Production based scheduling method for linear construction in road projects

Abstract

Scheduling of road projects has always been a challenging endeavor in the construction industry as project durations are quite often unpredictable. It depends on the production rates of individual activities which are governed by factors such as availability of resources, environmental and geographical conditions. The current trend in road project scheduling is based on productivity of a certain item of work with a defined crew as resource. Practically, as these production rates are not achieved as per plan, an attempt has been made in this work to propose a simple model to estimate road project durations utilizing probable production rates of activities. A simulation model attempted to arrive at probable production rates of these activities has indicated a wide range of values that cannot lead to accurate time estimates. A more specific range of production rate estimates have been arrived adopting Delphi process to account for factors mainly within the purview of constructors. The basic framework for time estimates has been proposed by adopting Linear Scheduling Method (LSM) for scheduling due to limitations of network techniques in road works. A simple flowchart model of the time estimate method has been presented incorporating probable production rates defining crews and buffer distances.