Relevance of Construction Schedules

Relevance of Construction Schedules

In addition to assigning dates to project activities, project scheduling is intended to match the resources of equipment, materials and labor with project work tasks over time. Good scheduling can eliminate problems due to production bottlenecks, facilitate the timely procurement of necessary materials, and otherwise insure the completion of a project as soon as possible. In contrast, poor scheduling can result in considerable waste as laborers and equipment wait for the availability of needed resources or the completion of preceding tasks. Delays in the completion of an entire project due to poor scheduling can also create havoc for owners who are eager to start using the constructed facilities.

Attitudes toward the formal scheduling of projects are often extreme. Many owners require detailed construction schedules to be submitted by contractors as a means of monitoring the work progress. The actual work performed is commonly compared to the schedule to determine if construction is proceeding satisfactorily. After the completion of construction, similar comparisons between the planned schedule and the actual accomplishments may be performed to allocate the liability for project delays due to changes requested by the owner, worker strikes or other unforeseen circumstances.

In contrast to these instances of reliance upon formal schedules, many field supervisors disdain and dislike formal scheduling procedures. In particular, the critical path method of scheduling is commonly required by owners and has been taught in universities for over two decades, but is often regarded in the field as irrelevant to actual operations and a time consuming distraction. The result is "seat-of-the-pants" scheduling that can be good or that can result in grossly inefficient schedules and poor productivity. Progressive construction firms use formal scheduling procedures whenever the complexity of work tasks is high and the coordination of different workers is required.

Formal scheduling procedures have become much more common with the advent of personal computers on construction sites and easy-to-use software programs. Sharing schedule information via the Internet has also provided a greater incentive to use formal scheduling methods. Savvy construction supervisors often carry schedule and budget information around with wearable or handheld computers. As a result, the continued development of easy to use computer programs and improved methods of presenting schedules have overcome the practical problems associated with formal scheduling mechanisms. But problems with the use of scheduling techniques will continue until managers understand their proper use and limitations.

A basic distinction exists between resource oriented and time oriented scheduling techniques. For resource oriented scheduling, the focus is on using and scheduling particular resources in an effective fashion. For example, the project manager's main concern on a high-rise building site might be to insure that cranes are used effectively for moving materials; without effective scheduling in this case, delivery trucks might queue on the ground and workers wait for deliveries on upper floors. For time oriented scheduling, the emphasis is on determining the completion time of the project given the necessary precedence relationships among activities. Hybrid techniques for resource leveling or resource constrained scheduling in the presence of precedence relationships also exist. Most scheduling software is time-oriented, although virtually all of the programs have the capability to introduce resource constraints.

This chapter will introduce the fundamentals of scheduling methods. Our discussion will generally assume that computer based scheduling programs will be applied. Consequently, the wide variety of manual or mechanical scheduling techniques will not be discussed in any detail. These manual methods are not as capable or as convenient as computer based scheduling. With the availability of these computer based scheduling programs, it is important for managers to understand the basic operations performed by scheduling programs. Moreover, even if formal methods are not applied in particular cases, the conceptual framework of formal scheduling methods provides a valuable reference for a manager. Accordingly, examples involving hand calculations will be provided throughout the chapter to facilitate understanding.