PROJECT CONTROL PROCEDURES BASED ON TIME IN

CONSTRUCTION

INTRODUCTION

It is said “time is money”. True in today’s time when increasing interest

rates, inflation and other commercial pressures, among other factors, mean that it is
most cost effective to complete a project within the shortest possible time.

The duration of construction projects right from inception to completion is

assuming great importance in the construction industry. It is often necessary or
desirable to shorten the duration of a project. Clients or consumers are no longer
content merely with minimal cost and adequate functional performance for their
projects, now due to following reason they want to complete a project as early as
possible. There is a need of documenting a framework for the construction industry,
that can serve as strategic guidelines and which is applicable in the various stages of
a construction project, to drive it towards time reduction.

Many companies have trouble delivering projects on-time and are plagued
with excessively long order-to-delivery cycle times and cannot seem to find a
solution. Time extension keeps stretching the order-to-delivery cycle time, ballooning
inventories, increasing costs, and alienating customers. It also keeps adding
unnecessary operating expense in the continuous mad scramble to compensate for
these problems.

Today’s construction business relies on first-to-market product strategies

to gain competitive advantages and increase profit margins. This has created an
increased demand for a system that can achieve a dramatic reduction in project cycle
time. Very few decision tools and guidelines exist to assist owners in choosing
appropriate project strategies to radically reduce the project cycle time from the
preplanning stage through startup. The cost of cycle time can manifest itself as trade-
offs with other project objectives, such as project quality, safety and project cost.
AIM

• To identify techniques and technologies that ensures reduction in time for a

construction project.

OBJECTIVES
The objectives are

• To collect the time reduction data through literature and case studies of selected
projects.
• To document the time reduction strategies that can be achieved in planning,
design, construction phase and commissioning and handover phase.
• To identify speedier construction techniques and alternative methods of
construction for time reduction.
• To survey in the form of questionnaire from experts aimed at collecting and
documenting time reduction strategies that can be achieved in a project.

SCOPE
The scope covers

• To study the time reduction strategies that can be applied for a construction
project.
• To study the construction methods and technologies that will reduce the project
time.
• To study the time reduction strategies through relevant case studies and the
technology adopted by them.
• To bring out the management approaches for time reduction.
• Questionnaire surveys to identify the drivers of time reduction and applicability of
time reduction in each project phase.
METHODOLOGY
LITERATURE REVIEW

INTRODUCTION

For the study, different pieces of literature will be referred to various parts
of the study. These references helped to understand aspects of cycle time, delays in
construction and techniques achieving reduction in project cycle. All the references
are discussed briefly as follows:

BOOK LITERATURE
1) “Analysis of Techniques leading to radical reduction in project cycle
time”.Research by MakarandHastak, SanjivGokhale, KartikGoyani, Taehoon
Hong and Bhavin Safi.American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE): journal of
Construction engineering and management: 2008.

About the work

The purpose of this research was to investigate methods and processes

that facilitate reduction in project cycle time and develop guidelines and techniques
related to shortened cycle times for capital project delivery systems.
The paper describes the data gathered from various questionnaire surveys
and the essence applicability matrices as well as analysis of the data thus obtained.
Finally, the results and findings of the seven case studies conducted in this research
are discussed.

2) “Project Manager’s aid for a radical project cycle reduction”. Research by

MakarandHastak, SanjivGokhale, KartikGoyani, Taehoon Hong and Bhavin Safi.
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE): journal of Construction engineering and
management: 2008.
About the work

The work identified 25 radical reduction techniques over the 5 project

phases from a study done on some successful projects (projects that have achieved
significant reduction in cycle time, reduction factor of 25%) selected from a survey
carried out.
This paper presents the high performance project delivery system called
project manager’s game planner. The PMGP has been developed with a focus on
creating a strategic tool to assist in development of a radical schedule reduction
strategy for the entire project. It presents the expected relative impact of each of the
RRT during each project phase, thus giving a guideline for basing the strategy for
radical schedule reduction.

3) “Fast track construction of Post – tensioned flat slabs”by Mr. S.Sengupta,

Executive Director, Span Consultants Pvt Ltd, Bangalore.

About the work

Post tensioned flat slab technology for large multistoried buildings can
considerably reduce the cycle time per floor and consequently the overall
construction time. Both fast tracking and economy are the key features of this
technology. Suited for column grid is more. Larger the grid more is the economy and
where the super imposed loading is moderately high.
Economy for a PT slab comes in respect of lesser amount of rebar’s and
concrete quantity per unit area and also reduction in time of construction.
A cycle time of 5-7 days per floor is common in developed countries with
large use of mechanization, tailor made table forms operated hydraulically over large
area, large capacity concrete pumps, high capacity tower cranes at strategic
locations round the clock site work etc.
CASE STUDY

1: SPR City (Binny Mills), Perambur, Chennai.

2: Savithanjali, OMR, Chenna

3: SEZ, IT park development, Silokhera, Gurgaon.

4: Alliance Galleria Residences, Thoraipakkam – Pallavaram, 200 ft Radial Road,

Chennai.