Construction Planning is of the utmost importance when we talk about the management and execution of construction projects. It includes selecting techniques, defining work tasks, estimating the resources and duration required for a single task, and identifying any interaction between different work tasks. A good construction plan is required for making a budget and work plan. Even if there is no formal plan or recorded plan, making a construction plan is a key task in construction management. In addition to this, the organizational decisions are also an important aspect of the project. For example, the degree to which the subcontractor uses the project is usually determined in the construction plan.
There are various factors that need to be kept in mind while designing a construction plan. In this article, we will take a look at how general contractors in Canada plan for construction.
1. Choice of Technology
When choosing alternative methods and techniques, it is necessary to formulate many construction plans based on alternative methods or assumptions. Once a complete plan is developed, the cost, time, and reliability of the alternative methods can be evaluated. In bidding competition, an inspection of various alternative schemes is generally clearly stated. Several alternative design schemes may be proposed, or alternative engineering methods are allowed for value engineering. In this case, the potential builder may wish to use the proposed construction method to prepare a plan for each alternative design and prepare a plan for the proposed alternative construction method as part of the value engineering process.
2. Defining Work Tasks
Defining appropriate work tasks can be a tedious process, but the information it carries is necessary to include in the formal planning procedures. Since construction projects may involve thousands of individual work tasks, this definition stage can be expensive and time-consuming. Fortunately, many tasks can be repeated in different parts of the facility, or the construction plan of the previous facility can be used as a general model for new projects. For example, the tasks involved in building the floors of a building can be repeated, but only slightly different for each floor of the building. In addition, most tasks have standard definitions and terminology. Therefore, individual planners who define work tasks do not have to fully touch every aspect of the project from scratch.
3. Establishing Precedence Relations between Activities
After defining work tasks, the relationship between activities needs to be specified. The precedence relationship between activities means that the activities must be carried out in a specific order. Due to structural integrity requirements, regulations, and other technical requirements, there exist many natural sequences of construction activities. You can also specify more complex priority relationships. For example, an activity may not start within a few days after completing another activity. As a common example, concrete may have to cure (or set) for several days before removing the formwork. Many computer-based programmers allow the use of various priority relationships.
4. Estimating Time Duration of Activities
In most planning procedures, each work activity has an associated duration. These durations are widely used to prepare schedules. All formal scheduling procedures are based on estimates of the duration of various project activities and the definition of previous relationships between tasks. The variability of activity duration can also be considered.
The direct method of activity duration estimation is to keep a historical record of a particular activity and rely on the average duration of this experience when making a new duration estimation
5. Calculation Resource Requirements
Since the work activities defined for a project are comprehensive, the total resources required for the project are the sum of the resources required for various activities. By estimating the resource requirements for each activity, you can determine the specific resource requirements during the project. Therefore, potential bottlenecks can be identified and planning, allocating resources, or making technical changes to avoid problems.
Coding Systems
The goal of many construction planning is to define plans within the limits of the universal coding system to identify activities. Each activity defined for the project will be identified by a specific predefined code for that activity. The use of general terminology or identification systems is basically caused by the desire to better integrate the organization’s work and better information flow. In particular, coding systems are used to provide a numbering system instead of verbal descriptions of elements. These codes reduce the length or complexity of the information to be recorded.
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