UNIT-II: Construction project planning

Unit I
 Need of construction management
 Objectives
 Elements of project management
 Construction in India
 Unique Features of construction project
 Types of construction projects
 Stages in construction
 agencies involved and their methods of execution
 Project Delivery Methods
 Construction Team. Organisation – principles and types.
Contents
 Stages of project planning: pre-tender planning, construction
planning, detailed construction planning
 Types of Project plans Time plan, man power plan, material plan,
construction equipment plan; Work break-down structure-
Methodologies of WBS; estimating durations, sequence of activities,
activity utility data;
 Techniques of planning Bar charts, Networks: basic terminology,
types of precedence relationships, preparation of CPM networks:
activity on link and activity on node representation, computation of
float values, critical and semi critical paths, calendaring networks.
PERT- Assumptions underlying PERT analysis, determining three time
estimates, analysis, slack computations, calculation of probability of
completion.
Types in Project planning
 Planning by owner
 Pre-Tender planning
 Contract planning
 Planning by owner
 Appoint an engineer to investigate and plan the project
for them
 Prepare approximate estimate and determine capital
required.
 In case of govt. projects detailed plans, estimates are
prepared by Govt. Agencies.
 After the approval contracts are invited to bid for the
completion of project.
 Pre-Tender planning
 The planning undertaken by the contractor after receipt
of tender notice and before submitting the bid is called
pre tendering.
 The planning involves the following steps
 Careful study of tender documents.
 To workout quantities of material required
 To determine the availability of resources.
 Examine the mode of execution of work.
 Decide amount of Bid and Submit the tender document
 Contract planning
 After acceptance of tender the contractor needs further
planning
 Studying the alternate method of construction
 Material required ? Where to procure ? Their comparative cost ?
 Recruitment and selection of human resources
 Working out the detail requirement of equipment machinery
 Arranging repair and maintenance facility to equipment and
machinery.
 Planning for the location and other details of camp office,
service roads and layouts of site.
 Transportation for labours.
 To study interdependency of works and decide their proper
sequence.
 Finalising the work program.
 Types of project plans
 Time plan
 Man power plan
 Material plan
 Equipment plan
Time Plan

 Time is the essence of all construction projects, and contracts often

have clauses outlining awards (bonus payments) or penalties (as
liquidated damages) for completing a work ahead or later than a
scheduled date.
Common reasons for delays could be
 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.
 Several reasonably well-established techniques are available
and commonly used for time planning (or ‘scheduling’)
activities
 Critical path method (CPM),
 Programme evaluation and review technique (PERT),
 Precedence network analysis (PNA),
 lineof-balance technique (LOB),
 linear programme chart (LPC)
 Time scale network (TSN).
Manpower Plan
 This plan focuses on estimating the size of workforce, division in
functional teams and scheduling the deployment of manpower.
 It may be noted that manpower planning also involves
 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.
Material Plan
 The material plan involves identification of required materials,
 Estimation of required quantities,
 defining specification and forecasting material requirement,
 Besides identification of appropriate
 source(s), inventory control, procurement plans and monitoring the
usage of materials.
Construction Equipment Plan
 Modern construction is highly mechanized and the role of heavy
equipment in ensuring timely completion of projects cannot be over-
emphasised.
 Machines are used in modern construction for mass excavation,
trenching, compacting, grading, hoisting, concreting, drilling,
material handling, etc.
 Induction of modern equipment could improve productivity and
quality, besides reducing cost. At the same time,
 It should be borne in mind that heavy equipment are very costly and
should be optimally utilized in order to be productive.
 It is also important that the characteristics of equipment are kept in
mind when drawing up an equipment plan.
Finance Plan
 Given the fact that large construction projects require huge investments, and a
long time to complete, it is obvious that all the money is not required at any one
point in time.
 Contractors fund their projects from their working capital, a part of which is raised
by the contractors using their own sources (e.g., bank loans secured against
assets, deployment of resources from their inventory),
 Whereas the rest comes from a combination of avenues such as mobilization
advance for the project, running-account bills paid by the client, secured advances
against materials brought at site, advance payments, and credits from suppliers
against work done.
 Thus, a careful analysis needs to be carried out to determine how the requirement
of funds varies with time. It is little wonder that capital inflow can be looked upon
as the lifeline of any large project.
 Careful planning for funds and finances has achieved added significance in cases
when projects are funded by the private sector or financial institutions that view
the project as a financial investment and seek returns in monetary terms also.
 Time plan
 Itemised working plan for project execution.
 Which results in details construction schedule.
 The construction team makes a work breakdown
structure by breaking the project scope into major work
activities.
 Then completion of dates of each activities.
 Schedule how much time it will take to complete
activity
 Money plan
 Consists of a detail project budget based on a detail
construction cost estimate
 The cash flow plan results from the budget and the
schedule, and forecasts how the budgeted funds will be
spent.

 How much is the project is going to cost.

Material and equipment plan

 The last major planning effort is forecasting the human,

material, and systems resources required to execute a
construction project according to the master plan and the
schedule.

 Depending on the time of the project different people with

different skills are required.
 What type of human resource are required at particular point
of time.
 Recruitment, transportation…
WORK-BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE
 Work-breakdown structure (or WBS), or simply ‘work breakdown’, is
the name given to a technique in project management in which the
project is broken down into ‘manageable chunks’.
 WBS represents ‘a task-oriented “family tree” of activities and
organizes, defines, and graphically displays the total work to be
accomplished in order to achieve the final objectives of the project.’
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• A technique to determine functional elements of a project and their inter-
relationship
• Used to establish the hierarchical order
• It breaks the project into recognizable and manageable systems, sub-systems,
discrete activities
– System into no.of sub-systems
– Sub-systems into no.of discrete activities /tasks
• It identifies discrete activities/tasks that can be planned, estimated,
scheduled, executed and controlled
WBS for compound wall
construction
Compound wall construction
Excavation

Lean concrete in foundation

Masonry in foundation

Damp Proof Course

Masonry in super structure

Pointing

Coping
 Work Breakdown
Guidelines for work breakdown
If the duration of an activity< project duration/1000 then level
of detail is too great
If the duration of an activity> project duration/10 then level of detail
is too shallow
The division into activities should take into account the complexity of
job (eg. Concreting), men & machine involvement
If the network is intended to be presented to top management keep minimum
details, for supervisory personnel full detail network should be presented
Bill of quantities for the work gives a fair idea of the activities to be
considered
 A work breakdown structure (WBS) in construction is a
hierarchical way of organizing a building project. The WBS is
a single document that divides the project deliverables into
manageable chunks known as work packages.
 Project managers create a visual representation of the
construction WBS; the image resembles a family tree or an
organization chart. At the very top of the diagram, the
finished building (or parent) appears. Each layer beneath
the parent breaks the project down into children.
 Typical WBS for a
building work Building

Super structure Sanitary and Approach road

Site clearance Foundation and Electrical
including water supply Finishes and
and excavation DPC services
roofing service compound
wall

Lean concrete in
Site clearance Plinth beams Interiors Exteriors Roof treatment
foundation

Masonry in
Excavation Columns Plastering
foundation

Anti-termite
DPC Beams and slabs Flooring
treatment

Painting
Bar chart / Gantt chart
 Henry Gantt developed this technique around 1900
 Conventional method of scheduling used in construction industry
 Bar chart consists of two coordinate axes
 Time is denoted on X-axis and on y-axis jobs/activities to be
performed
 Each job is depicted in the form of a horizontal line or bar and the
length of a bar indicates duration of the job/activity
 Some jobs may be taken up Concurrently thus bars for the same
may
run parallel to each other
 The level of detail of the activities and the unit of time is determined
by the intended use (eg. management meeting or executives
meeting)
Development of Bar chart

Breakdown
Decide
Assign
Represent
Example of preparing bar chart for
equipment foundation
S.No. Activities Time (days)
1 Layout and excavation for foundation 5
2 Placing lean concrete (mud mat) 1
3 Fabricate shuttering 3
4 Cutting and bending of reinforcement 4
5 Reinforcement fixing 2
6 Shuttering 1
7 Concrete pouring 1
Bar chart 1 in MS
Project
Example-1
Example-2
Example-3
Exercise-1
Solution:
Limitations of bar charts
1. Interdependencies of activities
– Bar chart does not show clearly the interdependencies
among
the various
2. Project activities
progress
– A conventional bar chart does not show the progress of work,
it can be made useful by modifying with coloring/hatching to
show progress
3. Quantities of items of work
– The bar chart depicts the time schedule for various activities
but it does not indicate the quantities. It may be improved by
showing quantities of work against individual items
4. Critical activities
– Bar chart does not indicate critical activities requiring
careful
attention
 Lack of Degree of details
 Review of project progress
Bar chart 2 in MS
Project
 Mild stone chart
 It is the modification over the original Gantt chart
 Mild stones are key events of main activity
 These are the specific points in time which mark the
completion of certain portions of the main activity
 These points are easily identified over the main bar
 The beginning and end of the sub activities are
termed as mild stones
 Represented by either circle or by square
 Controlling become easy
 Still has deficiency in showing interdependencies
Mild stone chart to Network
diagram
Project Mangement by Network

 Network : A Network is a graphical and logical model or plan lists out the
sequence of various operations ( with interdependencies) which are
required to be performed
 Activity : Any portions of the project which consumes time and resources
Activity is donated by arrow

 Event : The beginning or completion of an activity is termed as event. It

does not consume any time and resource

 Network Logic : Technical dependency among the activities

 Dummy: A Dummy is an activity but it does not consume any time
and resources. It is a method by witch interdependences of activities
or events can be clearly shown
Types of Events

 Tail event & Initial event

 Head event & Final event.
 Dual role Event
A) Burst Events

B) Merge Events
Interrelationship of events

 Successors events: the events that follows a particular event in the

sequence of their completion is called successor event that event.
Event 2 is successor to event 1

 Predecessor event: An event that occurs before particular event in

the sequence of their completion is called predecessor event
event 1 is said to be predecessor to event 2
Interrelationships of Activitys

 Parallel activities
 Serial activities
Dummy activity
 It is a type of operation in the network which neither requires any
time nor any resources, but merely a device to identify a dependence
among operations.
 It is a connecting link for control purposes
 It is represented with dashed arrow.
 Uses of dummies
 Grammatical purpose
 Logical purpose
Example : Dummy activities
Function of Dummies

 Dummy maintain the logic of the network

 Dummy maintain the numbering system of the network
Network diagram
 Network rules
 Initial node has only outgoing arrow there must be a single initial
node in a network
 An event cannot be occurred until all the activities coming to it are
completed
 An event cannot occurred twice, i.e, there can not be any network
path looping back to previously occurred event.
 There must be any dead end left after end node in a
network.
 No activity can start until its tail end event has
occurred
 No of arrows should be equals to no.of activities in
the project,
any arrow should represent singular situation.
 Representation of the network should be such that
every activity is completed to reach the end
objective.
 All constraints and interdependencies should be
shown properly on the network by use of
appropriate dummies.
 It is usual practice to show the time flow from left to
right.
Graphical guidelines for arrows

 1. Arrows are not vectors. They are never used to indicate duration
(or time) through its length. All arrows should be of nearly equal size
wherever possible, i.e. wide variation is length of arrows should be
avoided. Length should be chosen to suit drafting requirements.
 2. Orientation or angle between arrows should be chosen to suit
drafting convenience. The angle between arrows leaving or joining
nodes, should be as large as possible so that more space is available
for the addition of other relevant information in the diagram.
 3. As far as possible, straight arrows should be used. Curved arrows
are not preferred.
 4.Arrows should not cross each other
Representation of activities
Numbering of events
 It is essential to number the events or node points.
 The activities joining the nodes can better be identified on the network by
the event numbers or node numbers at the tail and head of the activity.
 The event numbering should be scientifically done so that they reflect their
logical sequence. In a big network, the problem of numbering can be
simplified if the rules devised by D.R. Fulkerson are followed.
The sequential numbering to the events may be assigned in the following
steps :
 There is a single initial event in a network diagram. This initial event will
have arrows coming out of it and none entering it. Number this initial event
as 1.
 2. Neglect all the arrows emerging out of the initial event numbered 1.
Doing so will apparently provide one or more new initial events.
 3. Number these apparently produced new initial events as 2, 3, 4 etc.
 4. Again neglect all emerging arrows from these numbered events ; this will
create few more initial events.
 5. Follow step 3.
How to draw network diagram

 Understand the inter dependency relation ships of activities

 Know the fulkerson’s rule for numbering events
 Use circle/square to represent events/nodes and arrow for activities.
fulkerson’s rule for numbering
events
 Number the initial event as 1
 All the arrows coming out of initial event are neglected this will creat
two r more number of initial events
 Number these initial events as 2 and 3
 Again neglect all emerging
arrows from these newly
numbered events. Which
will create a few more new
initial events
 Follow the same
procedure till last event
 Network techniques in construction management
 Network techniques are effective tools for
 Planning
 Scheduling and
 controlling construction jobs
 Network techniques provide a rational approach
 Application of these techniques essential to meet
higher productivities with constraint on resources
such as time, capital, skilled man power, equipment
e.t.c.,
 The two commonly used network techniques are
 Critical Path Method (CPM)
 Programme Evaluation and Review Technique
(PERT)
 CPM PERT
1. Developed by US Du Pont 1. Developed by US Navy during
Corporation & Remington Rand in 1957-58 while working on Polaris
1956 Missile program
2. Activity oriented 2. Event oriented
3. Single time estimate
3. Three time estimates-To , l, T
4. Deterministic approach T p,
5. activities are shown as a network
of precedence relationships using 4. Probabilistic approach
activity-on-node network 5. activities are shown as a network
construction of precedence relationships using
6. CPM is used for repetitive types of activity-on-arrow network
projects where the time estimates construction
for various activities are either 6. PERT is used for pioneering type
known or can be determined
(R&D) projects and where prior
accurately
data about activity times is not
7. CPM places emphasis upon
available
optimising allocation of resources
and minimizing overall project 7. PERT lays emphasis on reducing
cost project completion time without
cost constraint
Characteristics of CPM/PERT
Projects
 Clearly recognisable jobs or tasks
 These tasks should have definite commencement and completion.
 Events must be occurred at definite pattern and must be performed
in a technological sequence.
Example :
Example :
AOA -AON
Inter dependency of events
 Predecessor event
 Successor event
Activities & events
Example
Solution
Solution
Example
Solution:
Example
Solution:
Example
Solution:
Steps in development of
Network
 Objective
 Plan breakdown
 Sequencing
 Development
 Drawing check
 Redraw and introduce
 Numbering
Modes of Network construction

 Event oriented diagrams

 Activity oriented diagrams
Example
Activity oriented diagram
Event oriented diagram
Critical path method (CPM)

 Discovered by Dupont and spery rond corporation in

1957
 Applications of CPM
 Building a new bridge across a river
 Construction of a multi storeyed building
 Extension of a factory building
 Shifting a manufacturing unit to other site.
 Manufacturing of a new car
Critical path method

 Generally CPM used for the repetitive type projects, or for the
projects for which fairly accurate estimate of time for
completion of each activity can be made
 And for which cost estimate can be made with fair degree of
accuracy
 How ever it is not suitable for research and development
projects
Advantages of CPM Network in execution of
projects
 Calendar-wise construction schedule of activities useful to draw
schedule of men, machinery and material
 Inter-relationship and sequence of various activities are clear
from network
 Procurement of various resources can be done according to the
schedule
 Realistic time to complete the project can be ascertained by
going into the details of time and activity sequence
 During execution of the work the productivity constants can be
revised
 In the event of the program getting upset due to some
unforeseen reasons, a revised CPM chart can be prepared and
prompt action can be taken to avoid further loss of resources
 The network scheduling ensures the optimum use of the men,
machines and material
 Activity time estimate
 Deterministic approach : followed by CPM Planners
 Probabilistic approach : followed by PERT planners
 Optimistic time
 Likely time
 Pessimistic time
 Earliest event time (TE):
Earliest time at which an event can occure
Example on Earliest occurrence
time
Solution
 Latest allowable occurrence time (Latest event time) :
 The latest time by which an event must occur to keep the
project on schedule
 Denoted by TL
Previous Example : Determine
Latest allowable time
Solution:
Start and finish times of activity

 Earliest start time (EST) : TE of its tail event

 Earliest finish time (EFT) : EST + activity
duration
 Latest start time (LST) : LFT – activity
duration
 Latest finish time (LFT) : TL of its head event
Find out EST,EFT,LST,LFT of
activity B (11-12)
Find out EST,EFT,LST,LFT of
activity C (2-4)
Solution:
Representation of 4 activity
times:
 Float
 Range with in which an activity or finish time
may fluctuate with out affecting the
completion of project.
 Types of floats :
 Total float
 Free float
 Independent float
 Interfering float
 Total float :
Summary of floats
Solution
Critical activities and critical
path
 Critical path is the longest path through the network
and time along this path give project duration.
 Activities which are joined by critical path are called
critical activities
 Activities on critical path have zero total float.
 Types of activities
 Super critical : Negative float
 Critical : zero float
 Subcritical : Positive float
Critical path
Solution :

Steps to be followed

1.Computation of events times TE and TL

2.Computation of activity times and total float
3.Location of critical path
PERT-Programme Evaluation and
Review Technique
 PERT was devised in 1958 for the POLARIS missile program by the
Program Evaluation Branch of the Special Projects office of the
U.S.Navy, helped by the Lockheed Missile Systems division and the
Consultant firm of Booz-Allen & Hamilton.
 Used for research and development projects
 Probabilistic approach
 Event oriented
 Three time estimates
 Uncertainty in activity time
Time estimates

 Optimistic time
 Pessimistic time
 Most likely time

 EXPECTED TIME
Three time estimates used in PERT are
1. Optimistic Time Estimate (To): shortest possible time under ideal conditions
2. Most likely Time Estimate (Tm): time for completing activity under normal
conditions
3. Pessimistic Time Estimate (Tp): Maximum time required to complete activity
under extremely adverse conditions in which everything goes wrong

• Expected Time Estimate (Te) = (To + 4Tm + Tp )/6

• Estimation Trend assumed to follow Beta Distribution curve
• To < Tm < Tp
• Std.Deviation of activity =(Tp-To)/6
• Higher the SD greater the uncertainty
• Variance of activity =(SD)2
– Variance reflects the spread of a value over a normal distribution
Frequency distribution
 For the complete description of the frequency distribution curve
following aspects of the characteristics of the distribution are
important
 Mean time
 Deviation
 Variance
 Standard deviation
Example: Find out Expected
time of all activities in the given
network
Write down data in tabular form
Use below formula to Calculate Expected time
Example
Solution
Earliest Expected time TE
Example
Solution
Slack
 The difference between earliest occurrence time and latest allowable
time
Example
Types of slacks and their
importance
Example
Solution
So from above diagram the zero slack events are : 1,4,5,6,8
Hence critical events
The critical path is 1-4-5-6-8
Example
solution