CONSTRUCTION

SCHEDULING
Introduction
Structure
I. General
II. Relationship between Planning,
Scheduling and Productivity
III. Phases
I. General
 Many contractors who would never bid a job
without an estimate consistently do not
prepare a schedule for their bid

 If you estimate or manage construction, you

must plan and schedule
I. General (Cont’d)
 Why?
1. A plan and schedule is a road map (on paper) to
get from A to B
 Allows focus of attention on doing the job
 Can be communicated to all members of the
construction team
 Will free your mind for creative thinking
I. General (Cont’d)
2. A schedule is a tool which does many things
 Allows for selecting from various alternatives
 Allows WHAT - HOW - WHEN and WHO decisions
to be made
 Facilitate identifying problems and opportunities,
gathering facts, and follow-up
 It indicates commitment, task understanding,
efficiency, and control.
Construction Project Scheduling
 Project Scheduling is the process of :
 Identifying the activities necessary to complete the project
 Assigning realistic durations to each activity
 Establishing start and finish dates for each activity
 Desired outcomes of project planning & scheduling
 Finish the project on time
 Continuous work flow
 Reduced amount of rework
 Clear understanding of who does what, when and how
much
II. Relationship between Planning, Scheduling &
Productivity

 Failure to plan and schedule leads to

excessive labor cost, equipment waiting time,
delays, waiting for materials, lack of
coordination, and management inability to
react to unexpected events (weather,
equipment breakdowns, shortages)
II. Relationship between Planning, Scheduling
& Productivity (Cont’d)

 Productivity loss due to unbalanced, non-

optimal crew sizes
III. Phases
 Planning - Breakdown of project into work
items (activities), define and describe
activities to be performed
 Levels of planning
 Scheduling - Put activities in the right order
III. Phases (Cont’d)
 Scheduling - Types
1. Bar chart
 Includes time, activities, order
 Easy to prepare and easy to read
 Shows actual vs. estimated progress
 Does not show interdependencies
 Use only for small amount of activities
III. Phases (Cont’d)
2. Network diagrams
1) Arrow diagram
 Activities = arrows, events = dots; from several hundred to
several thousand activities

 Every activity had one starting and one ending event

 Describes dependency relationship

 Apply duration to activities in network diagram

III. Phases (Cont’d)
2. Network diagrams

2) Precedence diagram
 Network of activities with logical connection deals,

exclusively with interrelationships, connecting arrows have

no time or direction

 Promotes thorough understanding of work

 Used as a worksheet for the planner to study

interrelationships
III. Phases (Cont’d)
2. Network diagrams (Cont’d)
3) Critical Path Method (CPM)
Is a network analysis system technique commonly used for construction
planning and scheduling.
CPM consist of :
1. Defining activities
2. Assigning durations to activities
3. Defining logical relations between activities
4. Determining activity start dates and floats
III. Phases (Cont’d)
2. Network diagrams (Cont’d)
3) Critical Path (cont’d)
 Performs network calculations
 Forward pass - to determine ES and EF
 Backward pass - to determine LS and LF
 Critical path - longest duration = minimum time to complete (ES
= LS, LS - ES = FLOAT)
 Total float - shared by all non-critical activities
 Free float - assuming ES of all preceding activities
 Critical activities - approx. 30% of all activities
III. Phases (Cont’d)
2. Network diagrams (Cont’d)
4) PERT
 Program evaluation and review technique (PERT) is similar to
CPM, except the duration of each activity is expressed as a
probability distribution instead of as a single, deterministic
duration

 Risk/uncertainty that the project will be completed on time

III. Phases (Cont’d)
2. Network diagrams (Cont’d)
4) PERT (Cont’d)
 Variables
 Z = (TS-TE)/TE
 te= (a+4m+b)/6
 2te = ((b-a)/6)2
(Where z = number of standard deviations from mean, TE = critical path (project) mean, 2te =
critical path variance, TS = any date you chose,a = optimistic duration, m =
most likely duration, b = pessimistic duration, te = expected project duration)
III. Phases (Cont’d)
3. Linear Scheduling
 CPM or bar chart does not communicate the
information properly or most effectively; it does not
enable the work to be completed effectively because
in construction location is key
 A simple diagram to show location and time at which
a certain crew will be working on a given operation
 Tools, tehniques and software used for project
scheduling depend on :
 Project size
 Project type
 Project Complexity
 Owner Requirements