The Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA), a leader in promoting quality and excellence in the sheet metal and air conditioning industry, announced its member foundation and premier research entity, the New Horizons Foundation, has issued a new project study addressing the productivity impact of COVID-19 across the sheet metal and HVAC industry.

Before New Horizons Foundation issued its findings, no specific resource and data existed to aid contractors in quantifying the cost impacts of lost productivity working under pandemic-driven work protocols.

“The report highlights important data that can help our members better understand quantitative impacts of the pandemic, accurately advise their customers, and adjust their future project bids as needed, ensuring members have a best practices approach to working in the new normal,” said Guy Gast, chair of the New Horizons Foundation and president - Iowa Division at The Waldinger Corp.

The data collection focused on two key areas: 1) Mitigation tracking (the added time on site access, fit-for-duty, personal protective equipment, cleaning and protocols) and 2) Productivity benchmarking (lost time in actual performance of the work) of industry professionals, New Horizons Foundation and its partners quantified the magnitude of time invested in pandemic-related productivity losses. Key findings include the following:

• Based on information collected from sheet metal, HVAC and mechanical contractors, 8.7 percent of hours available on projects to do productive work are lost due to mitigation requirements, such as personal protective equipment management, cleaning and disinfection, access rules, and extra administration time.
• There is a 9.2 percent average productivity impact — time lost in installation labor — and an 8.7 percent mitigation impact on sheet metal, HVAC and mechanical contractor productivity as a result of the pandemic, resulting in 17.9 percent productivity impact.
• There are 85 minutes of lost productivity per day per employee’s eight-hour work period.
• The financial impact of productivity losses can take as long as three to six months to fully play out in a company’s finances.

In addition to highlighting the quantitative impact of the pandemic, the report also includes a roadmap to help members adapt to the new industry landscape — noting that companies with pandemic mitigation processes in place saw lower productivity losses.

The report is a joint effort between SMACNA’s New Horizons Foundation and ELECTRI International, the National Electrical Contractors Association’s (NECA) foundation. The executive summary of the report can be found online.

Questions regarding this New Horizons Foundation project and report should be directed to Thomas Soles, executive director, New Horizons Foundation. He can be contacted via email, tsoles@smacna.org, or phone, 703-402-7395.