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Importance of planning in construction project
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Introduction
the construction industry is notorious of overrunning budget and delays. there are several real life examples of the aforesaid failures. It is argued that planning is the key for success or failure. Eisenhower the former U.S president in his famous quote said "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable". The planning is divided to three levels starting from the strategic planning, tactical planning and operational planning. Organisations' success is dependent of the formulation of good planning and aligning the planning levels from the top all the way down.
Strategic, Tactical Operation Pyramid [1]
In construction the company strategy is formulating the policy of the organisation that is subsequently transformed into procedures that are aligned with the policy created in the strategic planning stage. The procedures are then used to govern the execution planning. The focus of this research will be on the execution planning and more precisely Construction Planning Optimization Problem.
Hypothesis
The aim of this research to answer the following questions
How do construction planners schedule projects?
What is the extent of involving Optimization techniques in the scheduling process?
How the construction professionals map various scheduling tools to different projects?
Moreover, the goal of the research is to solve the problem of solving linear schedules under uncertainty.
Problem Statement
The Construction Schedule Optimization (CSO) problem it's main objective is to achieve the optimal sequence of tasks and allocating resources to the tasks subsequently. The problem and complexity of the problem that it try to optimize conflicting objectives. For examp...
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...ty trade-off analysis for highway construction. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Singiresu S. Rao (2009). Engineering Optimization Theory and Practice 4th Edition. John Wiley & Sons: Hoboken, NJ
Kelley JE and Walker MR (1959). Critical-Path Planning and scheduling. Proceeding of the Eastern Joint Computer Conference. New York, USA, pp 160 - 173.
Moselhi O and El-Rayes K (1993). Scheduling of repetitive projects with cost optimization. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. 119(4):681-697
Senouci AB and Eldin NN (2004). Use of genetic algorithm in resource scheduling of construction projects. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 130(6):869-877.
Zhang H, Li H and Tam CM (2006). Particle swarm optimization for resource-constrained project scheduling. International Journal of Project Management 24(1):83-92
The book contains the most effective methods of completing a project within its budget, schedule, and the resource constraints. It briefly explains all the stage process of every major project goes through. From creating the plan to monitoring and evaluation, there is a lot for project managers and supervisors to learn.
Lewis, J. P. (2011). Project planning, scheduling, and control: A hands-on guide to bringing projects in on time and on budget (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
“Plans in and of themselves are not especially useful; however, the planning process is invaluable.” At a glance when I first was reading this statement, I personally felt this was the most insane quote I have ever heard in my life, but as I sit down and really think it over I can see it not being too farfetched and actually holding its own weight in this life. Although I can see that statement being true, I still feel that there are a lot of positive and important aspects that come along with planning.
Kerzner, H. (2013). Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Projects developed by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) go through a planning process that includes the determination of the project’s schedule. To determine the schedule, highway construction projects are divided into several activities and the time management of these activities will define the project’s duration. In order to improve the productivity and facilitate the execution of the project, an effective planning is needed. An organized Work Breakdown Structure can enhance the project duration. However, there are certain unexpected and unavoidable factors, which can delay the project’s termination: (1) Conflicting Weather Conditions (2) Temperature, (3) Project’s location, and (4) Workers’ shifts.
Kezner, H. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. 6th. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc, 1998. Print.
“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind” a famous quote about our goal by Seneca. It is a metaphor about the achievement goal and objectives by good planning skills. One has to plan for what one wants to achieve and where one wants to go. One of the most important things is to have good planning, before taking any project the first think you should do is to create project plan. Planning can be defined as preparing a sequence of action to achieve specific goals and objectives. According to Kerzner (2009), “project planning is desirable that the project manager is involved from project conception through execution. It must be systematic, flexible to handle, closely disciplined through reviews and control and capable of accepting multi functional inputs (pg. 412)”. The importance of planning a project is to describe the work so that it will be easily identifiable to the project team member.
In the future, I see myself as a construction manager professional addressing scheduling, critical paths by incorporating cutting edge methodologies in order to cater to the above-mentioned requirements. To achieve this I would like to gain exposure to the latest practices adopted in the field of Construction Management. With this premise, I aspire to work with a leading construction organization, which would enable me to help corporations manage their risks, to help companies thrive in a dynamic
Project management is said to be completed within time when it completed within the “triple constraints”: cost, time and quality. And in a lot of causes, one them is sacrificed so as to meet the other two. Project managers prioritize which ones are the most important.
Time-phased project work is the basis for project cost control. Work package duration is used to develop the project network. Further, the time-phased budgets for work packages are timetabled to establish fiscal measures for each phase throughout the project. The time-phased budgets are to emulate the real cash needs of the budget, which will be used for project cost control. This information is useful to estimate cash outflows. The project manager's attention is on when the costs are to occur, when the budgeted cost is earned, and when the actual cost materializes. This information is made up to measure project schedule and cost variances (Gray & Larson, 2005). The following are typical types of costs found in a project:
PMBOK guide defines TM as the “Use of available time and your own productivity along with the appropriate planning and management of the project schedule” highlighting the link between Time Management and productivity and its closely knit relationship to scope and cost areas. Max Wideman presents a wider definition for TM as the “function required to maintain appropriate allocation of time to the overall conduct of the project through the successive stages of its natural life-cycle, by means of the processes of time planning, time estimating, time scheduling, and schedule control.” Ultimately at it’s core however, TM is about time, its planning and control during all stages of the project. A further look into Wideman’s definition of TM by means of identifying its importance throughout the entire project life-cycle (Initiation, planning, execution, controlling and close-out) is required. It is hoped that by analysing how TM tools and techniques can positively and negatively effect the different stages of the Project life cycle a better understanding of productivity, TM and project success will result.
Although all of these project-scheduling techniques are very useful and present the entire data in a very presentable format for the project manager and other stakeholders, it is very critical that these be coupled with the other project management techniques to make it a successful
“Ballard (2000) indicates that Last Planner System (LPS) is a technique that shapes workflow and addresses project variability in construction”. (Salem, 2005). The purpose of Last Planner System is to establish a coordinated plan of action while encouraging collaboration, cooperation and communication between different parties ensuring the full utilization of the available resources leading to an improved performance and thus maximizing value and minimizing waste. (Salme….).
Project planning falls in the Planning Process Group which consists of those processes to establish the projects total scope, define the projects objectives, and courses of action to achieve those objectives. During the planning process, all the documents that are needed to carry the project through the project lifecycle will be developed such as the project management plan. Project management requires repeated feedback loops as additional information becomes available and is better understood. The planning process delineates the strategy, tactics, and path to successfully complete the project. With that, the planning of a project must walk through all the those processes from executing, monitoring and controlling through the closing process.
Production scheduling: create appropriate schedules for all the level on the organization, maximize of efficiency of