Development of an appraisal for tools and equipment for labour based technology in road works (experience in Tanzania)

Labour Based Technology (LBT) in roads construction, rehabilitation and maintenance has been practiced in Tanzania for more than eighteen (18) years. Nearly half of the country has practically implemented LBT in road works but acceptance and awareness levels are still low, although there have been efforts to promote the technology. Development of the technology at national level has substantial social and economic benefits. However, such step should be accompanied by quantification of sustainable selection and utilization of potential inputs. This study aimed at analyzing the current state of affair on selection, costing and management of tools and equipment as LBT inputs for the development and improvement of the technology in Tanzania. The experience from six institutions promoting the technology revealed deficiencies in practice on: monitoring of quality of tools and corresponding impacts; costing analysis for tools and equipment; operations inputs and output levels optimization; and performance data recording and keeping. Conclusions include: most of the practitioners were ignorant of the impact of poor quality tools on output of labourers; coordination between practitioners and local tools manufacturers was required for quality improvement and sustainability; equipment consumed significant portion (40%) of projects costs but practitioners had limited guidelines and approaches on selection and cisting; logical approach towards optimization of labour and equipment inputs for construction output was missing; and tipper trucks (7 tonnes) deployed for haulage indicated to be a possible alternative among common LBT haulage equipment such as tractor trailer combinations. Logical relations, selection criteria and costing approaches were developed in this study and recommended to be used as basis for improvement of practitioners guidelines and checklist. Also, the recommendations include: establishment of tipper trucks performance data as well as general data collection and keeping; appraisal of practitioners awareness on negative consequences of poor quality tools, selection criteria and costing of tools and equipment. Further studies were recommended on establishment of optimization of labour and equipment operations mixing; and competitive performance of different equipment types for haulage in LBT.