BUILDING PLANNING AND CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES – SCHEDULE, USE METHODS

- Building planning and construction activities involve concerting the specified plan prepared by
an engineer or an architect into finished project.
- Success in the building planning and construction activities industry depends largely on the
ability of the management to plan and coordinate the numerous steps involved in the project
execution.
- Efforts should be taken to anticipate problems before construction of the project begins.
- Construction activities industry demands a high level of management of human resources and
-
- materials for the project.

BUILDING PLANNING AND CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITIES OF PROJECT

1. An engineer must study each major-minor item of construction to determine the possibility of
completing the project at the earliest, with incurring the least expenditure while utilizing all
adequate resources manpower and equipment.
2. The decision of the engineer should be based on a thorough knowledge of construction
methods and costs.
3. Construction planning of a project may be divided into 3 parts:
a. Material
b. Labour force
c. Finance required for materials and labour force as well as equipment, supervision and
overhead.
4. An activity completion should be prepared, to arrive at the completion of the overall project
according to a time schedule.
5. This becomes a reference construction schedule (baseline) from which material schedule, labour
schedule and finance schedule are derived.

MATERIAL SCHEDULE

1. The engineer concerned is expected to be familiar with building planning and construction
activities methods and costs.
2. This engineer normally works out detailed quantities of the entire material required for the
building or project under his jurisdiction.
3. Such total quantities can be listed down serially in one format.
4. Later, referring to the building planning and construction activities completion chart, the month-
wise requirement of each material can be worked out.
5. Each material required for construction has a different lead-time.
6. Lead-time is the time difference between the placement of order and the actual delivery of the
material on site.
7. Accordingly, the material order and receipt schedule should be prepared.
8. This schedule acts as a guide for placing the order for materials that are to be delivered the site
well in advance, to avoid any delay in starting the building planning and construction activities.
9. The material should not be stored or dumped far away as likely to be stolen, lost, damage or
may deteriorate.
10. Since the delivery dates and quantities of all the materials required are mentioned in the
material order and receipt schedule, unnecessary congestion of working spaces is also avoided
at the site.
11. Material planning schedule:

Material planning schedule

 Material order receipt schedule

LABOUR SCHEDULE

1. This schedule indicates the number and type of labourers required for each building planning
and construction activities operation. The consolidated labour schedule.
2. Whos the number and period for labourers of different classes. Labour schedules help in making
arrangements for labourers of different categories welt in advance.
3. The calculation of labour strength required for various activities during a specified should be
done.
4. Accordingly, we can calculate other unskilled workers, male coolies, female coolies required per
day.

NOTE: Before preparing the bar chart, the estimation of quantity for each activity is a must
FINANCE OR CASH FLOW SCHEDULE

1. The building planning and construction activities completion chart gives an idea of the activities
in a particular month/period if the vertical column of time is referred to.
2. With the help of this column, the engineer can work out the monthly cash flow requirement,
taking additional help of material and labour schedule.

Typical graph of projected time and expenditure

3. The budgeted cash flow can be obtained when the cost incurred for a total building or project
and time in months is plotted on a graph.
4. This help the project manager to make advance arrangement for finance over a period of time,
in accordance with the successful completion of each project activity.
5. At the end of each month, it is advisable to update the budgeted expenditure and actual
expenditure incurred, the figures of which becomes self-explanatory for the project cost and
time.
6. The information from this chart also helps the organization in securing loans from banks or
other sources.

USE OF ADVANCE PLANNING AND EXECUTION BUILDING CONSTRUCTION

- Advance planning and execution is the key to better management and execution of a project:
1. It proves helpful in the following manner.
2. Schedule the project completion within a stipulated time.
 3. Manage certain activity schedules during that period.
4. Forecast financial requirements during that period.
5. Coordinate sequence of every building planning and construction activity.
6. Material procurement with minimum lead time.
7. Manage labour procurement and other manpower requirement during this period.
8. Evaluate the reason for the delay in the completion of a particular activity.
9. Maintain updated progress of work in comparison with the scheduled program.

METHOD OF PREPARING BUILDING CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULE

- An excellent way is the conference technique where the key people concerned with the
planning and execution of the project meet and discuss different issues.
- Following are the commonly used methods for planning:
a. C.P.M
b. P.E.R.T
c. Bar chart

Critical Path Method

1. The technique of the critical path method is devised to plan and manage all types of
construction projects.
2. It is known by various terms, such as network analysis, critical path analysis, etc.
3. However, it is popular referred as critical path method (C.P.M)
4. Useful and effective tool for construction engineers, planners, cost estimators, managers and
directors.
5. The major benefits of CPM are simplicity, flexibility and overall control
6. It is useful in various managerial functions such as planning, scheduling and controlling a project
and more specifically to determine the time schedule for a project.
7. The planning part of a project involves the breaking down the project into several smaller tasks
or jobs that must be executed in order to complete the project.
8. The gross requirement of manpower, material and equipment are determined in this phase.
9. The estimates of cost and duration for various activities and jobs are also prepared in the
planning stage.
10. Scheduling of a project deals with fixing of various jobs in the time order in which they have to
be performed.
11. The manpower and material requirements needed at each stage are determined
12. The expected time of completion of the jobs is also calculated in this stage.
13. Thus, a network is prepared as a controlling part of the project, with a review of differences
between schedules and the actual performance.
ADVANTAGES OF CPM

1. It helps in planning a project in a scientific manner.

2. It shows the complete logic of various activities involved in the project
3. It decides the minimum duration in which the project can be completed
4. In case of reduction in duration, CPM helps by crashing of project activities
5. If there is an unforeseen delay at any stage of the project, CPM helps in updating the schedule.
6. It helps in controlling the execution of a project in an efficient manner.
7. Cost control is possible through CPM
8. It depicts the overall picture of the entire project at a glance and indicates how various
activities, jobs and events of the project are inter-related.
9. It expresses the project in a graphical form
10. It becomes the basic document for the preparation of work schedules for different project-
related tasks and activities.
11. It serves as a communication medium for various groups associated with the execution of the
project.
12. The available resources can be diverted and utilized advantageously along the critical path of
the project.

NETWORK ANALYSIS (CPM)

The basic data to be collected before the application of CPM is attempted for a particular project are:

1. Calculating quantities and costs of all possible items of the project

2. Estimating the normal time required to complete each operation. Thus, the normal cost and
time data for each operation are workout.
3. The basic information thus collected is then received and revised through various possible steps
to complete the project in the most economical way.
4. The variation which might be considered include the use of alternative equipment, changing of
gangs of workers, adopting better building planning and construction activities methods,
increasing the working hours etc.
5. The relevant variations are then checked on critical path network diagrams and ultimately an
optimum solution to the time and cost of the project is obtained.

CONCLUSION ABOUT CPM

Basically, CPM is used for industrial construction or industrial organization. The most commonly used
method for small and simple construction projects however is the bar chart

1. Bar chart for complete building

2. Bar chart after R.C.C work
3. Bar chart after masonry plasterwork
4. The bar chart at the time possession
FROM THE BAR CHARTS, ONE CAN UNDERSTAND

1. Tota time required for the particular activities.

2. Schedule of materials required
3. Labour strength is required for each activity
4. Machinery requirement schedule
5. Preparation of work before each activity
6. Coordination of different contractor
7. Updated progress of work
8. Reasons for delay for each activity
9. Contractor’s labour payment requirement
10. Total finance requirement schedule
11. Preparation of other development activities simultaneously
12. Degree of supervision and concentration required for different activities
13. Crushing of particular activities’ time to accommodate any delays
14. To think of resources for labour strength
15. Advance planning and preparation for light’ arrangement in case of electricity failure, water
arrangement, night shift program, a deputation of staff to avoid delay
16. Advance planning for the availability of material and purchasing of important materials.
17. Following up with other agencies or departments involved.