Investigation into site layout practices in Ghana - a case study in Ho municipality

Abstract

Planning the site layout of construction project is a crucial task that has a significant impact on construction lost, productivity and safety. It involves the positioning and relocation of temporary facilities that are needed to support various construction activities on site such as office, storage areas workshops, and parking areas. Due to the complexity of the site layout planning problem, construction managers often perform this task using previous experiences, first come first save approach. To address the difficulties associated with this process, additional research is conducted in some areas like security needs and constrains during the construction of infrastructure projects, to enhance the utilization of interior building space for materials storage areas and plants allocation on construction site. The main objective of this study is to investigate into the site layout practices of construction firms in the Ho Municipality so as to identify the deficiencies and problems with it. The study will also identify the problems that poor site layout usually cause to projects in the municipality. A survey method was undertaken by the researcher to actually observe what took place on the construction site in terms of site layout practices. The study involves survey, assessment of views and collecting of data through the use of techniques such as questionnaires, personal observation and interviews of layout practices in the housing sector. The method use to analyze the data was descriptive statistics through the use of Microsoft Office Excel. The results show that, most sites are not properly layout before the commencement of a project. It is therefore recommended that standardize and modern site layout should be put in place on construction site before any project is begins.