CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULING

PLANNING & SCHEDULING

Planning:
Process of choosing which method and order of work is
best among different methods available.

Scheduling:
Process of determining the interrelationship of associated
timings of operations.
 NETWORK TECHNIQUES

• Planning & Scheduling with the help of network

diagrams is called Network Techniques.
• Network Techniques (Network Programming)
encompass the methods of PERT (Program
Evaluation & Review Techniques) and CPM (Critical
Path Method).
 NETWORK TECHNIQUES

• Present day network techniques offer a more formal

approach to Project Management.
--- They have been adopted by some larger construction
companies and Government agencies.
---- Many packages are commercially available on a wide variety
of computer systems.
---- Many contracts include a network plan as part of their
conditions.
• However, the full utilization of techniques has yet to
be reached.
• The development of the techniques is on-going with
both user and theoretician contributing to this
development.
 WHY CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY IS
ADOPTING NETWORK TECHNIQUES TOO
SLOWLY?

• The construction Industry has generally been slow in taking up these

techniques and their universal acceptance across the industry is still
not present.
• The techniques have both advantages as well as disadvantages but
three reasons are generally advanced for reluctance to universally
acceptance of the techniques:
1- Certain sections of the construction industry refused to
acknowledge that sound analytical techniques are better
than established classical and traditional methods.
2- Some contractors have had bad first experiences with
using these techniques.
3- There was lack of suitable user-friendly computer programs
to do the tedious and elementary arithmetic involved, in the past.
 STEPS IN CONSTRUCTION
SCHEDULING

• Splitting of the project into work activities

• Determining logic relationships/interrelationships
between activities.
• Construction of Network Diagrams.
• Assigning durations to work activities. (PERT and CPM
use different techniques for this)
• CPM Calculations resulting in start times, finish times
and float calculations of activities.
• Marking of Critical Path
• Construction of Bar Charts / Time phased diagrams.
 ACTIVITY

 An element of work performed during the course of a project.

Or
An amount of work that can be identified so that we know what
it involves and can recognize, when it starts and finishes.
 An activity normally has an expected duration, an expected cost,
and expected resource requirements.
 Activities may be
---- On-site Activities like Excavation, Pouring, Plastering,
Brickwork etc.
---- Off-site activities like ordering materials, deliveries,
fabrication of steel, and anything which affect the
construction work.
 Activities may be Detailed or Coarse in their description.
 NETWORK DIAGRAMS

• Any schematic display of the logical relationship of

project activities.
• Always drawn from left to right to reflect project
chronology.
• Usually a combination of arrows and nodes.
• A Network for a project is not unique.
• Mainly of two types:
1.Arrow Diagram
2. Node Diagram / Precedence Diagram
 ARROW DIAGRAMS

• Activities shown by
Arrows. Relationship
between activities
shown by nodes / events.
• Length of arrows does
not obey any scale.
PREDECESSOR-SUCCESSOR RELATIONSHIP

• There is Start-to-finish
relationship between
activities, also called
Predecessor-Successor
Relationship.
EVENT NUMBERING

• Events are numbered in an

Arrow Diagram.
• For any given Activity, the
head event number should
be greater than the tail
event number
• Each Activity should have a
unique i & j pair.
• Situation in Figure 2.14 is
not allowed.
MILESTONES

• Events of some special

significance are called
Milestones.
CONCURRENT RELATIONSHIPS

• Works done parallel to each other constitute

Concurrent Activities. For Example, shop steel
fabrication for a building may be carried out
concurrently with site activities such as
earthmoving and foundation works.
 AGGREGATED ACTIVITIES & CIRCUITS

• If a group of activities is replaced by one single activity, it is

called Aggregated Activity.
• Activities B to F in Fig 2.7 (a) are replaced by activity H in
Figure 2.7 (b).
• A Circuit or Loop of activities is given in Fig 2.8.
• Such Circuits or Loops violate the logic of precedence of
activities, thus, not allowed.
DUMMY ACTIVITIES

• An activity having zero duration and zero cost (and uses zero
resources) is called Dummy Activity.
• Dummy Activity is represented by Dashed Lined Arrow.
• A Dummy Activity may be
a---- Logic Dummy - To fulfill logic relationship
b---- Numbering Dummy – To avoid same i, j pair for
two activities’
c---- Start / Finish Dummy – To give single start or finish
activity in the network.
ARTIFICIAL ACTIVITY

• When a time delay is needed in a construction sequence, an

Artificial Activity is introduced.

• An Artificial Activity is associated with time duration but

has zero cost.
 ACTIVITY DURATIONS

• Activity duration is forecasted by any of the several means, including:

(1) Check Past Records.
(2) Check Standards and / or cost guides, if available.
(3) Ask the workers, who will do it
(4) make an educated guess

• Any time units may be allotted to activity durations like days, hours, weeks,
months, shifts, etc.

• In CPM, a single duration is forecasted for an activity.

• In PERT (Program Evaluation & Review Techniques), 3 durations are

forecasted for an activity and mean taken by weighted average method.
Then, Project’s Duration or any Event Completion Time is calculated by
probability distribution.
 CPM CALCULATIONS

 Calculates the following for each activity

EST = Earliest Starting Time
EFT = Earliest Finishing Time
LST = Latest Starting Time
LFT = Latest Finishing Time
TF = Total Float
FF = Free Float
 Total Float is Maximum time for which an activity can be
delayed without delaying the project.
 Free Float is maximum time for which an activity can be
delayed without delaying the start of proceeding activity.
 Total Float = Free Float + Interfering Float
FLOAT
FLOAT
FLOAT
FLOAT
 EXAMPLE: SINGLE SPAN BRIDGE PROJECT
(ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION)

Activity Code Operation Dependence Est. Dur.

(Days)
ENA Earthworks, north abutment - 5
ESA Earthworks, south abutment ENA 4
CONN Construction, north abutment ENA 14
CONS Construction, south abutment ESA, CONN 12
COMN Compaction, north abutment CONN 2
COMS Compaction, south abutment CONS, COMN 2
RNB Road, north of bridge COMN 2
RSB Road, south of bridge RNB,COMS 2
PB Prefabricate bridge deck - 18
TD Transport deck to site PB 2
EB Erect bridge deck TD, CONN, 3
CONS,
COMN
LBS Lay bridge surface EB, RNB, RSB 2
ICB Install crash barriers etc. EB 1
L Landscape RNB, RSB 1
 CPM CALCULATIONS

FORWARD PASS
• In Forward Pass through the network, the top two cells, of
the six-celled box at each activity are calculated.
• The top two cells give the values of EST & EFT.
• Forward Pass is carried out from left to right in the network
• The EST of first activity/activities is set to zero or some
other number.
• The EFT of the first activity/activities will be 0 + duration of
first activity/activities.
• The EST & EFT of subsequent activities are calculated as

EST = Maximum EFT of preceding activities.

EFT = EST + duration
 CPM CALCULATIONS

BACKWARD PASS
• In Backward Pass through the network, the middle two cells, of
the six-celled box at each activity are calculated.
• The middle two cells give the values of LST & LFT.
• Backward Pass is carried out from right to left in the network
• The LFT of last activity/activities is set to maximum EFT of the
last activity/activities or some other number i.e. date of handing
over.
• The LST of the last activity/activities will be LFT - duration of
last activity/activities.
• The LST & LFT of activities progressing backwards in times are
then calculated as
LFT = Minimum LST of following activities.
LST = LFT - duration
 CPM CALCULATIONS

FLOAT CALCULATION
• In FLOAT CALCULATION through the network, the bottom two
cells, of the six-celled box at each activity are calculated.

• The bottom two cells give the values of Total Float (TF) & Free
Float (FF).

• TF = LST - EST OR LFT - EFT

• FF = Minimum EST of following activities - EFT of activity in
question
 CRITICAL PATH

• The path (or paths) in the network

diagram, from start to finish, on which all
the activities have zero total and free floats,
is called Critical Path.
• It is the longest path (or paths) from start
to finish in a net work diagram.
• It gives minimum normal time to complete
a project.
• It is usually marked by double lined / Thick
lined arrows in a network diagram.
 EVENT TIME CALCULATIONS

• These give finish-time information about Events.

• A two-celled box is put adjacent to each event.
• Event EFT and the Event LFT are written as box entries.
• Underlined notations is used for event calculations.
• Event Float is the difference between LFT and EFT.
 NODE DIAGRAMS

• Activities shown by Nodes, relationship between Activities

shown by arrows or links.
• These are easier to construct.
• Generally no need of dummies. Instead dummies used only to
give single start or finish.
• CPM Calculations are similar to Arrow diagrams.
 BAR CHART

• Gives pictorial representation of Activities.

• Activities begin at EST and show their EFT, FF, TF,
Durations, etc.
• Arrows at the relative ends to show dependency.
• Status Line drawn on the Bar Chart to check status of
the project
• Unable to show complete interdependency between
Activities.
 TIME-SCALED NETWORK DIAGRAMS

• Alternative way of pictorial representation of Activities.

• Show complete interdependency between Activities.
• Horizontal components of solid lines represent the durations
of the activities while horizontal components of broken lines
represent the activity Free Float.
• Vertical components of dashed/thick lines have no significance
as they use no time.