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Fig. 1. Project master schedule in MS-EXCEL
in the literature. A key factor is to develop a system to acquire
data for base measures at the lowest level in order to enhance
accuracy without incurring cumbersome data-handling work-
loads. For managers, measures derived at an appropriate level of
detail should be provided in the system, which can be imple-
mented by means of a tailored work-packaging model that reflects
the characteristics of a project.
Investigation into Current Practices
As part of the writers’ analysis for developing a PMS that is able
to overcome challenges in progress management and that is also
specialized for multiple apartment buildings construction projects
in South Korea, current practices for progress management were
investigated. As samples, 25 construction sites of 10 construction
companies ranked among the top 100 best construction compa-
nies in South Korea were randomly selected. The investigation
was conducted from October 2002 to April 2004. The investiga-
tion focused on scheduling, the production of basic measures 共i.e.,
BCWS, BCWP, and ACWP兲 and control of the variance between
basic measures.
A unique feature of apartment construction projects in South
Korea needs to be considered to understand the investigation re-
sults. In general, an apartment consists of housing units with the
same floor plan. A multiple apartment buildings block consists of
apartments with similar patterns for floor plans. As a sequence,
244 / JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT © ASCE / MARCH 2007
J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 2007.133:242-253.
the type of work and resources show a unique pattern over the
entire project. For this reason, field staff members group activities
by floor or apartment and manage the work group accordingly.
Scheduling
The basic attribute for scheduling was a higher level of activity
with basic floor units of each apartment as seen in Fig. 1 共e.g.,
2–3 floors of concrete work abbreviated as “2-3F Con’c” in Fig.
1兲. Schedules at the sites are generally expressed using Microsoft
EXCEL bar charts.
For finishing work, the schedule for just one apartment is
given; it is used as a reference for other apartments because the
number of activities for all apartments in the finishing stage
would be too much to express in a single bar chart. For this
reason, it is difficult to know the starting point of each activity,
relationships between them, their duration, and critical paths in
the finishing stage. These problems could likely be solved by
using computer applications for project management. At the be-
ginning of construction, scheduling data are prepared by the
progress management teams at headquarters and presented in file
formats of the computer applications. However, the applications
have not been used at the site due to the workload of updating
data as the project proceeds.
Calculation of BCWS and ACWP
Fig. 2 is an example of BCWS recorded in EXCEL. The BCWS
is calculated from CBS accounts. The weight value of an apart-