: On-Site Building Construction

Management Level IV

MODULE TITLE: Managing Subordinates and

Equipment(CON BCM4 M10 1010)
Introduction
• Efficient and effective implementation of
construction projects require good management of
relationships for and among resources, activities
and stakeholders
• as applied to the context where such projects are
implemented. Materials, Money, Manpower and
Machineries (the 4 M’s) are usual resources
recognized in most literatures.
• However; Human, Physical, Financial, Institutional
and Information resources could best describe these
categories.
Why Construction Equipment / Plant
Management?
• One can state many reasons why construction
equipment or plant management is relevant for
the successful completion of a construction
project or in this specific case for the profession
construction technology and management.
These reasons can generally fall into four
major themes called Resources, Productivity /
Efficiency, Quality and Development demand
related issues.
 Resource
• A Construction project involves largely Human (Capacity
and Capability), Financial, Physical (Material, Equipment
and Plant), Institutional (Management and Production
Systems), and Information (Access and Availability)
resources together with the concepts of availability and
utilization of Time and Space.
• The integration of technology and management of each
individual resource and their combined outcomes are
necessary for the successful completion of a construction
work or service.
 Productivity / Efficiency
• Equipment or Plants are designed to replace
human resources where repeated activities are
mostly applicable to increase productivity or
efficiency. Productivity or efficiency can be defined
as the ratio of output to input. In addition, time
could be saved to decrease the production time
where time value of money can contribute to the
benefit of a completed project.
 Quality
• Use of Construction equipment and plants often
give a harmonized and standardized output
against variations of quality that could be
achieved among different skilled manpower.
Besides, technological advancement has
brought an enhancement of quality products
using such equipment and plants. Therefore,
use of equipment and plants increased the
quality of materials, components and the whole
product of a construction process
Construction Equipment
Management
• Construction Equipment Management can be referred as the
planning, implementation and monitoring of construction
equipments to:
• enhance their optimum utilization as a resource,
• increase their efficiency or productivity of inputs to or
products of the construction process,
• harmonize, standardize and enhance quality of their outputs
for inputs or as a final product in the construction process; and
• invent or advance for the demand of PEST.
• As a result, several construction equipments are available for
the construction
Equipment Types and their Productivity

• Equipment types used in a construction

project is largely dependent on their
 direct input to unit prices or not,
type of work or trades,
 scope of work,
 mobility,
 system of control, and
availability.
• equipment types based on their direct input to unit prices
into two major categories. These are
1. Productive
productive equipment as units that alone or in combination
lead to an end product which can be recognized as a unit
for payment e.g. pavers, haulers, loaders, rollers
2. Support Equipments.
• While they defined; they ascribed support equipments to
those equipments which are required for operations related
to the placement of construction such as movement of
personnel and materials, and activities that influence the
placement of environment. e.g. hoists, lighting sets,
vibrators, scaffolds and
• heaters
based on type of work or trades whether the construction is
a heavy or light construction works or services.
Generally, Road and Hydro Power Works, Large irrigation
schemes, Water supply and Sewerage plants and High rise
buildings are categorized as heavy constructions because they
involve large quantities of fluid or semi-fluid materials such as
earth, concrete, asphalt to be moved, sprayed and placed
requiring use of large equipments. Such construction works are
called equipment intensive to refer to usage of heavy
construction equipments.
• Low rise buildings, water supply and sewerage lines, electric
and telecommunication lines and small irrigation schemes can
be categorized as light construction where few use of
equipments could be employed and largely focusing on tool
utilizations and hence are called labor intensive construction
works or services.
• three major classifications of equipments largely based
on trades of works involved include Earth Works
Equipments, Hauling and Hoisting Equipments and
Asphalt and Concrete works Equipments
Earth Works Equipments Bulldozers, Shovels,
Clamshells and Draglines, Dredgers, Loaders,
Graders, Rippers and Scrappers, Rollers, Drills,
Blasting, Grouting Pumps, Pile Driving and Hammers.
Hauling and Hoisting Equipments Tractors, Normal
and Dump Trucks, Hoists, Jacks, Conveyors and
Cranes.
Asphalt and Concrete works equipments Crushers,
Mixers, Pumping, Vibrators, Tar Mixing, Pavers and
Watering
Earth Works Equipments
Earth Works Equipments
• Earthwork Equipments: These equipments are mainly
used to cut, fill, compact, drill and blast earth, rocks
and any removable thing than to move them to a
certain distance.
• a bulldozer possesses three main parts: a tractor, a
blade and a cutting edge. The tractor is the main
power which has blade for pushing, shearing, cutting,
rolling materials ahead of the dozers. Blades are of
different types: Straight, Angle, Universal and
Cushion blades
• Three kinds of movements are possible with the blade;
that is, Tilting, Pitching and Angling.
• Factors that affect dozer productivity are blade type,
type and condition of material and cyclic time.
• Shovels are equipments used for excavating (hard digging) all
classes of earth except solid rocks. It can also be used for
loading haul units. Shovels can be front shovels or back
shovels. Back shovels are often refereed as Back hoes. While
front shovels are used to excavate earth above ground level;
Back hoes are naturally used to dig below its ground level. The
optimum depth of cut for a back hoe is usually in the range of
30 to 60% of the machines maximum digging depth.
• The basic parts of a shovel include the mounting, the cab, the
boom, the stick and the bucket It is capable of producing
high breakout force with its bucket if the material will stand as
a vertical bank. Most shovels are crawler mounted and have
very slow travel speed. Its size is expressed by the size of the
bucket.
• Loaders are used both to excavate (at or above
wheel/track level) and transport bulk materials to load
trucks. They can either be crawler or wheel tractor
mounted attached with a shovel type bucket and a
forklift. They possess up to 40o articulated swing
angle both to the right and left.
• Graders are multipurpose machines used for
finishing, shaping, bank sloping and ditching. They
are also used for mixing, spreading, side casting,
leveling and crowning, light striping operations,
general construction and drift road maintenance A
grader’s primary work is cutting and moving materials
with the blade often called moldboard. It is restricted
to make shallow cuts and ditches in a medium hard
earth conditions and should not be used for heavy
excavation works. Graders can work on embankment
cutting up to a slope of 3:1. Graders are often
mounted with scarifier, light-weight rear mounted
rippers and the mold board/blade.
Graders
• Rollers are used for earth compactions to increase
its density. Plain steel, vibrating, tamping,
pneumatic rollers are some examples. They can be
either manually or mechanically or electrically
operated.
Hauling & Hoisting Equipments: Such
equipments are used to transport materials for
relatively longer distances. Tractors, Trucks,
Conveyor belts are some examples. This part
covers only Dump Truck hauling Equipments.
Dump Trucks: They are hauling equipments
with a provision for either rear or bottom or
side dumping of their loads operated by either
rigid or articulated frames for dumping
Dump Trucks
Concrete & Asphalt Works Equipment
• Both concrete & asphalt works use crushers for their
aggregate productions. Often such productions are carried
out in Aggregate Production plants. As a result, Crushers are
preferred to be covered in Construction Plant Management
• Concrete works involve six operational activities. These are
batching the materials, mixing, transporting, placing,
consolidating, finishing and curing works.
• Asphalt works are also involved in several operations which
require equipments. These include Milling machines
removing an old asphalt pavement, Sweeper/Brooms for
removing dust, Hauling trucks, Asphalt distributor for
applying primer tack and seal coats, pavers and rollers. Here
only mixers, vibrators and pavers are included
• Mixing is of three types: Central, Transit and On-Site
mixing. The central and transit mixing is called the
batching plant hence its appropriate place to deal with
is once again in Construction Plant Management
Transit mixing is also strongly associated with Central
mixing. Therefore, here only On-Site mixing is
covered.
• On-Site Mixers are construction equipments which
help to mix the different components of a concrete
(aggregates, sand, cement, water and if necessary
additives) using a combination of elctro-mechanical
system. On-Site Mixers vary in capacity and smaller
once are fed with their components manually. This
type of mixers dominates in most developing countries
building construction works.
Vibrators are used to consolidate concrete because
concrete as a heterogeneous mixture of water and solid
particles in a stiff condition, it will normally possess a
large amount of voids when placed. These voids will be
filled with entrapped air and are not good for the
workability of the concrete therefore they need to be
out. One way to get out such entrapped air is by
compacting or consolidating concrete using vibrators.
Vibrators can be of internal, surface and form vibrators
which are operated by electro – or compressed air and
mechanical systems. Internal or Spud vibrators have
often a rotary vibrating casing or head that is immersed
into the concrete and vibrate the concrete at a high
frequency (10,000 – 15,000 vibrations per minutes).
• Internal vibrators are best suited for ordinary
construction with large sections enabling
insertion of the vibrator head one and half times
so that its effective radius of action is achieved.
Vibrators are not used to move concrete
laterally because they will cause segregation of
aggregates hence they need to be inserted as
rapidly aspossible. To decrease the effect of
over-vibration, the operator should cease his
Equipment Access & Costs
• Equipment Access: There are three basic ways of
securing construction equipments. These are Buying
(direct Ownership), Renting or Leasing
Direct Ownership has the advantage of guarantying use
and control of equipment when ever demanded but
requires continuity of work for it to payback its cost
because such equipments are very expensive. Beside, their
maintenance services require adequate attention. If a
construction company foresees the use of construction
equipment continuously, direct ownership will bring down
its competitive cost of bidding to increase the chance of
acquiring/winning projects.
• Rental Services are short term provisions of
construction equipments from renting
organizations for the purpose at hand. This is
particularly advantageous if the job is of short
duration and a construction company do not
foresees continuity of similar works.
Companies can also use rental services for
testing and selecting construction equipments
before direct ownership. Rental charges are
higher than normal direct ownership expenses.
Besides, there could be shortage during peak
work seasons. Responsibility for maintenance
is indicated in the rental contract.
• Lease Services are long term agreement for the use
of construction equipments. This is an alternative to
direct ownership where the leasing company owns
the equipment for the agreed time and the lessee
(user) pays the owner to use the equipment. Lease
contracts clearly state the responsibility of the two
parties including the management and servicing of
the equipments.
• Lease rates are applied mainly to recover the capital
costs of the equipment for its periodic replacement
plus overhead and profit if servicing of equipment
lies on the lessee partner. For rental and leasing
system, there is what we call Equipment Pool
System.
Equipment Costs:
• The three major issues related to equipment costs are:
1. The Optimum economical Life Time;
2. The optimum way to secure a construction equipment, that
is; the cost of either Owning (Capital Cost) or Renting or
Leasing of a construction equipment; and
3. The cost of Operation.
• Generally, Equipment costs are divided into two major parts.
These are:
 Accessing or Availing Costs (Owning, or Renting, or
Leasing Costs),
Operating Costs, and
 Overhead and Markup Costs.
 Ownership Costs
• Cash flows for
Purchase expenses,
Salvage Value (SV),
Tax savings from depreciation,
 Major repair and Overhauls,
 Insurance,
 Interest and Tax Costs, and
Storage and Miscellaneous expenses for
construction equipment constitute the
significant components of Ownership costs.
The purchase expenses include the price of the
equipment, its shipping or other forms of transporting
services and necessary custom taxes to own it.
Salvage Value is revenue shown as cash inflow of
equipments if they have value at any time of their
transfer of ownership or their disposal. Machines
that wear out and posses few secondary uses could be
grouped as low salvage value equipments.
Tax savings from depreciations can only be applicable
if only the company who owns the equipment is
profitable. There is a possibility to carry over to years
where such profitability occurs. Depreciation is a
legitimate cost of business that recognizes the loss in
value of equipment over time.
• the three major factors used to compute tax savings from
depreciations are initial cost or basis, service life in years and their
salvage or residual values
Straight Line Method: It is called a linear method that allocates
depreciation values of equipment uniformly along its service years.
Accelerated Methods: In these methods, large amounts of
depreciations are considered during the early years of the
equipment life. Two methods can be considered for accelerated
depreciations approaches. These are Declining Balance and Sum of
Years Digit Methods.
Production Method: Depreciation in this method accounts for the
number of hours the equipment was in use for a given year.
Therefore, the asset’s cost is recovered and prorated using a per-
unit-of-output basis
Major Repairs and Overhauls are included under
ownership cost because they are meant for increasing the
service life of equipments. These costs are additional to
initial investment costs and shall be considered expenses
at the time of their investment to be added on the Book
values to be depreciated.
Storage and Miscellaneous Expenses Equipments
require storage and other miscellaneous costs due to bad
weather, in between job times and their breakdown for
maintenance. These demand storage places either
through self ownership or space rental services and other
subsequent utilities together with wages for operators or
guards
Operation Costs
• Typical expenses during equipment operations
are Fuel, Oil and Grease (FOG) costs, Normal
Repairs and Tire and High Wear Items
Replacement Costs.
• Either manufacturers’ or good service records
could be used to estimate hourly FOG
expenses of equipments. Besides, routine
maintenance, servicing and tires and high wear
replacement parts such as blades, bucket teeth,
ripper tips, and cutting edges can also be
estimated per working hour
Overhead and Markup Costs

• In addition to the direct costs of ownership and

operation, general overhead costs constituted
Equipment costs, These costs are associated
with wages of mechanics and supervisory
personnel’s, clerical and records services,
rental and amortization of maintenance
facilities. A markup or profit margins expressed
as percentage of total hourly operating costs is
also part of the Equipment costs.
 Implication for Construction Process
Management
• Construction Equipment Management is not restricted
to the Construction works implementation phase of the
construction process. It requires due attention during
the basic planning phase where major decision affecting
the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of the project is
made
• For instance, if one aimed to carry out a construction
project with out considering the equipment availability
during planning, the cost of the project will be high if
the contractor is faced with scarcity of equipments
during construction.
Early planning which helps in appropriate selection of equipment
based on their suitability and productivity for the proposed
operation
• A better management of its resources for the client,
• A better relationship with the contracting stakeholders,
• A better design and supervisory position for the consultant,
• A comparative advantage for contractors to win tenders with
reasonable cost and acquiring good volume of work sustainably,
• A good ground for appropriate labor, Equipment and financial
resources programming for identified trades of works, and
• A good ground for appropriate contract administration services.
Construction Plant Management
Plant Types and their Productivity
• Usually acknowledged plant types are
construction plants for aggregate production,
asphalt mix production and concrete batching
plants. Aggregate Production Plants: Aggregates
are used for concrete and Asphalt or Asphalt
Concrete pavement works. Since such materials
require quarries where abundant row materials
exist, their production requires a special place than
the construction site. Generally it involves five
functions:
1) Selecting appropriate site and its organization
2) Producing different particle sizes – Crushing
3) Separating or Screening into the different sizes
(particle size ranges)
4) Washing to eliminate undesirable materials, and
5) Storage and Transport of aggregates to the construction
size.
• In order to carry out these functions, aggregate plants
use the following construction equipments: Drilling and
Blasting equipments, Crushers, Revolving or Vibrating
Screen box, Log Washers, Dozers, Shovels, Loaders and
Trucks. Among these, this part covers only crushers.
• Crushing requires several iterations to reach to the
intended particular sizes. If a single step with a
large amount of energy is applied, excessive fines
are generated which results into much wastages.
As a result, crushing plants use step production to
produce the required size successively by using
primary, secondary, tertiary, etc crushing system.
• Different types of crushers (Jaw, Gyratory, Roll,
Impact, and Specialty Crushers) use different
number of iterations to produce different reduction
ratio ranges
 Types of crushers
Crusher types Reduction ratio Use
range
Jaw
All types 4:1 – 9:1 Primary
Gyrator
True 3.1-10.1 Primary
Cone Secondary or Tertiary
Roll
Compression Tertiary or more
Single roll Max 7:1
Double roll Max 3:1
Impact
Single & Double rotor Max 15:1
Hammer mill Max 20:1
Jaw crushers and True Gyratories are typically
employed as primary units because of their
large energy storing fly wheels and high
mechanical advantage. The latter is also
handling slabby materials.
Roll, Impact and other types of Gyrator
crushers are used for secondary and tertiary
applications. The capacity of roll crushers vary
with the type of stone, size of fed stone with
their feeding rate, required finished particle
size, width of rolls and their rotation speed
• In selecting crushers, the following five
factors can be considered:
1) Crushed stone type
2) Required plant capacity
3) Maximum feed stone size
4) Required product size.
5) Feeding method
Asphalt Mix Production Plants:
• Hot mixed asphalt is produced at a central plant and
transported to the paving site with trucks. There are two
kinds of asphalt plants; Batch and/or Drum plants. While
Batch plants use individual batches to proportionally mix
liquid asphalt and aggregates; Drum plants uses both the
aggregate drying and the mixing functions in combination in
a single drum.
• Asphalt plants carry out uniform blending, heating and
mixing the necessary materials in order to produce asphalt
or asphalt concrete. The most important issue with regard to
asphalt plants are their air emissions concentrated to a
particular area such that their environmental impact could be
kept to a minimum level. Drum plants are newer in
technology and are more recommended since the 1970s.
Therefore, this competency covers only Drum mix Asphalt
plants.
• The primary components of a drum mix asphalt plant are:
A. Cold feed system
B. Asphalt handling system
C. Drying and Mixing drum
D. Dust collector and
E. Storage silo
• Cold feed systems consist of three to six open bins where the
different size of aggregates is fed to the drying drum. The
asphalt handling system is used to store in a heated tank
separately which is ready to be pumped into the mixing drum.
The mixing is then performed within the drum and the final
mix is discharged directly into the storage silo for subsequent
dispatches into transporting trucks. To avoid air pollution,
asphalt plants are equipped with dust collector systems.
 MIXING CONCRETE
 
 

There  are  two  types  of  concrete‐mixing  operations  in  use: 

(1)  transit  mixing  and 
(2)  central  mixing 
Today,  unless  the  project  is  in  a  remote  location  or  is  relatively 
large,  the  concrete  is  batched  in  a  central  batch  plant  and 
transported  to  the  job  site  in  transit‐
mix trucks, often referred to as ready‐mixed concrete 
trucks   This  type of concrete is controlled by ASTM specification C94. 
 Central‐Mixed
Concrete
This is concrete mixed completely in a
stationary mixer and transported to the project
in either a truck agitator, a truck mixer
operating at agitating speed, or a nonagitating
truck.
 PLACING CONCRETE
 Buckets
 Manual or Motor‐Propelled Buggies
 Chutes and Drop Pipes
CONCRETE PUMPS
The placement of concrete through rigid or flexible lines is not
new. However, pumping was not used extensively until the 1930s
when German pumping equipment was introduced in this country.
Pumps require a steady supply of pumpable concrete to be
effective. Today
there are three types of pumps being manufactured:
(1) Piston pumps ,
(2) Pneumatic pumps, and
(3) Squeeze pressure pumps.

Pumps can be mounted on trucks trailers or skids The truck mounted

pumptrucks, trailers,skids.truck‐mounted and boom combination is particularly
efficient and cost‐effective in saving labor and eliminating the need for
pipelines to transport the concrete.
Implication for Construction Process
Management

• Construction Plant Management is not restricted

to the Construction works implementation phase
of the construction process. It requires due
attention during the basic planning phase where
major decision affecting the efficiency,
effectiveness and impact of the project is made .
It is very cost extensive and transportation of the
product does also need special care. It can be
considered as a supplying industry where the
aggregates, asphalt and concrete mixes are
purchased off shelf.
Construction Equipment / Plant
Management in Ethiopia
Historical Perspectives
• Construction works, though vary among its
types, over development periods replaced use of
manpower by equipments and at the same time
considerable consumptions such as selected
materials, crushed stones (gravels), asphalt and
concrete are considered for mass production at a
plant level.
 Construction Equipment Management in Ethiopia

• It is well known that high rise buildng works, building works

involving prefab components and steel structures form building
infrastructures; road, water works and other heavy construction
requires heavy equipments. In Ethiopia, the first construction
equipment was a steam operated roller by the then majesty in
1912. This was further introduced by foreign construction
compan ies’ involvement in the road sector since 1934.
• After Italian invasion, some rollers and small scale stone
crushers were left for use in the construction industry. Further to
this, WB loan was also used to procure construction equipments
which were operated by foreign skilled operators.
• A training center under the Ethiopian Road Authority
was established in 1964 which included equipment
operators training as well. This training center remained
the only training center for equipment operators so far.
• Except for enhancing efficiency of equipment
operations, a comprehensive study and management
that includes its consideration during planning and its
appropriate selection for efficiency and effectiveness
has not been addressed before
• the first Equipment Management System manual by
ERA and Roy Jorgensen Associates of Canada, LTD in
1981.
• After the establishment of BaTCDA in 1987; cost
break down including equipment cost estimation
and licensing requirements to each grade of
contractors for their minimum equipment owning
were also one input for equipment management
development in Ethiopia.
• Construction equipments licensing have been started
recently after the establishment of a department
under the then MoUD and now CDSO of the MOI.
This department registers equipments and provide
plates for them. This has been seen a good service to
contractors so that their ability to get credit and
other bank and insurance benefits by using such
equipments as collaterals.
• The problem with regard to construction
equipment in Ethiopia are generally that:
 Most of them are old,
Leasing and Renting possibilities are rare,
They are capital extensive for most contractors
in which they could create considerable cash
flow problems if unwisely owned for only
license upgrading systems
In ability to choose the right equipment for
spare part services, and
Lack of skilled equipment operators.
Recent Trends
• Both equipment and plant management in Ethiopia
are not well organized and faced with higher
pressure for their development. One contribution
was involvement of foreign construction
companies and technical assistances with this
regard which are vital for skill, technology and
knowledge transfer.
• In addition, the development of private
construction companies over time together with
the government incentive provisions helped to
develop their ability to own construction
equipments.
Any
question ????