Isabela State University

City of Ilagan Campus

MODULE TEMPLATE

Subject: Course Number and Description

Course Title : Construction Project Management, Monitoring and Controlling Course

Code : Arch 512
Course Credit : 3 units (3 credit Hours)
Pre-Requisite : Specialization 1
Course Description : Construction Project Management, Monitoring and Controlling

Post-Requisite : Specialization 3
Course Structure : 3-hr Lecture
Class Meeting : Monday
Class Time : 8:00 am – 11am
Professor : Ar.Rmp. Ronan A. Caliboso
Consultation Schedule: E-mail Address: calibosoronan@yahoo.com

1. Title of the Module

SCHEDULING OF REPETITIVE PROJECTS
This chapter introduces new techniques for scheduling of multiple and linear projects that
involve a number of repetitive activities. These techniques include: the summary diagrams
and the line of balance (LOB). Examples of these projects are highways, pipelines, and
high-rise buildings. The objective of the LOB technique is to determine a balanced mix of
resources and synchronize their work so that they are fully employed and non-interrupted.
As such, it is possible to benefit from repetition, and the crews will likely be able to spend
less time and money on later units once they develop a learning momentum. Another
benefit of the LOB technique is its interesting representation of the schedule, given the
large amount of data for the repetitive units. This chapter introduces the summary
diagrams calculations presented on AON networks and integrated CPMLOB calculations
that combine the benefits of CPM network analysis of a single unit and the LOB analysis
and representation.
Linear Projects

Linear projects are projects involving repetitive activities. They take their name from either:
(a) involving several uniform units of work such as multiple houses or typical floors in a
building; or (b) being geometrically linear such as highway, pipeline, and utility projects. In
both categories, however, some non-typical units could be involved such as a non-typical
floor in a high-rise building or a non-standard station in a highway project. The activities in
these non-typical units may certainly involve higher or lower quantity of work than their
counterparts in the typical units. To simplify the scheduling task in these situations, we can
assume that the project is comprised of (n) typical units, with the activities in each unit
having average quantity of the work in all units. As the number of units in a project
increases, eventually the project becomes more complex and more challenging.

Resource-Driven Scheduling

As we have seen in network scheduling, the basic inputs to critical-path analysis are the
individual project activities, their durations, and their dependency relationships.
Accordingly, the forward-path and backward-path calculations determine the start and
finish times of the activities. The CPM algorithm, therefore, is duration-driven. Activities’
durations here are function of the resources that are required (rather than available) to
complete each activity. The CPM formulation, therefore, assumes that resources are in
abundance and cannot be used to determine what resources are needed in order to meet
known project deadline duration.

Resource-driven scheduling, on the other hand, is different and is more focused on

resources. Its objective is to schedule the activities (determine their start and finish times)
so that a project deadline is met using predefined resource availability limits. The line of
balance technique dealt with in this chapter is a resource-driven schedule.

Summary Diagrams

Summary Diagrams Using Two Relationships

One of the methods used for preparing schedules for linear and repetitive projects is the
summary diagrams. The diagram can be constructed as follows:
1. The repetitive units of one work type are represented by one activity. The duration of
this activity is the summation of the durations for individual units within the same
activity.

2. In order to maintain the logic of the network of such a project, relationships between
the start of each activity and the start of its successor and between the finish of each
activity and the finish of its successor are introduced as follows:
 Start to start relationship (LagSS) = duration of one unit of predecessor
Finish to finish relationship (LagFF) = duration of one unit of successor

3. The timings of each activity can be calculated as follows:

For any tow activities A and B (where A is a predecessor of B)

LagSS

ES A EF A ES B EF B
DA DB
LS A LF A LS B LF B

Lag FF

ESB = ESA + LagSS EFEFBB = ES = EFBA + D + LagB FF Whichever is longer LFA = LFB –

LagFF LSLSAA = LF = LSBA – Lag – DA SS Whichever is smaller

4. The early and late start timings of each activity represent timings of the first individual
unit of this activity. On the other hand, the early and late finish timings of each
activity represent timings of the last individual unit of this activity. Therefore, contract
completion time equals finish time of the last activity in the summary diagram.

Example 6.1

Activity Duration (one unit)

A 3
B 2
C 2

Solution

The complete precedence diagram is given below:

 Figure 6.1: PDM for Example 6.1

The summary diagram is given below:

0 12
Lag 2
A
0 12 12
3 14
Lag 3 Lag 2
B
6 8 14 5 16
C
Lag 2
8 8 16

Figure 6.2: The summary diagram for Example 6.1

From the summary diagram it is obvious that the critical activities are:

All units of activity A

The last unit of activity B
The last unit of activity C

The first unit of both activities B and C has a total float of 3 units. The results of the
summary diagram are compatible with the results of the precedence diagram on the
assumption that duration of the units of an activity will not be changed.

Summary Diagrams Using One Relationship

One of the most important aspects of this procedure is the ability to specify one
relationship type among different activities also, it maintain the resource continuity usage.
To specify such relationships between two consecutive activities, the production rate of
each activity is compared with that of its successors. If di and ri denote unit duration and
production rate of activity i, respectively, then:
ri = 1/di (6.1)

The activity under consideration will be referred to as current activity. If rc and rs denote
production rates of current and succeeding activities, respectively, the possible cases that
may be encountered are:
rs < rc: This implies that the start of the 1 st unit of the succeeding activity is controlled

by the finish of the 1st unit of the current activity. Then a Start-to-Start (SS)

relationship is to be specified. The lag associated with SS relationship (Lag SS) equals

the unit duration of the current activity, as follows:

LagSS = dc (unit duration of current activity) (6.2)

Referring to Figure 6.3 and considering, for example, activities A and B, where B is a
succeeding activity to A. In this case, dC (activity A) = 1 and dS (activity B) = 2.5, and
consequently rC (activity A) = 1 and rS (activity B) = 0.4 (1/2.5). Therefore, SS
relationship exists between activities A and B and the corresponding lag = dC = 1.
rs > rc: In this case, the start of the last unit of the succeeding activity is controlled by
the finish of the last unit of the current activity. Then a Finish to-Finish (FF)
relationship exists. The lag associated with FF relationship (Lag FF) equals the unit
duration of the succeeding activity, or:
LagFF = ds (unit duration of succeeding activity) (6.3)

For example, relation between activities C and D in Figure 6.3 depicts a FF

relationship. In this case, rC (activity C) = 0.67 (1/1.5) and r S (activity D) = 2 (1/0.5),
and the corresponding LagFF(C-D) = dS = 0.5.
rs = rc: In this case, a SS or FF relationships can be specified, with lags as described

above.

After specifying the relationship type between consecutive activities, the duration of an
activity i; (Di), is calculated as the sum of unit duration of all repetitive units, i.e.:

Di = n × di (6.4)

Having the relationship type among activities determined with their associated lags,
network calculations similar to that of PDM are done. Forward path calculations are done
to determine the early times of each activity, while the backward path determines the late
times. Also, the critical activities are specified.
Basic Representation

Let’s consider a medium-sized high-rise building of 40 typical floors. The construction of

each typical floor involves various inter-related activities. If a CPM network is to be
developed for the whole project, certainly it will be so complex and will be composed of
copies of the activities in a single floor. A Bar Chart of the project will still be so complex
and will not serve the purpose of a good communication tool between planners and
execution personnel.

A schedule representation that suits projects with repetitive activities is shown in Figure
6.4 between time on the horizontal axis and units on the vertical axis. This representation
shows the following information:

- Each sloping bar represents one activity (A, B, C, or D) in the project and the width of
the bar is the activity duration of one unit, which is uniform along all units;
- A horizontal line at any unit intersects with the activity bars at the planned start and
finish times of the work in that unit;
- A vertical line at any date (time) shows the planned work that should be
completed/started before and on that date;
- The slope of each activity represents its planned rate of progress and this is direct
function of the number of crews involved in the activity. The slope of the last activity is
the rate of delivery of the various units; and
- The finish time of the last unit in last activity represents the end date of the project.

It is possible also to add more details to the basic LOB schedule as shown in Figure 6.5.
The modified figure shows interesting information, as follows:

- The number of crews employed in each task is graphically represented with each crew
indicated by a different pattern. As such, the movement of the crews from one unit to
the other is shown;
Project
 11

End Date

6. Recommended learning materials and resources for supplementary reading.

1. Project Management: A Managerial Approach Fourth Education, Jack R. Meredith
and Samuel J. Mantel, (John Wiley and Sons, 1995)
2. Managing the Construction Process Estimating, Scheduling and Project Control,
Frederick Gould (Pearson,2002)
3. Introduction to Engineering Construction Inspection, Edward Fisk (Wiley, 2004)
4. Management of Construction Projects: A Constructor’s Perspective, John
Schauferberger and Len L. Holm (Pearson, 2000)
5. Managing Construction Equipment, S. W. Nunnaly (Pearson, 2000)
6. Construction Jobsite Management, William R. Mincks (Thomson Delmar Learning,
2004)
7. Project Management Software: Microsoft Project, Primavera Suretrack, or other
8. Critical Chain, Goldratt, North River, 1997

Online Journals:
1. Construction Project Management. Project Planning
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
271830114_REPETITIVE_PROJECT_SCHEDULING_DEVELOPING_CPM-
LIKE_ANALYTICAL_CAPABILITIES

7. Flexible Teaching Learning Modality (FTLM) adopted:

Online (synchronous)
//ZOOM, Edmodo, google classroom, moodle, schoology, Podcast etc..
Remote (asynchronous)
//module, case study, exercises, problems sets, etc…
8. Assessment Task

This allows the students to pull together what they have learned and the skills
they have developed in order to answer the module question. In this part, students are
given Self-Assessment Questions (SAQs) and asked to consider broader aspects of the
question, such as social and economic.

9. References
This contains the list of references/readings which students can explore.
1. Construction Management. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_management
2. Handbook: For Construction and Project Management.
http://bk-guide.dk/handbook/Handbook-project-and-construction-management.pdf

ISUE__ __ Syl ___

Revision: 02
Effectivity: August 1, 2020