An investigation of the effectiveness of a contemporary construction process planning method

Planning a construction project through breaking the project down into smaller individual operations of construction processes relies on an accurate estimate of the operational productivity. A model (based on 212 real construction operations) which is capable of producing such estimates is utilised to experiment with operational performance, through varying the number of resources involved in the operation. Four methods of optimising these potential performances (new planning methods) are identified and compared with the observed operational performances (planned using a contemporary method). This comparison provided a measure of the savings that could be made and the effectiveness of the contemporary planning of such processes. Having recreated all 212 observed operations, it was found that on average the productivity and cost could have been improved by 6% and 20%, respectively. Thus, the current method of planning construction processes was not as effective as possible and improvements in project performance were possible through alternative planning methods. None of the four alternative planning methods optimised the performance in a significant majority of the recreated operations. Therefore, each future operation must be planned on an individual basis using all four alternative methods, to gain the most benefit over contemporary planning and provide a truly optimised operation.