CHAPTER 3
PROJECT SCHEDULING
3.1 GENERAL
The study is carried out in to two phases: In phase I, the data has been
collected from the Bill of Quantities (BOQ) and Productivity Constants from IS:
7272 (Part I) – 1974 [6]. BOQ helped to understand the scale of the project, and to
generate the cost flow for the project. Productivity constants helped to obtain the
required manpower and duration of works to complete this stage of the project.
The phase II includes scheduling of project, resource allocation and optimization
of manpower resource. In this phase MSP software has been used to prepare the
project schedule and based on BOQ and productivity constants manpower resource
are allocated for each activity. Then the „visual graphs‟ generated by the software
for the project are studied. Since graphs indicate large fluctuation of manpower
requirement between two successive months. So, it has optimized manually in
MSP schedule. By doing this manpower can be utilized efficiently without any
losses. It is also helpful for arranging the manpower resources.
3.2 PROJECT ATTRIBUTES
Project attributes present the details of an ongoing project in terms of project
schedule, manpower required for different activities to carryout resource
constrained analysis. The costs incurred in the project are also presented. The brief
project details, preparation of estimates, manpower required, project scheduling,
forecasting of resources, resource allocation are described in following section.
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3.3 PROJECT SUMMARY
Name of the project: Construction of Residential Building, Chennai Area,
Tamilnadu, India.
Built up area: 4,07,560 Sq ft
Number of Storey‟s: 1 Basement+1 Stilt+Ground+12floors
For present study the live project of residential building is considered.
3.4 PREPARATION OF ESTIMATES
Generally, for resource constrained analysis the manpower requirements for
various activities are very essential and these are to be calculated based on the
quantities. These quantities required for manpower study are calculated from the
drawings. Manpower output is the output quantity i.e., the quantity of work which
can be done per day per person considering all safety and quality measures as
required by client. This was calculated based on the [1] and [6] and also
considering views based on the experiences and thorough technical knowledge of
many project managers, architects, engineers and many contractors who are
experts and have been working in this field for many years. Some of the output
constants for various types of activities are shown in Table 1 and Table 2. The
study is limited to these activities only under normal working and site conditions
[2]. The schedule contains different types of activities with different durations
based on their nature of work and quantities calculated from drawings. From these
quantities, manpower required for various activities have been calculated.
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Table-1: Manpower output constants for different labours as per IS: 7272 (PART I – 1974)
Activity Labor output per day
1. Unskilled (including Excavation, transportation)
Excavation 1.5 M3
PCC and Concrete 0.2 M3
2. Carpenters (for all activities) 6.0 M2
3. Barbenders (for all activities) (including cutting, 0.2 MT
bending, fabrication, transportation etc.,)
4. Masons (includes shifting of materials within the 0.9 M3
site, wetting in water and dressing in Size stone 6.0 M2
masonry (SSM)) 6.0 M2
SSM 8.0 M2
Block Masonry
Plastering
5. Painters (including preparatory works as required) 10.0 M2
Table-2: Manpower required for various works as per CPWD analysis of rates
Activity Per Unit Mason Bhisti Beldar
Plain Cement Concrete 1 M3 0.1 0.7 1.63
(PCC) Barbending work 1 Ton 7.5 - 10
Shuttering work 4 M2 1 - 1
Reinforced Cement Concrete 1 M3 0.17 0.9 2
(RCC)
Masonry work 1 M3 0.72 0.217 1.56
Plastering work 10 M2 0.67 0.93 0.86
Painting work 10 M2 0.54 - 0.54
Based on the quantities, manpower required and realistic durations in the current
situations are taken in to account and activity durations have been calculated.
Based on the data obtained, network diagram is prepared and relations are assigned
to the activities to calculate the critical path. Finally the total duration of the project
is calculated by MS Project. After preparing the schedule in MS Project software
the total project duration is estimated as 658 working days. In project management
resources have to be allocated in the schedule to carry out the project work
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efficiently and complete the project as per the schedule and duration. Assigning
resources help to increase the accuracy of the schedule, the Microsoft Project
software adds the working time and availability of resources into the scheduling
calculations. Allocated manpower resource pool is shown in Table 3.
The resources are first allocated as per procedures discussed above in MS Project
software. The fluctuations in demands have been identified in resource histograms
for Masons, Barbenders and other resources mentioned in the table for different
days. Then the optimization procedure had been carried out. In order to illustrate
the resource optimization procedure adopted in this study, only data and procedure
pertaining to masons has been presented as an example. The materials required for
carrying out each of the works involved in the construction project are identified
and allocated in the baseline schedule. The manpower both the number or
magnitude, and the type, necessary for carrying out each individual work of the
construction project is also determined and allocated in the same baseline plan to
each of the respective works. Manpower resource pool available at site and its
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respective costs are shown in Table 3. The visual graph in Figure.1 indicates the
skilled mason requirement for a period of 17 months i.e. March 2013 to August
2014. Here, the variations in the mason requirement for the different months are
too large. For example the mason requirement in the month of May 2014 is 28 and
it is 8 in the month of June 2014. There is a sudden decrease in the mason
requirement and 20 masons remain unemployed. As a result, the contractor suffers
losses as the masons available are more than the requirement. Also there is sudden
increase in mason requirement i.e. between August, September and October of
2013. Apart from this, there are several other significant variations, i.e. November
to December of 2013 and March to April of 2014, which prompt to optimize this
resource. Optimization of mason is carried out by rescheduling the non-critical
activities within available slack i.e. by changing the duration of a particular activity
or shifting the start date of a particular activity or by increasing or decreasing the
magnitude of manpower. In some cases critical activities also to be rescheduled,
but total project duration may be increased, that must be within exceptional value.
In the first part of optimization, duration of beam and slab concreting of stilt floor
is reduced 1 day from 2 days and magnitude of mason is changed from 3 to 6,
before it was started 1 day before finishing its predecessor, now it starts after
finishing its predecessor. And similarly the optimization procedure is carried out
for
few other activities as show in Table 4. The visual graph in Figure.2 represents the
skilled mason requirement of the construction project after optimization. Initially
there was a huge decrease in the mason requirement of 20 masons in the month of
June 2014. But after optimization it can be seen that there is only a small decrease
of 1 between the month of May 2014 and June 2014. Also there was sudden
increase in manpower of 8 between March and April 2014. After optimization has
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been reduced to zero, this is feasible. Apart from this, there was sudden increase of
9 mason requirement between September and October 2013, and it has been
reduced to 3, a feasible value. Similarly the whole graph has been modified to be
free of any sharp fluctuations. Similarly, the procedure was carried out for
barbenders, mason helpers and all other human resources. The results of
optimization of all human resources facing fluctuations have been presented. Based
on optimization process, the optimization chart has been prepared as shown in
Table 5.
Un-Optimized visual graphs for Mason.
3.5 CONCLUIONS
Baseline plan and schedule has been prepared using MSP software, and with
respect to baseline plan different kind of resources has been assigned, then visual
aids in the form of bar graphs (histogram) has been generated. This indicated the
undesired fluctuations in the requirement of manpower resources with respect to
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time. From these visual aids, manpower resource has been optimized by modifying
the particular activities duration and by modifying predecessors without affecting
the project duration. Finally the following conclusions are obtained:
1. Optimized utilization of manpower resource has been achieved.
2. The over-allocated and under-allocated resources for different tasks have been
eliminated.
3. Acceptable cash out flow curve has been obtained.
4. The manpower cost has been reduced by 4.4% i.e. Rs.26,900.00/- on
optimization of manpower resource.
5. Optimization has been done without affecting total project duration.
3.6 REFERENCES
[1] Central Public Work Department (CPWD), “Analysis of Rates” Director
General (Works) CPWD, New Delhi. (2012).
[2] Nagaraju, S. K., Prof. Chaudhuri, A. R. and Sivakonda Reddy, B. (2012),
“Resource Management in Construction Projects – A Case Study.” IRACST–
Engineering Science and Technology: An International Journal (ESTIJ), ISSN:
2250-3498, Vol.2. 660-665.
[3] Rory Burke (1999), Project Management Planning and Control Techniques (3rd
ed.) 1-7 and 162-175. Available: www.kocaeliaben.gov.tr/ISBNW71-98762-X
[4] Mikhail Hanna and Ruwanpura, J. Y. (2007), “Simulation Tool for Manpower
Forecast Loading and Resource Leveling.” IEEE Winter Simulation Conference,
7099-7103.
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[5] Dho Heon Jun and Khaled El-Rayes, (2011), “Multiobjective Optimization of
Resource Leveling and Allocation during Construction Scheduling.” Journal of
Construction Engineering and Management @ ASCE, 1080-1088.
[6] IS7272 (Part I), “Recommendation for Labour output Constants for Building
Work” (1974).
[7] Aftab Hameed Memon, Ismail Abdul Rahman, Ade Asmi Abdul Aziz,
Kumarason V. Ravish and Noor Ikmalah Mohammad Hanas, “Identifying
Construction Resource Factors Affecting Construction Cost: Case of Johor,” in
proceedings of Malaysian Technical Universities Conference on Engineering &
Technology, 2011.
[8] Ali Alshubbak, Eugenio Pellicer, Joaquín Catalá, “A collaborative approach to
project life cycle definition based on the Spanish construction industry,” in Third
Conference on Engineering Work in Palestine, November, 2009, 1-19.
[9] Fred Moavenzadeh, “The Construction Industry in Developing Countries,”
presented at Technology Adaptation Program, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, spring 1975,
28-33.
[10] Jose Luis Ponz-Tienda, Víctor Yepes, Eugenio Pellicer, Joaquin Moreno-
Flores. (2013), “The Resource Leveling Problem with multiple resources using an
adaptive genetic algorithm.” Automation in Construction, 161–172.
[11] Kastor, A. and Sirakoulis, K. (2009), “The effectiveness of Resource Leveling
tools for Resource Constraint Project Scheduling Problem.” International Journal
of Project Management, 493–500.
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[12] Min-Yuan Cheng, Ming-Hsiu Tsai, Zhi-Wei Xiao. (2006), “Construction
management process reengineering: Organizational human resource planning for
multiple projects.” Automation in Construction, 785–799.
[13] Mustafa Çağdas Mutlu, “A branch and bound algorithm for resource leveling
problem,” Master Of Science Thesis, Dept of Civil Engineering, Middle East
Technical University, August 2010. 2-6.
[14] P. Aslani, S. Christodoulou, F.H. Griffis, G. Ellinas and L. Chiarelli. (2009),
“Activity Prioritization Under Resource Constraints Using a Utility Index
Method.” The Open Construction & Building Technology Journal, 33-41.
[15] Tarek Hegazy, Member, ASCE. (1999), “Optimization of Resource Allocation
and Leveling using Genetic Algorithms.” Journal of Construction Engineering and
Management @ ASCE, 167- 175.Chen, Linear Networks and Systems (Book
style). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1993, pp. 123–135.
