0.05 was employed to assess the equality of variances for a
waste factor calculated for four population categories. They are: project party, position of work, year of
experience, and project type. These four categories were selected because they are the basic personal
information about respondents and their project. The results of this test (see Table 3) showed that
approximately 80% of Levene's p-values are less than 0.05. It means that the obtained differences are
unlikely to have occurred with equal variances.
Test of consistency for all nineteen waste factors was performed through ANOVA test. The results
of this test are also shown in Table 3. Most of waste factors have no statistically significant differences
in mean between groups for four population categories because their ANOVA p-values are greater than

4
 0.05. These factors can be considered as possible waste factors for construction projects. In detail, all
nineteen waste factors have no statistically significant difference in mean in terms of project party;
whereas, there is one case of waste factors that has a statistically significant difference in terms of
position of work, i.e., item Q1 (p = 0.017). Similar to the position of work, there are two cases in terms
of year of experience, i.e., item Q12 (p = 0.043) and Q18 (p = 0.024), and there are also two cases in
terms of project type, i.e., item Q6 (p = 0.016) and Q10 (p = 0.018).

<Insert Table 3 here>

Multiple comparisons of Tukey HSD post-hoc test was then used to detect the practical differences
in mean for above items from ANOVA test that have no statistically significant difference. The results
(also shown in Table 3) indicated that no variables are eliminated based on the statistical (p < 0.05) and
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practical (d > 0.5) significant criteria in any one of four selected population categories. In detail, d-
value is 0.39 for item Q1 in terms of position of work, 0.36 and 0.45 for item Q12 and Q18 in terms of
year of experience respectively, and 0.26 and 0.43 for item Q6 and Q10 in terms of project type
respectively. It is concluded that these five items can be also considered as possible waste factors in
construction projects. However, nineteen waste factors which were examined in this study are large to
be managed independently and efficiently. Therefore, another statistical tool, namely factor analysis,
has been adopted to reduce the measurable elements for waste occurrence.

Results of factor analysis

Nineteen numbers of waste measuring items were correlated before performing factor analysis.
Correlation result showed that there is no any correlation greater than 0.523, hence there is no problem
of multi-colinearity (Field, 2005). The nineteen items were then inter-correlated with principal
component method and rotated to form a simple structure by Varimax method. Variables found to be
having factor loadings less than 0.5 and cross-loadings less than 0.1 were deleted from the final factor
results. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of 0.851 is found to be greater than 0.7, which means
the data set is likely to factor well. The Barlett’s test of sphericity having significance at 0.000 rejects
the hypothesis (at p < 0.001) that the correlation matrix is an identity matrix without significant
correlations between variables. Both diagnostic tests confirm that the data were suitable for factor
analysis. Based on Kaiser’s criterion (eigenvalue more than 1.0), five numbers of factors were
revealed as provided in Table 4. These five factors represent 56.7% of total variance.

<Insert Table 4 here>

The variables comprised in one factor component with factor loadings, communities (h2),
eigenvalue and variance are also shown in Table 4. Out of original nineteen variables used to factorize,
five items did not qualify in final factor loading matrix due to either factor loading value is less than
0.5 or cross loading value is less than 0.1. According to this table, communities of all elements are
greater than 0.5, and they were extracted by the small cross loadings less than 0.1. These provide
evidence of good convergent and validity. Thus, these five components are termed as waste measuring
instrument, and have been defined as the key waste predictive factors (KWPFs). Each of these KWPFs
will be interpreted and discussed below.
KWPF1: This component includes seven initial factors, which are mainly related to the activities
of contractor. Waiting for others to complete their works is a kind of non-contributory time wastes
under the recognition of lean production. In construction project, activities are planned according to
their precedence and resource constraints. If an activity is not finished as planned, a next rearward
activity cannot be started. Waiting for equipment, materials and skilled workers to be delivered on site

5
 are the most common problem in construction projects in Vietnam. This is mainly due to poor supply
plan between contractors/ subcontractors with suppliers. Normally, suppliers involve in project to
provide equipment and/or materials with reasonable price, and propose an appropriate method to
construct them on site as well. However, the schedule for delivering those equipment and materials to
site is often delayed because it is affected by many unforeseeable causes during construction such as
inflation, owner-related design changes, poor communication between parties, lack of traffic
investigation, and shortage of raw materials. Materials are often damaged or lost from site during
construction period. This is due to poor material protection system by contractor or subcontractors.
Construction project often requires a large number of materials and labors. Many of materials are very
easy to be broken if having no careful storage. One of contributory activities in construction projects is
supervision or inspection for the executing works. Professionals in construction industry have thought
that this activity is a required activity for doing the work. Thus, they have not recognized it as a waste
that needs to be reduced or eliminated under the viewpoint of lean production. Accordingly, this
component can be labeled as “Poor Resource Plan and Storage”.
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KWPF2: This component consists of four initial factors, which are mainly related to the
contractor’s resource distribution during construction phase. Traditionally, quantity of materials, labor
and equipment is defined based on drawings and specification for construction. A good resource plan
is a plan that help general contractor or subcontractors provide the required resources on time and with
exact quantity. Under the philosophies of lean production in construction, over-allocating resource is
considered as a waste because it leads to status of inventory, deterioration and mess on site.
Furthermore, unnecessary resources should be eliminated to reduce the cost for owner and contractor.
Poor management or errors during construction installation is a cause for over-allocation of resource.
This is an unavoidable phenomenon because there is no perfect method for construction of activities in
practice. Due to this interpretation, the component can be labeled as “Inefficient Resource Distribution
and Usage”.
KWPF3: This component comprises two initial factors, which are related to working procedures.
In the construction industry in Vietnam, unnecessary working procedures and protocols exist in the
current performance as an inherent characteristic. They often cause wastes in terms of cost and time
because they add no value to the final product. Therefore, many attempts on reducing them have been
made in practice to “lean” the performance processes. Lengthy or complex procedure of information
clarification and confirmation by client and consultants is one of evidence for excusable construction
delays of contractor. It is most likely to happen when there are errors or unclear information in design
drawings and specification. Because of this reason, the component can be labeled as “Inadequate
Working Procedure”.
KWPF4: This component involves two initial factors, which are related to time for communication
and transport on site. Both of them belong to contributory time waste group under classification of
lean production. Instruction and communication between engineers and workers is a needed action
before and during performance. At the same time, materials and equipment are provided so that the
work can be started. However, one of most common problems in construction projects is that time for
transporting these materials and equipment to the expected place is quite long due to tower crane’s bad
operation. In order to prevent this problem, the managers should make a suitable plan for distributing
materials to each worker team according to its priority. As a result, this component can be labeled as
“Poor Communication and Transport”.
KWPF5: This component only contains one initial factor, which is related to resting time of
workers. Lean production suggests that workflows are continuous. Consequentially, when workers
take rest, the workflow is likely to be interrupted. One of most used methods to prevent this
interruption is working in shifts (or hours). Moreover, dividing the work logically is a good way to
reduce the stresses for workers, thus the production efficiency may be increased. Based on the
discussion, this component can be labeled as “Worker’s Rest”.

Evaluation of waste occurrence

6
 Based on the results of factor analysis, the waste level of the construction industry can be
qualitatively evaluated. There are five components extracted as key waste factors. Results of
correlation analysis for these five components are shown in Table 5. It indicates that there is
significant positive correlation between them. Correlation strength has been adopted to define the
individual weight of principal components. Rationale to employ correlation coefficient as a weighting
criterion is that a more correlative power of a factor has the highest effect to the overall level of waste.
Weight of each component is calculated by dividing its value of correlation coefficient by total value
of all coefficients as illustrated in Table 6. An evaluation formula created from five KWPFs and their
weight indices is then written as follows:
Waste Occurrence Index = 0.218KWPF1 + 0.205KWPF2 + 0.214KWPF3
+ 0.211KWPF4 + 0.152KWPF5
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<Insert Table 5 and Table 6 here>

All the five components are self-explanatory criteria of waste evaluation. The weight of elements in
each component has been defined based on loading results as shown in Table 7.

<Insert Table 7 here>

In order to avoid assessors from coming up with their own interpretation for the KWPF criteria,
sixteen elements pertinent to the KWPF have been proposed. Predicting power of each element of
components, here it is defined as Waste Occurrence Level Indicators (WOLI), was determined
according to the element’s loading proportion in a particular factor. The criterion used in this study to
assess the practical level of waste occurrence is: (1) very low (0-20), (2) fairly low (21-40), (3)
moderate (41-60), (4) fairly high (61-80), and (5) very high (81-100). The results of WOLI weightings
and nature of measurement are given in Table 8. This waste occurrence evaluation sheet could be
applied in real construction field of any contractor.

<Insert Table 8 here>

Discussion on waste problems

The results of analysis have confirmed that frequency of occurrence of wastes is fairly high in the
construction industry. However, these wastes are not well perceived and controlled by professionals
during performance of project because the concept of waste under lean production philosophies is very
extensive (Khanh, 2011). Among them, wastes related to materials are predictable and avoidable
(Formoso et al., 2002), and wastes related to time and efforts to finish the work are very hard to
measure because people on site often do not care about them (Khanh, 2011). The fact that most
construction firms were unaware of the magnitude of waste at their sites points out a lack of
transparency in the performance of their production systems (Greif, 1991). Indeed, very few of
construction projects had well prepared plans, specification, drawings and resource before and during
performance. As a result, this has caused a considerable waste for project after completion.
Measurement of waste leads to facts that can be used when a company, an industry or the entire
society decides how to render activities more effective (Forsberg and Saukkoriipi, 2007). In fact, the
occurrence of waste is usually the results of a combination of factors rather than originated by an
isolated incident (Skoyles, 1976). Every waste seems to have a latent relationship with other wastes,
7
 thus the occurrence of this waste will, either directly or indirectly, cause the occurrence of other wastes.
For instance, the late in delivering the materials on site tends to cause the situation of workers’ idle.
The good way to prevent the occurrence of wastes is based on the elimination of their causes (Khanh
and Kim, 2014a). Evidence from previous studies has shown that most causes of waste are related to
weakness of the administration system and are not intrinsic to the technology adopted in Brazilian
construction industry (Formoso et al., 2002). In addition, Khanh and Kim (2014a) have also indicated
that management-related causes are the main causes of waste in construction projects in Vietnam. Two
of them are poor planning and lack of project control during construction.
Waste is considered as an accepted phenomenon in planning and controlling project production on
site because the initial information in production plans also includes non-value adding activities
(Koskenvesa et al., 2010). Alsehaimi et al. (2013) indicated that delays in the delivery of materials
(Q11, Q12), damage to urgently needed materials (Q6), and late procurement are related to poor
planning and management system in developing countries. Unfortunately, poor planning and control is
the most important cause for waste occurrence in construction projects (Khanh and Kim, 2014a). Thus,
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it can be concluded that the quality of planning and management has a strong relationship to project
performance efficiency.
In reality, professionals in the construction industry have often paid much attention to wastes of
material (Khanh and Kim, 2014a). Unfortunately, Ramaswamy and Kalidindi (2009) have shown that
waste due to non value-added activities by labor and equipment was much higher than material waste
generated in the sites. Much of these wastes seem to occur because of lack of coordination between
various parties on site, and changes of design leading to additional cost for the project (Garas et al.,
2001). However, managers were not much concerned about the determination of the level of wastes.
Instead of this, they usually compared the average productivity obtained from records on practical
performance against the productivity rate used for cost estimating (Formoso et al., 1999). As a
consequence, wastes have frequently occurred on site without any solution developed to reduce or
eliminate them.

Conclusions

Many past studies have tried to search for factors that influence the efficiency of project
performance throughout the world. One of them has been found to be factors related to material and
time waste. Among them, time waste has not been paid much attention by managers in the
construction industry. Because the new concept of waste is not only related to resource but also related
to time and efforts to complete the construction tasks, it is very difficult to quantify the percentage of
wastes in the total cost of project if having no clear strategy before construction. Compared with
previous studies, which have mainly focused on defining and classifying waste and its causes, the
major contribution of this study is that the level of waste occurrence was qualitatively evaluated based
on respondent’s experience.
Based on 128 data sets, nineteen waste factors that were collected from several previous studies
were used to examine waste occurrence level. The results of this study showed that frequency of waste
occurrence in construction projects in Vietnam is quite high. In addition, there was no statistically and
practically significant difference in mean for waste occurrence between respondent’s characteristics.
Based on factor analysis technique, there were five principal components extracted, namely ‘poor plan
and storage’, ‘inefficient resource distribution and usage’, ‘unnecessary working procedure’, ‘poor
communication and transport’, and ‘worker’s rest’, with 56.7% of total variance. These five
components have been regarded as key waste predictive factors for the construction industry. Finally,
the waste occurrence level indicator (WOLI) in the construction industry was defined as 61.55 per the
scale of 100. The evaluation sheet for WOLI was then proposed in this study, and it could be applied
for any construction firm in practice.

8
 Recommendation

The level of waste varies on each project according to its design and construction characteristics.
Practitioners should estimate level of waste suited with their distinct projects before construction.
Previous studies have shown that level of waste in construction projects will be reduced if their causes
are prevented. Thus, future studies should be conducted to examine the sources causing the waste
happened in the construction sites. Moreover, case studies about relationship between particular causes
and wastes should be performed to assess the current status of waste level. The strategies to reduce the
effect of waste on project performance can be then drawn based on their causes. By taking care of the
main causes of waste in present and future projects, the managers can control wastes well in their
performance processes. Therefore, a construction project can be achieved more success if all
employees know how to control completely the wastes in every activity on their site. Since then, the
profit of project may be increased through reducing or eliminating the wastes.
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In summary, the frequency of waste occurrence under the viewpoint of lean production has been
evaluated in this study. The results of analysis proved that the level of waste occurrence is quite high in
the Vietnam construction industry.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to express their gratitude to the reviewers for their valuable comments on the
manuscript. The authors are also very grateful to the respondents and experts from various construction
projects in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam for their help with this research.

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 Downloaded by Central Michigan University At 23:40 08 October 2015 (PT)

Figure1. Tree chart for waste factors in construction projects

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 Table 1. Summary of respondents profile
Category Frequency Percent
Party of projects 128 100
Owner 23 18
Consultant 26 20
Contractor (or subcontractor) 79 62
Position of work 128 100
Project/site manager 44 34
Team leaders (QA/QC, QS) 37 29
Site engineer 47 37
Number of years of experience 128 100
< 3 years 13 10
3-6 years 93 73
6-9 years 12 9
> 9 years 10 8
Type of projects 128 100
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Residential/ housing building projects 88 69

Others 40 31

Table 2. Results of normality test at significance level of 0.05

Shapiro-Wilk
No. Waste factors
Statistic df Sig.
Q1 Over-allocated/ unnecessary equipment on site 0.897 128 0.167
Q2 Over-allocated/ unnecessary materials on site 0.892 128 0.174
Q3 Over-allocated/ unnecessary workers on site 0.895 128 0.168
Q4 Unnecessary working procedures and protocols 0.906 128 0.171
Q5 Materials lost/ stolen from site during construction 0.864 128 0.182
period
Q6 Materials deteriorated/ damaged during 0.884 128 0.179
construction period
Q7 Mishandling or error in construction applications/ 0.873 128 0.164
installation
Q8 Materials for reworks/ repaired works/ defective 0.881 128 0.175
works
Q9 Accidents on site 0.894 128 0.167
Q10 Waiting for others to complete their works before 0.872 128 0.172
the proceeding works can be carried out
Q11 Waiting for equipment to be delivered on site 0.875 128 0.177
Q12 Waiting for materials to be delivered on site 0.881 128 0.181
Q13 Waiting for skilled workers to be provided on site 0.898 128 0.174
Q14 Waiting for the clarification and confirmation by 0.903 128 0.171
client and consultants
Q15 Time for reworks/ repaired works/ defective works 0.887 128 0.168
Q16 Time for workers’ rest during construction 0.903 128 0.185
Q17 Time for supervising and inspecting the 0.904 128 0.178
construction works
Q18 Time for instructions and communication between 0.878 128 0.162
engineers and workers
Q19 Time for transporting workers, equipment and 0.902 128 0.179
materials

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Table 3. P-value results of ANOVA and Levene's test at significance level of 0.05
Project party Position of work Year of experience Project type
No. Waste factors
ANOVA Levene ANOVA Levene ANOVA Levene ANOVA Levene
Q1 Over-allocated/ unnecessary equipment on site 0.325 0.000 0.017* 0.021 0.562 0.081 0.951 0.010
(d=0.39)
Q2 Over-allocated/ unnecessary materials on site 0.163 0.000 0.320 0.033 0.533 0.077 0.427 0.000
Q3 Over-allocated/ unnecessary workers on site 0.620 0.002 0.231 0.017 0.539 0.006 0.183 0.001
Q4 Unnecessary working procedures and protocols 0.663 0.040 0.205 0.061 0.919 0.017 0.760 0.047
Q5 Materials lost/ stolen from site during construction period 0.826 0.043 0.939 0.098 0.953 0.020 0.228 0.001
Q6 Materials deteriorated/ damaged during construction period 0.723 0.023 0.755 0.047 0.565 0.011 0.016* 0.000
(d=0.26)
Q7 Mishandling or error in construction applications/ installation 0.866 0.086 0.413 0.009 0.752 0.020 0.653 0.000
Q8 Materials for reworks/ repaired works/ defective works 0.815 0.004 0.923 0.041 0.618 0.011 0.960 0.081
Q9 Accidents on site 0.572 0.026 0.258 0.018 0.853 0.033 0.092 0.002
Q10 Waiting for others to complete their works before the 0.592 0.015 0.778 0.041 0.993 0.042 0.018* 0.000
proceeding works can be carried out (d=0.43)
Q11 Waiting for equipment to be delivered on site 0.181 0.031 0.625 0.020 0.372 0.193 0.357 0.206
Q12 Waiting for materials to be delivered on site 0.784 0.048 0.316 0.067 0.043* 0.005 0.478 0.021
(d=0.36)
Q13 Waiting for skilled workers to be provided on site 0.904 0.080 0.608 0.060 0.592 0.040 0.633 0.135
Q14 Waiting for the clarification and confirmation by client and 0.347 0.016 0.428 0.033 0.175 0.009 0.477 0.001
consultants
Q15 Time for reworks/ repaired works/ defective works 0.703 0.003 0.487 0.009 0.450 0.020 0.936 0.022
Q16 Time for workers’ rest during construction 0.576 0.044 0.993 0.044 0.682 0.035 0.937 0.021
Q17 Time for supervising and inspecting the construction works 0.237 0.007 0.270 0.026 0.674 0.032 0.822 0.041
Q18 Time for instructions and communication between engineers 0.625 0.059 0.280 0.009 0.024* 0.004 0.631 0.043
and workers (d=0.45)
Q19 Time for transporting workers, equipment and materials 0.472 0.000 0.156 0.516 0.103 0.005 0.361 0.020
Note: d > 0 indicates that difference in mean could be detected by Tukey HSD post-hoc test

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 Table 4. Results of factor analysis for waste occurrence
Factor Eigen Variance
SN No. Waste factors Component h2
loading value (%)
1 Q10 Waiting for others to complete their works KWPF1 0.705 29.48 17.38 0.53
before the proceeding works can be carried
out
2 Q11 Waiting for equipment to be delivered on site 0.651 0.59
3 Q6 Materials deteriorated/ damaged during 0.645 0.55
construction period
4 Q5 Materials lost/ stolen from site during 0.627 0.60
construction period
5 Q12 Waiting for materials to be delivered on site 0.589 0.61
6 Q13 Waiting for skilled workers to be provided 0.562 0.67
on site
7 Q17 Time for supervising and inspecting the 0.513 0.43
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construction works
8 Q2 Over-allocated/ unnecessary materials on site KWPF2 0.744 8.97 13.31 0.64
9 Q3 Over-allocated/ unnecessary workers on site 0.731 0.63
10 Q1 Over-allocated/ unnecessary equipment on 0.714 0.65
site
11 Q7 Mishandling or error in construction 0.505 0.64
applications/ installation
12 Q4 Unnecessary working procedures and KWPF3 0.760 6.81 9.30 0.52
protocols
13 Q14 Waiting for the clarification and 0.654 0.60
confirmation by client and consultants
14 Q18 Time for instructions and communication KWPF4 0.675 6.16 8.76 0.52
between engineers and workers
15 Q19 Time for transporting workers, equipment 0.607 0.52
and materials
16 Q16 Time for worker’s rest during construction KWPF5 0.771 5.33 8.00 0.62
Extraction method: principal component analysis
Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization
Rotation converged in 8 iterations
Q8, Q9 and Q15 are not extracted because its factor loading is less than 0.5

Table 5. Correlation coefficient of principal components

Component KWPF1 KWPF2 KWPF3 KWPF4 KWPF5
KWPF1 1.000 0.626 0.628 0.649 0.595
KWPF2 0.626 1.000 0.631 0.689 0.528
KWPF3 0.628 0.631 1.000 0.629 0.480
KWPF4 0.649 0.689 0.629 1.000 0.466
KWPF5 0.595 0.528 0.480 0.466 1.000
Correlation is significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed)

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 Table 6. Weight of principal components
Sum of Average
Component Weight
coefficient coefficient
KWPF1 3.498 0.700 0.218
KWPF2 3.474 0.695 0.205
KWPF3 3.368 0.674 0.214
KWPF4 3.433 0.687 0.211
KWPF5 3.069 0.614 0.152

Table 7. Weight of each element in principal components

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No. Waste factors Factor loading Eigenvalue

KWPF1 'Poor Resource Plan and Storage' 4.291 1.000
Q10 Waiting for others to complete their works before the proceeding works 0.705 0.164
can be carried out
Q11 Waiting for equipment to be delivered on site 0.651 0.152
Q6 Materials deteriorated/ damaged during construction period 0.645 0.150
Q5 Materials lost/ stolen from site during construction period 0.627 0.146
Q12 Waiting for materials to be delivered on site 0.589 0.137
Q13 Waiting for skilled workers to be provided on site 0.562 0.131
Q17 Time for supervising and inspecting the construction works 0.513 0.120
KWPF2 'Inefficient Resource Distribution and Usage' 2.694 1.000
Q2 Over-allocated/ unnecessary materials on site 0.744 0.276
Q3 Over-allocated/ unnecessary workers on site 0.731 0.271
Q1 Over-allocated/ unnecessary equipment on site 0.714 0.265
Q7 Mishandling or error in construction applications/ installation 0.505 0.188
KWPF3 'Inadequate Working Procedures' 1.414 1.000
Q4 Unnecessary working procedures and protocols 0.760 0.537
Q14 Waiting for the clarification and confirmation by client and consultants 0.654 0.463
KWPF4 'Poor Communication and Transport' 1.282 1.000
Q18 Time for instructions and communication between engineers and 0.675 0.527
workers
Q19 Time for transporting workers, equipment and materials 0.607 0.473
KWPF5 'Workers’ Rest' 0.771 1.000
Q16 Time for worker’s rest during construction 0.771 1.000

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Table 8. Evaluation sheet of waste occurrence level indicator (WOLI)

Field Field Overall
SN No. Principal components Weight evaluation score waste Remark
(0-100) (3)x(4) score
(0) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
KWPF1 'Poor Resource Plan and Storage' 0.218 - 64.54 14.07
1 Q10 Waiting for others to complete their works before the proceeding works can be carried out 0.164 62.04 10.17 Qualitative
2 Q11 Waiting for equipment to be delivered on site 0.152 63.12 9.59 Qualitative
3 Q6 Material deteriorated/ damaged during construction periods 0.150 66.40 9.96 Qualitative
4 Q5 Material lost/ stolen from site during construction periods 0.146 66.56 9.72 Qualitative
5 Q12 Waiting for materials to be delivered on site 0.137 65.00 8.91 Qualitative
6 Q13 Waiting for skilled workers to be provided on site 0.131 64.06 8.39 Qualitative
7 Q17 Time for supervising and inspecting the construction works 0.120 65.00 7.80 Qualitative
KWPF2 'Inefficient Resource Distribution and Usage' 0.205 - 59.60 12.22
1 Q2 Over-allocated/ unnecessary materials on site 0.276 58.78 16.22 Qualitative
2 Q3 Over-allocated/ unnecessary workers on site 0.271 58.44 15.84 Qualitative
3 Q1 Over-allocated/ unnecessary equipment on site 0.265 58.60 15.53 Qualitative
4 Q7 Mishandling or error in construction application/ installations 0.188 63.90 12.01 Qualitative
KWPF3 'Inadequate Working Procedure' 0.214 - 65.34 13.98
1 Q4 Unnecessary working procedures and protocols 0.537 64.54 34.66 Qualitative
2 Q14 Waiting for the clarification and confirmation by client and consultants 0.463 66.26 30.68 Qualitative
KWPF4 'Poor Communication and Transport' 0.211 - 59.70 12.60
1 Q18 Time for instructions and communication between engineers and workers 0.527 62.66 33.02 Qualitative
2 Q19 Time for transporting workers, equipment and materials 0.473 56.40 26.68 Qualitative
KWPF5 'Worker’s rest' 0.151 - 57.50 8.68
1 Q16 Time for workers’ rest during construction 1.000 57.50 57.50 Qualitative
GRAND TOTAL 61.55
REULTS Fairly high
Very low Fairly low Moderate Fairly high Very high Evaluated by:
Name:
Designation:
0 20 40 60 80 100 Organization name:
Date:
61.55 Comments:

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