Construction Planning: Basic Concepts in The Development of Construction Plans

Construction Planning
Basic Concepts in the Development of Construction Plans

 Construction planning is a fundamental and challenging activity in the
management and execution of construction projects.
 It involves the choice of technology, the definition of work tasks, the estimation
of the required resources and durations for individual tasks, and the
identification of any interactions among the different work tasks.
 A good construction plan is the basis for developing the budget and the
schedule for work.
 Developing the construction plan is a critical task in the management of
construction, even if the plan is not written or otherwise formally recorded.
 In addition to these technical aspects of construction planning, it may also be
necessary to make organizational decisions about the relationships between
project participants and even which organizations to include in a project. For
example, the extent to which sub-contractors will be used on a project is often
determined during construction planning.
Essential aspects of construction planning include the generation of required

activities, analysis of the implications of these activities, and choice among the
various alternative means of performing activities.
In developing a construction plan, it is common to adopt a primary emphasis

on either cost control or on schedule control
 Some projects are primarily divided into expense categories with

associated costs. In these cases, construction planning is cost or expense
oriented. Within the categories of expenditure, a distinction is made between
costs incurred directly in the performance of an activity and indirectly for
the accomplishment of the project.
Most complex projects require consideration of both cost and scheduling over
time, so that planning, monitoring and record keeping must consider both dimensions.
In these cases, the integration of schedule and budget information is a major
concern.
Alternative Emphases in Construction Planning
2. Choice of Technology and Construction Method

 As in the development of appropriate alternatives for facility design, choices
of appropriate technology and methods for construction are often ill-
structured yet critical ingredients in the success of the project.
 In selecting among alternative methods and technologies, it may be necessary

to formulate a number of construction plans based on alternative methods
or assumptions.
 Once the full plan is available, then the cost, time and reliability impacts of the
alternative approaches can be reviewed.
 This examination of several alternatives is often made explicit in bidding
competitions in which several alternative designs may be proposed or value
engineering for alternative construction methods may be permitted.
 In this case, potential constructors may wish to prepare plans for each
alternative design using the suggested construction method as well as to
prepare plans for alternative construction methods which would be proposed as
part of the value engineering process.
 In forming a construction plan, a useful approach is to simulate the
construction process either in the imagination of the planner or with a formal
computer based simulation technique
3.Defining Work Tasks

Work tasks represent the necessary framework to permit scheduling of construction
activities, along with estimating the resources required by the individual work tasks,
and any necessary precedences or required sequence among the tasks.
The terms work "tasks" or "activities" are often used interchangeably in construction
plans to refer to specific, defined items of work.
The scheduling problem is to determine an appropriate set of activity start time,

resource allocations and completion times that will result in completion of the project
in a timely and efficient fashion.
An activity is any subdivision of project tasks. The set of activities defined for a
project should be comprehensive or completely exhaustive so that all necessary work
tasks are included in one or more activities.
The time required to perform an activity is called the duration of the activity. The
beginning and the end of activities are signposts or milestones, indicating the progress
of the project.
It is generally advantageous to introduce an explicit hierarchy of work activities for

the purpose of simplifying the presentation and development of a schedule.
More formally, a hierarchical approach to work task definition decomposes the

work activity into component parts in the form of a tree.
Higher levels in the tree represent decision nodes or summary activities, while
branches in the tree lead to smaller components and work activities.
It is useful to define separate work tasks for:
1. those activities which involve different resources, or

2. those activities which do not require continuous performance.
For example, the activity "prepare and check shop drawings" should be divided into a
task for preparation and a task for checking since different individuals are involved in
the two tasks and there may be a time lag between preparation and checking.
More detailed task definitions can be quite useful. But more detailed task breakdowns
are only valuable to the extent that the resources required, durations and activity
relationships are realistically estimated for each activity. Providing detailed work task
breakdowns is not helpful without a commensurate effort to provide realistic resource
requirement estimates.
4 Defining Precedence Relationships Among Activities

Precedence relations between activities signify that the activities must take place in a
particular sequence.
1. Diagramatically, precedence relationships can be illustrated by

a network or graph in which the activities are represented by arrows
2. The arrows in are called branches or links in the activity network, while the
circles marking the beginning or end of each arrow are called nodes or events.
 Some activities have a necessary technical or physical relationship that cannot
be superseded.
 Some activities have a necessary precedence relationship over a continuous

space rather than as discrete work task relationships
 Some "precedence relationships" are not technically necessary but are imposed
due to implicit decisions within the construction plan.
1. activity-on-branch diagram
2. activity-on-node diagram.
Predecessor Direct Successor All Successor All Predecessor

Activity Activities Activities Activities
A C,D E,F,G,H,I ---
B E,F G,H,I ---
C E,F G,H,I A
D G,H I A
E G,H I A,B,C
F I --- A,B,C
G I --- A,B,C,D,E
H --- --- A,B,C,D,E
I --- --- A,B,C,D,E,F,G
5 Estimating Activity Durations

1. Activity proceeded in parallel with this sequence,
2. All formal scheduling procedures rely upon estimates of the durations of the
various project activities as well as the definitions of the predecessor
relationships among tasks.
3. The variability of an activity's duration may also be considered. Formally,

the probability distribution of an activity's duration as well as the expected or
most likely duration may be used in scheduling.
4. A probability distribution indicates the chance that a particular activity

duration will occur. In advance of actually doing a particular task, we cannot
be certain exactly how long the task will require.
The duration of an activity Dij
Where Aij is the required quantum of work
, Pij is the average productivity of a standard crew in this task (measured in square
yards per hour),
And Nij is the number of crews assigned to the task.
quantity-take-off
Learning curve. The result is that productivity Pij is a function of the duration of an
activity or project.
Productivity Changes Due to Learning
Productivity of masons
Masonry unit size Condition(s) Maximum produstivity achievable
8 inch block None 400 units/day/mason
6 inch Wall is "long" 430 units/day/mason
6 inch Wall is not "long" 370 units/day/mason
12 inch Labor is nonunion 300 units/day/mason
Weather is "warm and dry"
or high-strength mortar is used
Weather is "warm and dry"
or high-strength mortar is used
Weather is not "warm and dry"
or high-strength mortar is not used
Weather is not "warm and dry"
or high-strength mortar is not used
8 inch There is support from existing wall 1,000 units/day/mason
8 inch There is no support from existing wall 750 units/day/mason
12 inch There is support from existing wall 700 units/day/mason
12 inch There is no support from existing wall 550
Possible Adjustments to Maximum Productivities for Masonry

Construction/caption>
Adjustment
magnitude
Impact Condition(s) (% of maximum)
Crew type Crew type is nonunion 15%
Job is "large"
Crew type Crew type is union 10%
Job is "small"
Supporting There are less than two laborers per crew 20%
labor
Supporting There are more than two masons/laborers 10%
labor
Elevation Steel frame building with masonry 10%
exterior
wall has "insufficient" support labor
Elevation Solid masonry building with work on 12%
exterior uses nonunion labor
Visibility block is not covered 7%
o
Temperature Temperature is below 45 F 15%
Temperature Temperature is above 45o F 10%
Brick texture bricks are baked high 10%
Weather is cold or moist
Hierarchical Estimation Framework for Masonry Construction
The beta distribution is often used to characterize activity durations, since it can have
an absolute minimum and an absolute maximum of possible duration times. The
normal distribution is a good approximation to the beta distribution
Beta and Normally Distributed Activity Durations
the normal distribution is characterized by two parameters, and representing the

average duration and the standard deviation of the duration, respectively.
Alternatively, the variance of the distribution could be used to describe or
characterize the variability of duration times; the variance is the value of the standard
deviation multiplied by itself. From historical data, these two parameters can be
estimated as:
N = observations
Using estimates of productivities, the standard deviation of activity duration would be

calculated as:
where is the estimated standard deviation of the reciprocal of productivity that

is calculated by substituting 1/P for x.

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Construction Planning

Basic Concepts in the Development of Construction Plans

Essential aspects of construction planning include the generation of required

In developing a construction plan, it is common to adopt a primary emphasis

 Some projects are primarily divided into expense categories with

2. Choice of Technology and Construction Method

 In selecting among alternative methods and technologies, it may be necessary

3.Defining Work Tasks

The scheduling problem is to determine an appropriate set of activity start time,

It is generally advantageous to introduce an explicit hierarchy of work activities for

More formally, a hierarchical approach to work task definition decomposes the

It is useful to define separate work tasks for:

1. those activities which involve different resources, or

4 Defining Precedence Relationships Among Activities

1. Diagramatically, precedence relationships can be illustrated by

 Some activities have a necessary precedence relationship over a continuous

Predecessor Direct Successor All Successor All Predecessor

5 Estimating Activity Durations

3. The variability of an activity's duration may also be considered. Formally,

4. A probability distribution indicates the chance that a particular activity

The duration of an activity Dij

Where Aij is the required quantum of work

And Nij is the number of crews assigned to the task.

Productivity Changes Due to Learning

Possible Adjustments to Maximum Productivities for Masonry

the normal distribution is characterized by two parameters, and representing the

Using estimates of productivities, the standard deviation of activity duration would be

where is the estimated standard deviation of the reciprocal of productivity that

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