With tool faults and breakages costing construction teams valuable working hours, Ian Wakelin,
Director of Jobsite Solution Specialists (JSS) at MILWAUKEE, looks at how reliable equipment and smarter tool management can help contractors reclaim lost productivity.
When a project runs late, the contractor carries it. And while the usual suspects get the blame – the weather, labour supply, planning delays – new research from MILWAUKEE points to a quieter culprit. 85% of productive time lost on UK construction sites comes down to equipment faults and breakages. The real annoyance here is that almost all of it of it is preventable.
The numbers behind the lost hours
MILWAUKEE’s Powering-Up Productivity report found that 85% of workers lose time every week due to problems with their tools; equipment faults, cut-outs and breakages. On a conservative estimate, that means 30 minutes are lost per person per day. When you run those numbers across a 50-strong team, it adds up to 25 hours of dead time daily. Across a full working year (220 days), that’s 5,500 hours of lost productivity. Nearly three years of work, gone.
The knock-on effects go further than late project completions. The same research identified poorly equipped teams (37%) and skills deficits (30%) as the two biggest operational disruptors on site. Both issues are connected. When the working day is defined by unreliable kit and constant workarounds, experienced tradespeople burn out and younger workers look elsewhere. The talent gap the industry is trying to close gets wider.
Why equipment is the starting point
If 85% of lost time can be traced back to preventable equipment issues, that’s where the fix has to begin. Not with more staff, not with longer hours, but with tools that do what they’re supposed to do, every time.
MILWAUKEE’s M18, M12 and MX FUEL cordless systems are built specifically for the demands of modern construction sites. No cables to work around and no petrol engine maintenance. Just consistent, reliable performance under real working conditions. When equipment doesn’t let your team down, the workflow holds.
But having reliable hardware is only part of the answer.
Smart asset management changes the equation
The other half of the solution is knowing where your tools are and how they’re performing. That’s what the ONE-KEY system delivers. It enables contractors to connect tools digitally, track their location in real time, set geo-fencing alerts if high-value equipment moves off-site, and monitor usage data to schedule routine maintenance before a breakdown happens.
For a project manager running trades across a multi-storey development, that shift from reactive to proactive matters. Tools don’t go missing. Service isn’t missed. The team arrives on site and gets straight to work.
When something does need repair, MILWAUKEE’s E-Service system handles in-warranty fixes in under 6.5 calendar days, keeping downtime to a minimum and helping teams stay operational.
A more attractive industry
There’s a bigger picture here. When tradespeople work with tools built for the job, backed by digital asset management and fast service support, the working day gets less frustrating. That matters for recruitment and retention just as much as it matters for productivity. Showing that a career in the trades comes with genuine investment in technology and quality kit makes the industry a better proposition for the next generation of construction. That’s how you start to close the skills gap, not just by training more people, but by making the job worth doing.
Those 5,500 hours don’t have to stay lost forever. The tools and systems to reclaim them going forward are here and operational today.
View MILWAUKEE’s survey here.