How can ‘tasks made ready’ during lookahead planning impact reliable workflow and project duration?

Abstract

The goal of lookahead planning is to make a plan more realistic as construction tasks move closer to execution. To improve the reliability of lookahead planning, the construction industry has benefited from implementing the Last Planner® System (LPS) which emphasizes improved workflow during construction. Lookahead planning involves transforming work that ‘should be done’ into work that ‘can be done’. This is accomplished by breaking down activities into the level of operations, designing operations, and making tasks ready by removing task constraints. The purpose of this research is to study, through computer simulation, the relationship between improving tasks made ready (TMR) in lookahead planning and the reliability of weekly work planning expressed as percent plan complete (PPC) and their impact on project duration. Results show that a high TMR can result in a reduced project duration but the same cannot be said about PPC, making a case for TMR serving as a better indicator for project duration than PPC.