Project Management

All construction projects require some amount of field organization to meet the contractually set time schedule, cost budget, and quality requirements.  Once construction is underway, the work can become variable in nature.  The many diverse elements involved in project completion must be pulled together.  Project management can be described as an allocation and efficient use of resources to achieve timely completion within the established construction budget.  The resources required are money, manpower, equipment materials, and time.  Uncertain and changing conditions, field construction costs and time requirements are usually changing in a project, so skilled managment is a necessity.  At the architecture firm for which I interned, our construction administration department was typically under more stress than the design team ever was, as they had to deal with many unforseen issues and disparities in a timely manner.  If money was to be lost during the course of a project, it was usually in the construction phase.

There are many scheduling methods for a project, such as the use of bar charts, matrix schedules, and network schedules, which include arrow notation and precedence notation.

The critical path method (CPM) is a procedure used in the time management of construction projects.  By identifying each activity, the sequence of the activities and the estimated completion time of each activitiy, the method allows for informed decision making on projects of any size and helps guide the contractor.  The preparation of a precedence diagram (left) requires time, work and experience with the type of construction involved.

The bar chart below is a simpler method for project time management than the precedence diagram above; however, it does not show any activity dependencies.

 
Here is an article regarding the use of e-Builder as a Project Management System utilized by the city of Kansas City, Missouri. This is a "comprehensive project management system for management and tracking of capital improvement projects, including water, sewer, roads, facility construction, parks, and other construction projects." The city looks to achieve more transparency to citizens and increase department efficiency by using e-Builder’s integrated Cost, Documents, Processes, Bidding, Schedule, and Reporting modules.

Least-Cost Project Shortening:
Reducing the length of critical path involves revising the job logic or shortening some of the individual critical activities or both.