Publicado em 29 de abril de 2015

Event carried out in April 8 included four lectures presented by experts dealing with different points that interfere directly in the productivity

Investments needed to reach a level of excellence in terms of productivity have to be continuous and not only related to critical situations. And these inputs have to involve the entire value chain and the whole life cycle of a real estate or infrastructure project. This was one of the conclusions of the Sobratema Workshop 2015, carried out in April 8 in São Paulo, with the participation of a high-qualified public composed by businessmen, managers, engineers, technicians, representatives of industry entities and professionals of contractors, rental companies and equipment manufacturers.

One of the points involved in the question of productivity is the improvement of the qualification level of labor in the construction industry. According to Rüdiger Leutz, CEO of Porsche Consulting Brasil, it has to be developed in a constant way during the entire professional life. “Collaborators have to speak the same language since they start in the corporation. They have to receive professional training and understand the philosophy and the values of the company. This means that the qualification process goes from the selection to the retirement, passing by the phases of integration, evaluation, talent management, increase in responsibility and promotions”, explained him.

According to data from IPEA – Instituto de Pesquisa e Economia Aplicada, the productivity of the Brazilian worker increased an average of 1.8 percent along the last 25 years. “This result is quite below that achieved by other countries, including some of Latin America such as Peru and Chile”, emphasized Jevandro Barros, director of IOPEX Brasil – Institute for Operational Excellence, who also was a lecturer in the Sobratema Workshop.

For Rüdiger Leutz, companies have to invest in their professionals to increase their technical skills, for example through specific courses and specializations. And the investment in labor understanding and motivation has also to be carried out to complete the challenge in labor productivity. According to a survey developed by Porsche Consulting, wages are important to maintain the motivation of the collaborator, but three other factors come first: experiences learned, activities developed and new opportunities.

In this sense, one of the challenges currently faced by construction is to motivate young people to work in this industry. Hugo Marques da Rosa, president of Método Potencial Engenharia remembered in his lecture carried out in the Sobratema Workshop 2015 that the industry was important in the fifties to absorb the labor that was coming from the field to the cities. And that it continues to play a vital social role in the development of national society and economy. In the last years, however, this reality was changed and other areas became more attractive to young people. 

Due to these reasons, the CEO of Porsche Consulting Brasil emphasized that the construction industry needs to communicate the benefits that young people may get when working in this area, their opportunities to acquire knowledge and experience and the policies of continuous investment to improve their skills. Companies need also inform that there is a continuous development in technology and innovation that changed worksite reality in the whole country. “We have to increase again the fascination of youth by the work in construction, which is an industry with a lot of possibilities and potentials”, ends him.

Método Potencial Engenharia, for example, has a Corporative University established with the purpose of encouraging the management of knowledge inside the company, generating opportunities of development for all collaborators. Structured in six schools, it offers 50 different courses, what corresponds to a total of 903 training hours.

Lean Construction and operational excellence

According to Hugo Rosa, the company is also concerned with the generation of a management culture based on process. In its program of trainees, for example, there is an evaluation about what is carried out inside the company, in a way to ensure zero waste of resources. All people involved in this program pass through a phase of formation, with training focused in the Lean Construction methodology. Each trainee is responsible by studying a subject using this method.

Método Potencial Engenharia also promotes meetings with current and former leaders of the company.

Lean Construction was pointed by Rüdiger Leutz, from Porsche Consulting Brasil, as the most appropriate methodology to reach a higher level of productivity in construction. It considers the process of value aggregation in the field as the main focus of the events, directing the improvements. “There are several types of waste that occur in a worksite. This does not happen only in Brazil, but in the whole world”, said him. An example shown by him is the reworking due to the repeated motion of equipment and material caused by bad organization of the worksite.

Jevandro Barros, CEO of IOPEX Brasil, took to the Sobratema Workshop 2015 some successful cases that occurred in Brazil based on Lean Construction and Operational Excellence. They used the methodology called “Integrated Management by Process”—that is part of the ®Ciclo GPPC of IOPEX—used to optimize from the process of management to the routine control, passing by the pulled planning and Takt (production pace)programming. Works presented were the Arena Manaus and the Metropolitan Hospital of Belo Horizonte, carried out by Andrade Gutierrez and the Metropolitan Arch of Rio de Janeiro, carried out by Carioca Christiani-Nielsen Engenharia. 

In the Metropolitan Arch, the implementation of the methodology “Takt Programming” resulted in improvement of productivity, time of execution and management, with an average reduction of 23 percent in time and cost development of works of art and an average increase of 35 percent in the productivity of direct labor in the fronts involved. According to Barros, innovative methodologies were installed to ensure results, labor qualification and sustainability.

Equipment and Mechanization

The Sobratema Workshop 2015 also brought subjects relative to equipment in construction. Equipment may achieve high productivity when a well-trained operator gets maximum efficiency in the operation. Afonso Mamede, president of Sobratema, emphasized the importance of third-part certification of operators and professionals of load handling and lifting and also of the yellow line. This process ensures the qualification of these professionals in the corresponding function. Due to an alliance between Instituto Opus and Abendi – Brazilian Association of Non-destructive Tests and Inspection, the third-part certification is based on thorough standards of certification, complying with the propositions of ISO 17024 standard.

In addition to operators’ qualification, Marcos Schmidt, product manager of the Construction Division of Atlas Copco Brasil pointed out the importance of planning for the correct selection of equipment in each kind of function, especially in the area of demolition. “There are several variables to be considered in the selection of equipment, such as  purpose, logistics, time of use, costs, safety and regulations”, says him. “Demolition is not carried out randomly, it is not empirical”, added him.

According to Schmidt, equipment and attachments used for demolition in the construction industry had a significant evolution during last years, including in complying with the related Standards and the National Policy of Solid Residues. “For large cities, where free spaces practically do not exist currently, demolition became indispensable. It is necessary to demolish to have construction to build”, said him.

To ensure a higher advancement to this area, Schmidt says that it would be necessary to overpass barriers of culture and knowledge, since there are many types of different equipment and attachments for hydraulic demolition, with important innovations and achievements in terms of noise and vibration. But they are almost not known in the market. “We have to spread more information about the development and evolution of this area”, emphasized him. “For example, people do not know how to perform depth measurements in these machines”, added him. In a hydraulic breaker, the power output (kW) is important to ensure productivity and cost reduction. In the hydraulic scissor, that has its use increasing in Brazil, other factors are important, such as, for example, speed and cutting power on its jaws.

At the end, Schmidt considers that the mechanization in the construction is an irreversible process not to replace work force but to give to civil construction options that may reduce the time of execution, increase the precision and ensure a high level of safety.