Module 4 – Construction Planning, scheduling

and Controlling
CE20900
Meenakshi Students
Department of Civil Engineering B. Tech 3rd Semester
Meenakshi@ce.iith.ac.in
Office no – 504, Block B

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 Till now what we have learned
• What is a construction project
• How is the contract awarded to a contractor
• What are different types of contract
• What is a cash-flow diagram and how it affects the funds requirement
• How to estimate the volume of work
• How to do rate analysis
• How to estimate the value of a project

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 Introduction
• Planning – process of drawing up a scheme of action or execution in advance,
foreseeing the likely future developments
• Construction planning manager – plan for optimum utilization of resources and to
ensure appropriate preparedness at all time
• Parameters to plan
• Choice of technology
• Defining work tasks
• Estimation of required resources
• Estimation of duration of individual work tasks
• Identification of interaction among different tasks

• Every stakeholder carries out their own planning exercise – coordination is

important
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 Why project planning is important
• Minimize time and cost
• Reduce uncertainty and eliminate chaos
• Serves as a platform for monitoring and controlling
• Clarity of roles
• Establish accountability
• Establish directions for project team
• Support objectives of parent organization
• Make allowance for risk
• Put controls on planned work

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 Activities involved in construction planning
• Defining scope of work
• The scope of work outlines the total work to be done
• who is responsible for completing tasks, the project schedule, and establishes a baseline of
rights and obligation
• Properly define scope of work to avoid time and cost overrun

• Identifying activities involved

• Exhaustive list of individual activities along with resource requirement

• Establishing project duration

• Knowledge of required resources, productivity and interrelationship
• Project duration can be shortened to a limit by increasing the number of resources, which
might increase cost
• Balance between time and cost is important

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 Activities involved in construction planning
• Defining procedures for controlling and assigning resources
• Procedures to be followed for procurement and control of
resources for different activities—are laid down

• Developing appropriate interface

• Reporting progress is a vital part of planning and management
• Appropriate system for management information system (MIS) reporting should be devised

• Updating and revising plans

• Continuous update and revision of program during execution is required
• Identify milestones and targets for the different agencies to facilitate proper monitoring

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 Type of project plans
• Success of a project – time, cost, quality and safety
• Interrelationship between success parameters is complex
• possible to plan them independently – working in line with the
master plan to achieve the main objective

• Plans
• Time plan Band Baaja Baaraat
Planning for?
• Finance plan
• Material plan
• Manpower plan
• Equipment planning

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 Type of project plans
• Time plan
• Estimation of the time to complete the job
• Time is the essence of all construction projects
• Bonus – complete the project earlier, Penalty – complete the project later
• Common reasons for delays
• sluggish approach during planning
• delay in award of contract, changes during execution
• alterations in scope of work
• delay in payments, slow decision-making
• delay in supply of drawings and materials, and labour trouble

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 Type of project plans
• Finance plan
• Construction projects require huge investment and take a long time to complete
• All the funds are not required at one point in time – cash flow plays important role
• Contractor – fund their projects from working capital and investors, bank loans, mobilization
advance and running account bills
• These things have to be carefully thought about and foreseen.

• Manpower plan
• The size of workforce and scheduling their deployment
• Establishing labour productivity standards, providing suitable environment and financial
incentives for optimum productivity
• Grouping the manpower in suitable functional teams in order to get the optimum utilization

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 Type of project plans
• Material plan
• Identification of required materials and estimation of their required quantities
• Defining specification and forecasting material requirement, identification of appropriate
sources, inventory control, procurement plans and monitoring the usage of materials

• Equipment plan
• Modern construction is highly mechanized
• Modern equipment could improve productivity and quality, besides reducing cost
• Heavy equipment are very costly and should be optimally utilized in order to be productive

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 Work breakdown structure (WBS)
• A technique in project management in which the project is broken down into
manageable tasks
• Hierarchical tree structure obtained through decomposition of the project into
phases and tasks
• Progresses downwards in the sense that it works from pursuing general to specific
objectives like a family tree
• More thorough the WBS - better planning and smoother project execution
• WBS is a framework for planning, scheduling, estimating, budgeting, monitoring
and controlling the project.

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 Work breakdown structure (WBS)
• WBS defines the total scope of the project: only the work captured in the WBS is in
the scope of the project and able to be scheduled, cost and so forth.
• Key points include the following:
• WBS defines the scope
• The WBS is a "family tree" of the work of the project
Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed description of the project elements
It is a deliverable-oriented grouping of project elements.
• The number of levels varies
• Each element is identified

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 Work breakdown structure (WBS)
• A WBS should be comprehensive.
• There should be no gaps in the job-logic

WBS

Engineering Preconstruction Materials Mobilization Project

Activities Activities Procurement Equipment Closeout
Shop Drawings Permits Sampling Labor Inspection
Construction of Bonds Testing Resources, Housekeeping
Elements
Insurance Order time Formwork Documentation
Site Investigation

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 Work breakdown structure (WBS)

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 Project Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling
Project Planning
1. Setting goals
2. Defining the project
3. Dividing project into timed project activities through WBS
4. Organizing the team
Project Scheduling
1. Assigning resources to specific activities
2. Relating activities to each other
3. Assigning the starting and completion dates to each activity

Before Project Project Controlling

1. Monitoring resources, costs, quality and budgets
During Project 2. Revising and changing plans
3. Shifting resources to meet demands

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 Planning to reach morning class
• A - Getting up • A - Getting up • A - Getting up
• B - Freshen up • B - Freshen up • B - Reach class
• C - Reach to mess • C - Play/exercise
• D - Have breakfast • D - Freshen up
• E - Reach class • E - Reach to mess
• F - Have breakfast
• G - Spend time with
friends
• H - Reach class

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 Planning and scheduling Techniques – terminology
• Activity
• An item of work – consumes resources and
produces quantitative results
Event Event
• Event
Activity
• A point in time when certain conditions have
been fulfilled
• The start or completion of one or more activities
• Neither the consumption of time nor the • Dummy activity
consumption of resources • Doesn’t consume resources and time
• Used for interdependence between activities
• Used in a network for logical and mathematical
reasons
• an imaginary or redundant activity –
represented by a dotted line with an arrowhead

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 Planning Techniques – terminology
• Network
• A graphical representation of activities in terms of nodes and arrows to show logical inter-
dependency between activities.
• The network helps us better understand the sequencing of activities
• Gives information about the project
• the time required for completion of a project,
• the activities that need to be monitored more closely than other activities
• the basis of plans for material procurement, manpower deployment, cash flow, and so on

• Help in determining the probabilities of completing the project within a certain

time.

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 Planning Techniques – terminology
• Network
• Rules of drawing a network
• Same node number is not to be used twice
in the network
Nodes
• Tail node number is smaller than the head
node
• Numbering starts from lefthand top and
ends in righthand bottom. Linkages

Node 1 Node 2 Network

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 Network types
• Activity-on-arrow (AOA)
• Activity on arrow and nodes as either the starting or the end point of an activity
• each activity has a unique (i, j) pair.
• several activities can start at the same node (i), or end at the same node (j)
• Dummy activity
• To maintain a unique (i, j) pair
• if an activity has more than one predecessor, and one or more of these predecessors is/are
also a predecessor for some other activity/activities,

10 20 40

30

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 Network types
• Activity-on-node (AON)
• Activities by nodes
• Relationship between two activities is shown by an arrow connecting two nodes.

• Dummy activity
• Start and finish

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 Network types

• Activity-on-node (AON) vs Activity-on-arrow (AOA)

• AOA – easy for creating a simple network, AON – convenient for large and complex networks
• AON is simple to draw and revise when compared to AOA
• AON is simpler to explain and can be understood even by a non-technical person.

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 Relationship between activities

Burst Merge Parallel

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 Relationship between activities

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 Relationship between activities

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 Example
• Prepare network using AOA and AON for the following data

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 Network – precedence diagram – AOA

H
E F

A B G
1 2 3 5 7
D

Event Event

Activity

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 Network – precedence diagram – AON

E H

start A B D F End

C G

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 Time schedule
• Time schedule – when an activity ‘can start’ and ‘must start’.
• Provides resource requirements with various activities over time
• Serve as a means to monitor and control the progress of projects
• Serve as a tool to update further course of action

• Time required to carry out an activity (i,j) from the beginning to its end – D(i,j)
• The actual duration depends – on the quantum of work involved in the activity
and the resources deployed
• Fixing duration is very difficult and complicated – estimate based on past
experience
• Terms such as ‘most likely time’, ‘optimistic time’, ‘pessimistic time’ and
‘expected time’ are also used in the context of defining the duration of an activity

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 Occurrence time of an activity
• Earliest start time – EST(i, j)
• The earliest time that an activity can be started with all the necessary preconditions are met.

• Earliest finish time – EFT(i, j)

• The earliest time that an activity can be finished
• EFT(i, j) = EST(i, j) + D(i,j)

• Latest finish time – LFT(i, j)

• The latest time that an activity needs to be completed in order that there is no delay in the
project completion.

• Latest start time – LST(i, j)

• This is the latest time when an activity must be started, in order that there is no delay in the
project completion.
• LST(i, j) = LFT(i, j) - D(I,j)

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 Representing activity
• AON

Early Start Free Float Early Finish

Activity Name and Duration

Late Start Total Float Late Finish

• AOA

Tail event Head event

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 Forward and backward pass
• Forward pass
• Calculates the earliest occurrence times of all events –
maximum time taken to reach that node
• Moves from the ‘start’ node towards the ‘finish’ node
• EST(i,j) and EFT (i,j)
• 𝐸𝑖 - Earliest occurrence time of event i = maximum of the EFT of
the preceding activities

• Backward pass
• Moves from the ‘finish’ node towards the ‘start’ node
• Calculates the latest occurrence times of all events
• LST(i,j) and LFT (i,j)
• 𝐿𝑖 - Latest occurrence time of event i - minimum of the LST of the
forthcoming/succeeding activities

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 Example

Activity Description Predecessors Days

A Tree cutting -- 10
B General excavation A 10
C Grading general area of levelling B 10
D Excavation of utility trenches B 15
E Compacting the subgrade B 20
F Installing sewer lines C,D 15
G Installing electrical poles C,D 20
H Laying of pavement E,F 10

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 Forward and backward pass
• Critical activities
• The activities having no difference between the earliest times and latest times
• 𝐸𝑆𝑇 = 𝐿𝑆𝑇 𝐸𝐹𝑇 = 𝐿𝐹𝑇

• Non-critical activities
• The activities having difference between the earliest start times and latest start time
• Flexibility in scheduling – some delay in activity doesn’t delay the entire project

• Float or Slack Time

• The extent to which a given activity can be delayed without delaying the project
• Activities on critical path have zero float
• Types of floats
• Total float, free float, independent float and interference float

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 Type of floats
• Total float in an activity - 𝑇𝐹 𝑖, 𝑗
• Amount of time by which the start of the activity may be delayed without causing a delay in the completion of the
project
• 𝑇𝐹 𝑖, 𝑗 = 𝐿𝑆𝑇 𝑖, 𝑗 − 𝐸𝑆𝑇 𝑖, 𝑗 = 𝐿𝑗 − 𝐸𝑖 − 𝐷 𝑖, 𝑗

• Free float - 𝐹𝐹 𝑖, 𝑗
• the amount of time by which the start of an activity may be delayed without delaying the early start of a following
activity
• 𝐹𝐹 𝑖, 𝑗 = 𝐸𝑗 − 𝐸𝑖 − 𝐷 𝑖, 𝑗

• Independent float - 𝐼𝐹 𝑖, 𝑗
• The amount of time by which the start of an activity may be delayed without affecting the latest finish time of
preceding activity or the earliest start time of following activity – if –ve, set as 0
• 𝐼𝐹 𝑖, 𝑗 = 𝐸𝑗 − 𝐿𝑖 − 𝐷 𝑖, 𝑗

• Interference float = 𝑇𝐹 𝑖, 𝑗 − 𝐹𝐹 𝑖, 𝑗
• The portion of total float which affects other activities but not the project finish date

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 Example

3
B D
7 2
0 A F
1 4 2 5 9 6
C E
5 5

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 Example
• For the data given Activity Duration Predecessor
• Plot AOA
• Find out the critical path A 3 ---
• Find out total float, free float, independent float and
B 6 ---
interference float
C 5 A

D 4 B

E 4 B

F 6 B

G 6 F

H 5 C,D,E

K 2 H

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 Example
• For the data given Activity Duration Predecessor
• Plot AON
• Find out the critical path A 3 ---
• Find out total float, free float, independent float and
B 6 ---
interference float
C 5 A

D 4 B

E 4 B

F 6 B

G 6 F

H 5 C,D,E

K 2 H

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 Scheduling techniques
• Bar Charts
• Critical path method (CPM)
• Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

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 Bar Chart/Gantt chart
• Graphical representation of a project. Developed by Henry L. Gantt
• Features
• Pictorial chart with X-axis as elapsed time and y-axis as the job and activity
• Beginning and ending – starting and finishing time of activity
• Length of bar – time required to complete the job
• Advantages
• Easy to prepare and understand
• Unlike networks, bar charts are
time-scaled
• Easy to interpret to persons who
do not have a technical
background

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 Bar Chart

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 Bar chart
• Advantages
• Can become a vehicle for representing
many pieces of a project’s information
such as man-hour, resources, budget and
as-planned schedule vs as-built schedule

• Disadvantages
• lack of logical representation of
relationships
• Not practical for projects with a large
number of activities

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 Critical path method (CPM)
• Most widely used scheduling technique
• Critical path – the series of activities which should not be delayed for timely
completion of the project
• Longest path in the network – minimum time required to complete the project
• Deterministic approach – Duration of activities – deterministic
• Procedure
• List the activities and relationships
• Create a start node and Draw arrows from start node to the first activity’s node
• Sequentially arrange all activities from ‘Start’ and repeat process from successors for all
activities
• Find start and finish times using forward and backward pass
• Calculate float in each activity and find out the critical path
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 Critical path method (CPM)
• Identifies tasks that must be completed on time for the whole project to be
completed on time
• It helps to identify the minimum length of time needed to complete a project
• Improves future planning
• Facilitates more effective resource management
• Helps avoid bottlenecks
• identifies which tasks can be delayed for a while if resource needs to be
reallocated to catch up on missed tasks.
• Which activity times should be shortened or how many resources should be
allocated to each activity?

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 Find TF, FF, INDF and INTF for all activities

B 8 E 7

0 0
Start A 4 C 3 G 1 Finish
0 0

D 2 F 5

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 Critical Path Calculations

4 12 12 19
B 8 E 7
4 0 12 12 0 19

0 0 0 4 4 7 19 20 20 20

Start A 4 C 3 G 1 Finish
0 0 0 0 0 4 9 5 12 19 0 20 20 0 20

4 6 7 12

D 2 F 5
10 6 12 14 7 19

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 Floats

Activity ES EF LS LF TF FF INTF INDF

A 0 4 0 4 0 0 0 0
B 4 12 4 12 0 0 0 0
C 4 7 9 12 5 0 5 0
D 4 6 10 12 6 1 5 1
E 12 19 12 19 0 0 0 0
F 7 12 14 19 7 7 0 2
G 19 20 19 20 0 0 0 0

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 Introduction to uncertainty in scheduling
• Bar Chart/CPM
• The time of completion of an activity – deterministic

• Is it easy to calculate the duration of activity?

• How do we calculate duration of an activity(i,j) – Past experience
𝑄(𝑖,𝑗)
• 𝐷 𝑖, 𝑗 =
𝑅 𝑖,𝑗 ∗𝑃(𝑖,𝑗)

• Where 𝐷 𝑖, 𝑗 - Duration of activity (i,j), Q 𝑖, 𝑗 - Quantum of work of activity (i,j)

• 𝑅 𝑖, 𝑗 - number of resources allocated for activity (i,j),
• 𝑃 𝑖, 𝑗 - average productivity of unit resource for activity (i,j)

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 Introduction to uncertainty in scheduling
• Each project is unique
• Exact estimation of quantum of work is difficult and Labour productivity changes
• Contractor’s failure to deliver materials, machinery breakdowns and so on
• approvals from outside agencies, etc.
• For some projects time is critical but cost is not
• Specifically for R&D projects in defence, space related research etc

• There exists an uncertainty in estimating activity duration

• Considering use of probability distribution functions becomes relevant.

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 Probability Basics

• Concrete Placement Data for Columns in a Building

0 1 1 4 6 9 12 16 10 4 1 0 0 0
Frequency
36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62
Minutes to
Place

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 Histogram

Distribution of Concrete Placement Time

20

15
Frequency

10

0
36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62
Minutes to Place

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 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
• PERT incorporates uncertainties in activity durations in its analysis

• Estimates the likelihood of meeting certain milestones

• Suitable for projects with no prior data

• Activities - follow beta distribution

• Three durations for each activity

• Optimistic time (𝑡𝑜 )
• Pessimistic time (𝑡𝑝 )
• Most probable time (𝑡𝑚 )

• Probability of completing the activity within Optimistic time < 1 %

• Probability of completing the activity after pessimistic time < 1 %

• Probability of completing the activity near to most probable time - most likely to be met

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 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
• The average or expected time (𝑡𝑒 ) of an activity

𝑡𝑜 +4𝑡𝑚 +𝑡𝑝
• 𝑡𝑒 =
6

• Uncertainty in the three estimate of an activity are represented as standard

deviation (𝑆𝑡 ) and variance (𝑉𝑡 )

𝑡𝑝 −𝑡𝑜 2
• 𝑆𝑡 = and 𝑉𝑡 = 𝑆𝑡
6

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 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) - Steps
• Forward pass

• Backward pass

• Calculate the expected duration (𝑇𝑒 ) -- 𝑇𝑒 = σ 𝑡𝑒

• Calculate Variance (𝑉𝑇 ) and standard deviation (𝑆𝑇 ) of critical path
• 𝑉𝑇 = σ 𝑉𝑡 , 𝑆𝑇 = 𝑉𝑇

• If more than 1 critical path, then choose the path with largest variance – higher
variance means high chance to deviate from expected duration

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 Example
• Calculate the expected time and critical activities

Activity Optimistic Most likely Pessimistic

duration duration duration
A (1,2) 3 12 21
B (2,3) 2 5 14
C (2,4) 6 15 30
D (3,4) 1 2 3
E (3,5) 5 14 17
F (4,5) 2 5 14
G (4,6) 4 5 12
H (5,6) 1 4 7

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 Example

E(5,14,17)
3 5

D(1,2,3)
B(2,5,14)
F(2,5,14) H(1,4,7)

0 A(3,12,21) C(6,15,30) G(4,5,12)

1 2 4 6

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 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) - Steps
• 𝑇𝑒 is the expected time to complete the job
• The actual time of completion can be different from 𝑇𝑒
• Is it possible to calculate the probability of finishing the project within a duration?
• Is it possible to find the expected completion time with a given probability?

• Central limit theorem

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 The Central Limit Theorem
• This theory states that averages calculated from independent, identically
distributed random variables have approximately normal distributions, regardless
of the type of distribution from which the variables are sampled
• The sum of these distributions (i.e the overall project time) will tend to follow a
normal distribution
• Where 𝜇 = 𝑇𝑒
• 𝜎 = 𝑆𝑇

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 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
• Standard normal deviate
𝑇𝐷 −𝑇𝑒
• 𝑍=
𝑆𝑇
• Where, 𝑇𝐷 is the target duration to complete the job

• Z value can be used to find out the probability to finish the job with 𝑇𝐷
• Calculate the probability to finish the work in 42 days for previous example.

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 Summary
• WBS
• Network
• Bar Chart
• CPM
• PERT

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