CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT-IX

TOPIC: METHODS OF SCHEDULING

SUBMITTED BY:
AMBICA- 6009
ANCHAL- 6010
ANISHA- 6012
RAHUL-6031
SCHEDULING
A construction schedule is a graphic representation which shows the phasing rate of construction with
the starting and completing dates of each activity and the sequential relationship among various
operations in a construction project.

In other words, scheduling can also be defined as the mechanical process for setting various planned
activities in order by fixing the starting and finishing dates for each activity of the work to execute the
whole work in a systematic and orderly manner.

Thus a schedule is a time table for the execution of a project assigning definite timings for individual
constructional activities leading to the completion of the work

USE OF SCHEDULING
Following are the use of scheduling:

1. The quantity of work involved, labour, material, equipment and money required at each stage of
work can be determined by scheduling.
2. The actual progress of the work can be checked from time to time by scheduling.
3. The project can be earned out in a systematic manner by the use of scheduling.
ADVANTAGES OF SCHEDULING
For any important construction work the planning and scheduling is indispensable. Following are the
advantages of scheduling:

1. By studying the schedule of the work, alternative methods of execution can be examined and the
most economical method can be selected. Further the effect of likely constraints can be evaluated
at the planning stage only.

2. It gives clear picture of quantity and type of materials, man power and equipment required at
different stages of execution of work and duration of supply of material.

3. As the time of starting of each activity is known, the arrangement of adequate resources as man
power, material, money and equipment etc. can be done in advance.

4. The resource utilisation can be optimised and the available resources can be directed to various
activities to the best advantage.

5. The actual progress of each activity can be monitored with reference to the planned programme. If
there is any delay in any activity the remedial measures can be taken to speed it up before it can
cause difficulty in the other related activities.
6. As the inter relationship of various activities at different stages is known, their priorities can be
fixed properly to the best advantage.

7. The effect of any change such as modification in original plan or weather conditions can be properly
evaluated and the programme of construction can be suitably amended.

8. Total time of completion of the work can be known from scheduling.

9. The last but the most important advantage of scheduling is that the work may be executed in a most
efficient way with out wastage of time and any input, resulting in maximum possible economy.

PREPARATION OF CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULES

The procedure of preparing construction schedule is as follows:

1. The work or Project is divided into a number of operations and their inter dependence or
relationship is studied. After the careful study of their interdependence the sequence of operation
is decided.

2. The quantity of work involved in each operation is to be determined.

3. The time required for the completion of each operation as well as the completion of total project
is each activity is determined. This can be done by knowing the quantum of work involved and
the rate of performing.
CLASSIFICATION OF SCHEDULING
Schedules can be classified into groups according to the requirement:

1. Construction schedule
2. Materials schedule
3. Labour schedule
4. Equipment schedule
5. Financial schedule
6. Control schedule
1) Construction schedule: It is a roaster prepared for the construction of different activities or
items of work for the completion of a certain project.
Before preparing the construction schedule following information must be known:

1. Various operations to be done in a particular project.

2. Quantum of work to be done in each operation.
3. Unit of measurement.
4. Rate of progress or rate of completing the work with due allowance for weather conditions.
5. Number of labourer required (both skilled and unskilled).
6. Number and type of machines and equipment required.
7. Date of starting the work.
8. Date of completing the work.
9. Correlation between different operations.
 On the top of each schedule following information should be clearly written on the left hand side:
(a) Name of the project
(b) Name of the Owner/Contractor/Engineer
(c) Location of the project
2. Material schedule: This schedule should be prepared well in advance of the start of the work.
This schedule may be prepared from the construction schedule. To avoid delay in the execution of
the work, all construction materials should reach the site of work well in advance, at least before
the start of the work.
In case material stored at site long before its use, it is likely to deteriorate in its quality, For example
cement will lose its strength by 50% if stored for six months. Thus at the time of preparing material
schedule following points must be kept in mind:
The materials should be delivered at site at least one week earlier than its use.
Materials at site should not remain un used for long. If they allowed to remain unused for
long they will deteriorate.

3. Labour schedule: This schedule is to decide the number of skilled and unskilled labour
required for the execution of different operations on different dates.

With the help of this schedule required labour can be arranged well in time. It is difficult and
costly to arrange skilled labour as and when required. It helps in reducing the labour cost. A labour

schedule can be prepared from the construction schedule.

4. Equipment use schedule: To decide the type, number and dates on which a particular equipment
will be needed, equipment use schedule has to be prepared before the start of the project, so that it is
arranged well in advance and brought at site and when needed.

The aim of this schedule is to derive maximum advantage of the equipment when at site and
remove it from the site when its job is over. This will save money.

After the purchase of the equipment for a particular project, the owner gets a mark punched or
painted on the equipment or machine to identify it from others.

The owner should have full knowledge of the equipment purchased by him. Usually following
information is sent to the owner.
i. Cost of the equipment
ii. Efficiency of each equipment or machine
iii. Record of their repair
iv. Details of expenditure on repair
v. Duration of effective use of the equipment.
vi. Details of fuel consumption by the equipment.
vii. Details of servicing of the equipment.
5. Financial schedule: The estimated amount of money which the owner or contractor has to
provide to finance the project can be obtained from construction schedule.
In most of the cases of construction contracts, it is specified that the owner will pay about
90% cost of the completed work during each month for each job to the contractor

6. Control schedule: At the end of a fixed date the in charge of the project has to send the
progress report of the project to the head quarter. In order to complete the project with in
specified time limits, the chief executive plans to provide resources as equipment, machines
and money etc.
METHODS OF SCHEDULING
Scheduling can be done by different methods depending on the size of the project Usually following
methods are employed:

1. Bar charts or Gantt charts

2. Milestone charts
3. Net work analysis.

BAR CHARTS
Bar chart is an graphical representation of completion of various activities of a project. This
technique of representation of activities was introduced by HENRY GANNT around 1919.

A bar chart consists of two coordinate axis. The activities are represented on y-axis and time required
to complete the activity is represented on x-axis.

Each bar represents one specific activity of the project. The beginning and end of each bar represents
the time of start and time of finish of that activity.

The length of the bar shows the time required to complete that activity. The degree of details of the
activities and scale of time depends upon the intended use of the chart.
STEPS IN PREPARING A BAR CHART
1.Divide the project into different activities as far as possible.
2.List out the activities.
3.Determine the inter relationship amongst these activities.
4.Arrange the activities in a systematic way.
5.Determine the quantum or quantity of work and the time required to complete it.
6.Draw the bar chart on a suitable scale.

LIMITATIONS
Though bar chart is simple to construct and understand and widely used for scheduling, yet it has a
number of limitations as follows:

It can be used only for small projects.

It is difficult to depict or show complicated interdepencies of Various activities of the project. This is
a serious limitation of the bar chart.

Bar chart does not indicate the actual progress of the work as it only represents the time which has
elapsed. Thus the progress of work can not be monitored scientifically.

From bar chart, it is not possible to know the maximum or peak progress necessary for its
completion. It gives the impression that the rate of progress of any activity is uniform.
LIMITATIONS
Delays in the work are not detected till the allotted time is over and work remains incomplete.

It does not indicate the critical activities of the project.

It gives some idea of the physical progress of the project only and the financial aspects involved are
not known whether the cost of the project is within the estimated cost or it has escalated.

In case of variation from the planned programme it is difficult to find out the alternative course of
active to adopted t complete the work in time.

Bar chart is only a static representation of the planned programme.it does not indicate the dynamic
happenings in the construction site of a complex.

The feed back obtained from a bar chart is only approximate.

The sequence of operations under one activity is not clearly known as various functions under each
activity are shown by one bar chart only. Hence no effective control over the project is possible.
MILESTONE CHART
It is an modification of the original bar chart. In the milestone chart, there are certain key events in
every activity which are to be carried out for the completion of the activity.

These key events are known as milestones and are represented by a circle or square.

These events can easily identified over the main bar representing the activity. If an activity is
represented by a very long bar, the details will be lacking in it.

In case the activity is broken into several key events, then each event can recognised during the
progress of the work. Hence control can be done easily and same interdependence relationship also
between the activities can be established. The beginning and end of these sub divided activities is
called a milestone.

LIMITATIONS
Though better control than bar charts over the project with the help of mile stone charts in possible, it
has following limitations:

The interdependencies between the mile stones is not possible.

The relationship between two specific mile stones with in an activity only is revealed by the
milestone chart, but the relation hip between milestones contained in different activities is not
indicated.
DEVELOPMENT OF NETWORK
To over come the deficiency of milestone chart, network system, was introduced. The main
deficiency of mile stone chart was, its inability to depict the Interrelationship of two mile stones.

This deficiency has been removed effectively by the use 0f PERT net work.

In the PERT net work, the mile stone to mile story chart can be considered as event along the main
task as the PERT net work is always event oriented.

In the development of PERT network, the milestones of each bar or task have been joined serially by
arrows and the mile stones of other tasks are also joined by arrows which have inter relationship with
each other.

ADVANTAGES
The net work developed shows clearly the interrelationship between the milestone or events.

In the case of developed net work, the designation of tasks has become redundant and the project is
viewed as a single unit, consisting of a number of events (mile stones) and not a number of tasks.

Net work Cart be used even for highly complicated projects consisting of large number of activities.

ADVANTAGES
It directly indicates the time required in between the two milestone or activities.thisis useful for re
scheduling if need arises.

In uncertain situations, net work diagram allows the use of probability theory for time estimation.

LINE OF BALANCE
In this technique the required resources for each stage or operation are determined so that subsequent
operations of the activities are not disturbed and the target output achieved.

This technique can applied to construction projects involving repetitive activities such as
construction of tunnels, multi stories buildings and housing colonies etc.

In repetitive type activities of construction, the cost and time efficiencies can be achieved by
adopting standard designs for different units of the project.

This technique can be used for selecting, assembling and interpreting the essential factors involved in
the construction from the initial stage to the completion stage in the graphical form against time.

This technique has been found highly effective in determining the areas of weakness and attending
the items requiring immediate attention.
SCHEDULING USING LINE OF BALANCE (LOB)
For preparing a schedule with the help of LOB, following procedure may be adopted:

First prepare a logical diagram of the work.

Determine or estimate the minimum duration (man hour) required to complete each operation.

To avoid interference between two operations, choose suitable buffer time.

To meet the project completing schedule, calculate the required targeted out put and complete the
LOB schedule.

Study the schedule and assess the possible alternatives to get the best balanced schedule.

The basic approach is to determine the avi1able resources and calculate the rate of construction that
can be achieved.

ADVANTAGES
The combination of the principles of line of balance and the logic of network analysis gives a very
detailed picture of any repetitive work.
ADVANTAGES
As in the line of balance technique only network is used for each type of unit, hence it reduces the
labour of net work Planning and scheduling.

This technique provides an effective and simple tool for programming for procuring construction
materials and subsequently their use in the Construction.

The activities lagging behind schedule can be identified easily by proper monitoring the work and
corrective measures can be taken at the earliest.

WORK BREAK DOWN STRUCTURE

The process of breaking a major Project into its major and sub Systems and discrete activities which
can be identified easily is called work break system.

First of all the major project is identified in the terms of its end activities or items and then it is split
Into various systems, sub systems, components and elements .

Thus the breakdown structure is a good tool to identify the functional elements of a project and their
interdependence or relationship.

The breaking or splitting the project into various functional elements, will not only help in preparing
the net work of the project but will also be useful in planning and preparing schedule of the activities.