Aurora State College of Technology (ASCOT)

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
Brgy. Zabali, Baler, Aurora
PC 2: ADVANCED CONSTRUCTION METHODS AND EQUIPMENTS

MODULE 3: PROJECT PLANNING AND SCHEDULING

Trying to take on a construction project without a well-thought-out plan is like trying to drive
to an unknown location without a map. Without a plan, there is no way to coordinate your
workforce, no way to schedule deliveries, no way to track progress, and no way to adjust when
you do get off track. As a matter of fact, you won’t even know that you are off track unless you
have a plan. And given what is at stake if the project should stray off course, it would be ludicrous
to think you could manage the construction of a multimillion-dollar facility, or even the construction
of someone’s home, without a plan. The primary tool associated with project planning is the
schedule. Scheduling addresses “How long?”
Planning and scheduling concern two interrelated elements of construction management:
strategy and time. Every construction project presents a new set of circumstances and conditions.
The project team must come together at the start of the job and hammer out the details associated
with both elements before the first shovel of dirt is turned on the project.
Completing a project on time does not happen by accident. It takes a great deal of effort
and planning. You have already learned in previous chapters that there are many factors that can
interfere and delay the work. A good plan and a reliable schedule will help you prepare and avoid
some of those factors that can derail your project.
Trying to plan, assign durations, and schedule every little activity associated with building
a project that is going to take one, two, or even ten years is an awesome task. But it is exactly
what you are challenged to do as a construction manager. You must break the project down into
manageable activities linked to increments of time that can be monitored and adjusted as the
project schedule moves along.
How long will the project take to complete? Just as with cost estimating, no one really
knows until the project is all done. But as a construction professional, your job is to make your
best educated guess based on the experience of your project team and using the planning and
scheduling tools available. Let’s look at some of those tools now.
Although several different types of schedules are used in the construction industry, the two
most common types are Gantt charts (also called bar charts) and network diagrams. Which type
a construction manager uses depends on several factors, some company-related and some
project-related:
§ Size of the company
§ Volume of work
§ Type of construction
§ Project size
§ Project complexity
§ Computer capability
§ Contract requirements
Gantt Charts

Gantt Chart Gantt charts are useful tools for analyzing, planning, and controlling complex
multi-stage projects. It’s very helpful for a manager for his project management.
Gantt charts can:
§ Assist in identifying the tasks and sub-tasks to be undertaken.
§ Help you lay out the tasks that need to be completed.
§ Assist in scheduling when these tasks will be carried out and in
what order.
§ Assist in planning resources needed to complete the project.
§ Assist in working out the critical path for a project where it needs to be
completed by a particular date.
When a complex or multi-task project is under way, Gantt charts assist in monitoring
whether the project is on schedule, or not. If not, the Gantt chart allows you to easily identify what
actions need to be taken to put the project back onto schedule.
An essential concept behind project planning is that some activities depend upon other
activities being completed first. For example, it is not a good idea to start building the walls in an
office block before you have laid the foundations; neither is it a good idea to put the cake mix into
the tin without greasing the tin first.
These are dependent activities which need to be completed in a sequence, with each stage
being more-or-less completed before the next stage can begin. We can call such dependent
activities ‘sequential’.
Non-sequential activities are not dependent on the completion of any other tasks. These
activities may be done at any time before or after a particular stage in the project is reached. These
activities are called are non-dependent or “parallel” tasks.

Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT)

Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) is a project network analysis technique
used to plan and control large construction projects.
PERT focuses on the relationship between the time each activity takes, the costs for each
activity and resulting time and cost for the expected completion of the entire construction project.
This helps in understanding the performance of the work throughout the course of the project.

Advantages of PERT in Construction Management

§ Facilitate planning of large projects
§ Critical Path of construction project is visible.
§ Helps in activity analysis.
§ Better coordination
§ What if Analysis

Facilitate planning of large projects

The program evaluation and review technique enable the project manager to schedule the
project very easily. It is mainly active in the case of a large project.
To be more precise, it such requires three elements to define the event. What is the time
required to do that even, what comes after the event and what comes before the event? This
makes the scheduling easy and clear.

Critical Path is Visible

The PERT method shows the critical path in a clearer manner. The critical path is the path whose
activities cannot be delayed.
An easy understanding of slack values with limited conditions of dependencies make the
project manager take a fast and good decision which would favor the performance of the project.

Activity Analysis
A project manager views information about the likely completion of a project on time and
on budget by viewing PERT activities and events independently and in combination.

Coordination
PERT facilitates integration and data submission from various department of the construction
organization. This will improve the planning and the decision-making capabilities of the project
team.
A large amount of data which gains qualitative values, are combined which helps in proper
coordination of the project. This help in good communication between different departments, as
lack of communication, is one of the important factors affecting the development of an
organization. This clearly helps in identifying the responsible roles of everyone in the whole team.

What-If Analysis
A what-if analysis identifies possibilities and uncertainties related to project activities, which
read from the formation of critical paths.
Many sets of permutations and combinations are performed differently with the activities
and the most useful possibility selected. The set with minimum cot, best result and economy is
chosen. It also helps us to identify the activity that is a risk.

Disadvantage

Subjective Analysis
For a new project, the method requires data to identify the activities. This is found to be
difficult because the new project chosen are not repetitive in nature.it would be a rare or fresh
project idea. This makes the data collection to be subjective in nature showing lesser accuracy in
the time or cost estimated.
The sources of data obtained, have chances of biasing and are found unreliable.as
mentioned, because of the not repetitive nature of the project, there is no guaranty on bringing
information from a past historic record with similar cases in certain situations and implementing it.

Time Focused
PERT is a time-oriented method. It just makes use of the time that is required to complete the
activity. Hence the determination of the time for each activity and its allocation is of great
importance. It’s based on an assumption and will work well if it is right. Else problems arise.
§ PERT technique is labor intensive in nature.
§ When two or more projects share available resources, the technique won’t work well or
makes it complicated.
§ Any change in the precedence and sequential relationships of project activities will result
in the failure of this method.
§ With the increase in project activities, it makes the chart complicated with hundreds of
tasks dependencies.
§ Expensive in nature
§ Prediction Inaccuracy

When a project with no past records or assistance exists, predictions play role in the movement
of the project. Inaccurate decisions and predictions would make the overall project to a total loss.
This cannot be done by trial and error with the assumptions.
There are two different ways these diagrams can be presented.

Method 1: Activity on the node

In this diagram the activities are written inside the boxes and are linked by arrows. These
arrows may or may not have the number of days to complete the task written on them.
Method 2: Activity on the arrow
In this diagram the actual activities to be carried out are written on the arrows. The
activities are set out numerically which allows for sub-events to happen in between. Gaps are
left between the numbers in the nodes (circles) to allow the sub-events to fit in. On large building
sites these numbers may count in 20s or 50s or even 100s, whilst on smaller jobs these could
be actual days within the construction program.
The more common method in use is method 2 - activity on the arrow. Each of the
numbered nodes (the circles) represents an activity which has been completed while each
arrow represents an activity that has taken place.