Topic: Construction Planning

1.INTRODUCTION
PROJECT MANAGEMENT is a discipline aimed at and involves
Planning, Organizing, Controlling Coordinating and Managing all
the “scarce resources” in executing all project activities in a
successful manner in order to meet objectives of the organisation
in the sake of meeting or satisfying or even exceeding the
customer expectations.

Planning: Makes efficient and economical use of labour, machines, materials,

times and sequences of all operations/activities
Organisation: Is the means of delegating tasks
Control enables: Planning and organization to be effective.
Coordinating: This includes obtaining feedback on the execution of the
activities, identifying problem areas, taking corrective measures, judging
progress made.
2. CONSTRUCTION/PROJECT PLANNING
Construction or Project Planning is an integral
part of project management aimed at
programming and scheduling all activities of the
project by allocating appropriate resources to
each activity by the use of planning techniques
such as GANTT CHART or BAR CHART,
CPM(Critical Path Method), PERT(Program
Evaluation and Review Technique), LINE OF
BALANCE, etc, and set operation sequences of the
project activities and control and monitor the
whole progress process.
3. PROPERTIES/ESSENTIALS OF A GOOD PLAN
 Show the quickest and cheapest method of carrying
out the work consistently with the available resources
 By the proper phasing of operations with balanced
labour gangs in all trades, ensure continuous
productive work for all the operatives employed and
reduce unproductive time to a minimum.
 Provide an assessment of the level of productivity in all
trades
 Determine attendance dates, and periods for all
subcontractor’s work
3. PROPERTIES/ESSENTIALS OF A GOOD PLAN (Cont…)
 Provide information on material quantities and
essential delivery dates, the quantity and capacity of
the plant required and the periods it will be on site.
 Provide, at any time during the construction, a simple
and rapid method of measuring progress for the
contractor’s information for the architect’s periodical,
for the valuation of work for accounting purposes.
 Be current and update with passage of time
 Should demonstrate flexibility
 Should be clear without ambiguity.
4. Components of Good Planning Techniques
1) Defining of activities
2) Activities duration should be well defined
3) Should have project time scale-the scale depends on
the size of the projects. Week is preferred time scale
for most practical works.
4) should define events
5) Work method should be clearly determined-sequence
of activities
6) Resources be used, i.e. 4ms (man, machines,
materials and money)
7) The cost of all activities.
5. Planning Tools/Techniques
5.1 BAR CHART
Bar chart technique uses bar to show
activities. Bar chart are easy to understand
and most used by people who avoid
complexity.
5.1.1 Merits of Bar Chart
 Easy to understand
 Good for static environments which changes are minimal
 easier to view the progress of activities
 They need little or no mathematics.
5.1.2 Demerits of Bar Chart
1) Difficult to update where many changes occur
especially for large projects
2) It does note equate time and cost
3) It is not easy to reschedule the resources, the
optimization is not easily seen.
4) Not useful for more complex projects
5) The sequence of operation under one activity is not
clearly known
6) Silent over inter-dependency of one event over
another
7) Feedback is only approximate.
GANTT CHART/BAR CHART METHOD
Example 1
Consider a building to be constructed in which the estimated
duration for completion of each activity is as follows:

A Excavation 11days
B Concrete 7 days
C Masonry work 21 days
D Making door frame 9 days
E Making window frame 11 days
F Roofing 13 days
G Plastering 16 days
H Flooring 7 days
I White washing and painting 11 days
J Shutters of doors and windows 13 days
k Cleaning 8 days
TASK
Draw a chart known as the Gantt Chart (Bar Chart)
which will represent both planning and scheduling
of the project above. By using thick dark bars
indicate the progress of the work so that from the
chart one can get a clear picture of the progress of
the work. See solution: figure….
FIGURE: SOLUTION
WORKING MONTH

SN ITEM January February March

Weeks Weeks Weeks
1-7 8-14 15-21 22-28 29-4 5-11 12-18 19-25 26-2 3-11 12-18 19-25

A Excavation

B Concrete

C Masonry

D Door frames

E Window frames

F Roofing

G Plastering

H Flooring

I White washing & painting

J Shutters of doors and windows

Estimated time Actual time taken : REFERENCES
K Cleaning
As pointed earlier, one of the limitation of bar chart is
that, the sequence of operation under one activity is
not clearly known. The various functions under each
activity are shown by one bar. This does not permit an
effective control of the project. For example consider
an item of concrete (plain as well as reinforced) on the
chart it is represented by one bar through the
following functions to control the completion of time.
(a) Materials supply as per requirement
(b) Form work reinforcing and placing of concrete
(c) Removal of form work
(d) Curing of concrete
(e) Testing and approval
MILE STONE CHART
Because of shortcomings or the inadequacies of the
bar chart, efforts have been made to modify it by
adding new elements. This modification is called
milestone system developed in the year 1940 in
which key events which can be identified when
completed are shown on the respective bars. Each
event milestone is numbered and explanatory note
prepared. With introduction of these key events or
milestones, the reporting becomes easy.
LIMITATION OF MILESTONE CHART
This chart also does not show the
interdependencies or the interrelationship between
the various activity with the result that the delay in
one of the activities going ahead of schedule in
another activity does not indicate their effect on the
completion date of the project.
The above limitation of the bar charts have made
their use limited to simple projects or decision
making by top management only.
 5.2 LINE OF BALANCE
The schedule of completed elements that are required at any point in time in
order to meet the delivery schedule for completion as planned, is known as the
“LINE OF BALANCE”.
 Commonly used for repetitive tasks e.g. construction of similar houses
 For extended building or multistory building, the line of balance can be used
to plan the finishing
 Resources determines the slope of line of balance.
 More resources means the slope becomes bigger.
Merit of Line of Balance
 Shows the Resources Effect on Plan
Demerit of Line of Balance
 Is good for medium sized projects.
Details Required for the Line of Balance Chart
1. List of the main operations/activities in building of a
house
2. Duration for the completion for each operation
3. Labour / gang size sizes/plant to be used
4. The time buffers between main activities to allow for
minimum delays
5. Total time to built one unit and, therefore, the first
hand over stage
6. Rate of hand over for subsequent units after the first
one is completed.
Initially the line of balance method requires the establishment of a
delivery schedule for complete units of repetitive work, for example,
houses from a batch of houses that are the same.
The delivery schedule will normally be expressed as a rate of a
delivery or handover rate for the finished product and is plotted as
the planned number of units produced over a period of time.
The graph of quantity against time will be straight and will obey the
following linear relationship.
Q = mt + c
Where Q = Line of balance of quantities of units
produced
m= required rate of delivery (number per unit
time)
t= time
C= a constant = the value of Q at the intercept of
the graph on the y axis.
 Q2

Q1

t1 t2 time(t)
c

Y-axis = Line of balance quantity (Q)

X- axis = Time (t)
If the line of balance quantity completed Q, is required at time t1, then it will be equal to
Q1 = mt1 + c
the constant c for a given curve may be eliminated by taking two points on the curve:
Q1 = mt1 + c …….(a), and Q2 = mt2 + c ……(b); subtracting a from b gives Q2 – Q1 = m(t2-t1)
from which Q2 = m(t2-t1) + Q1
or t2 = (Q2 –Q1) /m + t1

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