NON-VALUE ADDING ACTIVITIES IN SOUTH AFRICAN CONSTRUCTION: A RESEARCH AGENDA

The construction industry's importance to nation building, economic empowerment, and contributions to global commerce cannot be over emphasised. However, poor productivity, accidents, rework, time and cost overruns, and client dissatisfaction have characterised the industry performance in a multi-dimensional way. The central issue in this particular research is the seemingly inadequate achievement of optimum performance in the construction process, either with respect to value for money for the client and the entire construction supply chain or value in terms of the utility derived from built assets in spite of efforts by government and governmental bodies such as the Construction Industry Development Board (cidb) to increase industry performance. Therefore, based upon an extensive review of related literature, the paper reports on effects and causes of non-value adding activities in the construction industry in general, and South African construction in particular. The research findings indicate that activities that can be referred to as non-value activities are not only prevalent, but they can also be held responsible for performance related issues in terms of cost, time, quality and health and safety (H&S) in construction; and the exploration of pluralism in the research methodology may result in a robust model based upon the system dynamics approach. Therefore, the study suggests that there is major scope for value optimisation in the construction process especially in terms of availability and implementation of interventions, which have not only proven successful in other industries, but are also adaptable in the construction industry context.