Final Part - Construction Planning Simplified

This is the 4^th and final chapter in this series of simplifying construction planning process for the Construction Team Members. The sole purpose of this entire series was to create awareness in Construction Engineers about how vital their contribution is in the planning process. It was essential for them to know the meaning and use of various terms used in planning; various steps of planning & scheduling right from planning to make a plan, Logistics, Methodology, Decomposition of the whole project, Phasing and Zoning etc. and then Sequencing of works. Naturally in all of these steps the experts in construction need to give valuable inputs and contribute. Further for determining the resources and duration for any activity, their data on productivity based on past experience and the difficulty level of works to modify the productivity is indispensable as planner would have much lower exposure as compared to Construction Managers. Overall, any planning is useless if it does not takes into account the experience of construction team & their commitment on the plan.

In this final chapter I am describing, how to prepare a program/plan/schedule in simple terms. As in case of any program or system the overall procedure is called as IPO Model; i.e. Input – Process – Output. We need ‘Input’, which is raw material; then we do certain processes in stages on this Input, which keeps refining the raw material towards a final stage wherein we get the Output or the final Product.

For us to make the Construction Plan/Schedule, which is the Output, we need some Inputs in form of Contract Documents and Project Objectives, etc. which are the Input and then we do several processes, which I will explain in steps to get the desired output. Refer below the sketch.

 Let me explain it in a bit detail:

INPUTS:

To know what we have to accomplish through the plan we need the contract documents. It gives us the intent or the objectives, which have to be accomplished through execution. These details are available through the Drawings, Specification, Bill of Quantities, Management Expectations on Budgetary Expenses, and off course the Policies or guidelines of the organization for execution.

We can have some more details as standard inputs viz. the Industry standards, government policies and Codes of Practice in Use, local authority rules & regulations, Local & General Market conditions for materials and workers, availability of skilled workers, operators, Labour Laws, Taxation Rules etc.

All of these would be required during various processes that we are going to do on these Inputs in various stages.

PROCESS:

There would be several processes in a sequence as well as some times there would be reiteration of processes to adjust the plan and to accomplish desired output.

1. We need to establish the overall scope of the project as understood from all the contract documents used as Input. Some requirements are explicitly mentioned in contract documents and some are implicit in nature. It’s easy to get explicit requirements but the real effort is required to get the implicit requirements. Just for an example the drawing and BOQ may state a particular way of giving a finished area, however the implicit requirement could be to have a grandeur attached to it, which even if not mentioned explicitly is the requirement. One needs to understand the same and act accordingly within contractual limits. This process basically gives the overall scope, requirements, work-breakdown structure and the Work Methodology to achieve the desired outcome. It may also give us the entire activity list with activity attributes viz. quantity of work and specification requirements for each one. We do all kind of planning work here.

2. After establishing the overall scope and breaking it down to Activity Level, the next process is to establish overall time required to accomplish the tasks and overall project. In this process, we do all the Scheduling work. Activity List is now put in a sequence with links based on the Hard Logic / Soft Logic / Preferential Logic etc. forms of dependency and adjustments through lags and leads. Then we put the resource requirement and the duration for the activity based on the activity attributes of quantity and quality requirements. We also give a trial run to see if the schedule is fitting within the timelines as per contract or not, then if necessary we adjust the schedule to fit in the contractual requirements of time. We also do the resource levelling and adjustments in parallel to see that the cost is optimized but project requirements are met. This step or process gives us a working Master Schedule. 

3. In the next step, we load the Cost into the activities. For a contractor it is in 2 forms. First for knowing the cost that will be spent on activity and second for knowing the Invoice the activity will generate on accomplishment. Thus this cost loading exercise once done, gives the Management the idea on Cash Outflow i.e. the cost that will be spend every month and the Cash Inflow i.e. the Invoice that would be generated every month by accomplishing the tasks. The Gap between the Cash Outflow and Cash Inflow would be the Cash-Gap or the Working Capital which would be required on the project. 

4. The next step is to extract various resources required to accomplish the Schedule. The data is extracted from the Master Schedule as generated earlier. We can get the Workers required every day/week/month based on the resources loaded in the Activities. We get the Plant & Machinery requirement with capacity and duration. We also get the staff required to manage overall schedule if it is loaded in resources. In case we have not loaded all the staff but some special skilled category staff then we get this requirement for example in some projects very special 6G category welder is required or sometimes a very heavy duty crane operator is required, then we can get such specific requirement from the master schedule by loading appropriate resources in the activity. The same is true about some special plant and machinery like sometimes ‘X-Ray’ Machine or ‘Fusion Welding Machine’ etc. very specific tools are required. We can load it appropriately in the activity and get such requirements. There are several special contractors that might be required viz. Waterproofing, Anti-Termite, Sheet Piling, Diaphragm Wall, Structural Steel Elements, Precast Elements, Façade Glazers, Fire Doors. FAPA,  Fire Fighting, CCTV, Access Control etc. which also can be loaded in the activity to know from when these contractors and how many such contractors would be required. We can extract the vendor deployment schedule from the Master Schedule. Similarly we can have the Material Procurement Schedule from the master schedule provided we have done the resource loading in the activities of schedule. 

5. In the final process step we also establish the Risk Register which enables us to prepare a Risk Mitigation Plan. Sometimes based on this some more tweaking in the schedule in form of buffer time or buffer funds are kept and adjusted. We get to know the risks associated by carefully examining the schedule, methodology and the data used to prepare the schedule. One of the assumptions is related to resource Productivity based on which the quantum of resources and/or duration was considered in schedule. Any wrong assumption would put the entire schedule in jeopardy hence this is one major risk element. Atmospheric conditions may play some role where these are extreme for example in Mumbai, rains are extreme during July/August and thus any outdoor deep level works planned in this period would be at risk. All such risks are identified and risk register is prepared. Based on the Probability and Impact of the risk all the major risk elements are studied again and a mitigation plan is prepared. This in itself is one big exercise and needs some tweaking in schedule as appropriate. We allocate contingencies of time and resources (including funds) to the schedule and thus come to a final master schedule.

OUTPUT:

The basic output is the Master Schedule, but we should also extract various important items from this master schedule and give it to the teams responsible for these items. We can extract the Milestone Schedule for higher management; Procurement Schedule for the Central Procurement Team, Resource Histogram for construction team as well the Contractors to arrange and manage resources, Cash Inflow and Cash Outflow i.e. Cost Schedule and Invoice Schedule. Major or Special Plant & Machinery Requirements. Any special category workers & operators requirements etc.  Thus in short we have achieved the desired output from this process. Off course this is merely the schedule and now the Construction team has a huge responsibility to deliver the same.

Abhay Gharpure 

ADGP               www.decodingcm.com/pm-blogs/                 https://decodingcm.blogspot.com