Construction Management Planning Part Four : Schedule,Network Diagram

How important is the planning process in construction management?.

You can produce the schedule or the project schedule.

Schedule or what we call project schedule is a representation of a desired format where the activities of the project show the starting date, end date, completed activities, milestones, and relationships. It can be presented in various formats, including tabular, bar charts, Gantt charts, milestone charts, or schedule network diagram. This document is often created during the second of managing construction projects.

Schedule can acquire data from the following documents.

• Project Charter
• Stakeholder registry

schedule can provide data to ;

• Project Management Plan
• Work performance measurements
• Activity cost estimates
• Funding requirements
• Procurement Management Plan

When you are creating schedule always think the important quote in project management perspective, the unrealistic schedule is the project manager’s fault.

Network Diagram is a type of diagram where activities involved in the project are to be arranged and sequenced according to how the entire work will be performed as a whole group of activities. It shows the dependencies of activities using critical path or time scaled diagram. This document is created during the second step of managing construction projects.

There are two (2) ways on how to draw network diagram

First is the Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) and the second one is the Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM). The PDM or Activity-on-Node (AON) involves boxes or nodes that represent activities connected by arrow that symbolize their dependencies. On the other hand, ADM or Activity-on-Arrow (AOA), involves arrows that represent activities and boxes that symbolize dependencies. This type of diagram usually has finish-to-start relationships and may use dummies for activities.

Contents of diagramming methods in network diagram.

Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) or Activity-on-Node (AON)

Start , End , Boxes (Activity) Arrows(dependencies).

Finish-to-Start (FS) – Finish first the activity before the successor can start.

Start-to-Start (SS) – Activity must start before the successor can start.

Finish-to-Finish (FF) – Activity must finish before the successor can finish.

Start-to-Finish (SF) – Activity must start before the successor can finish.

Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM) or Activity-on-Arrow (AOA)

Finish-to-Start (FS) only.

Can include dummy activities to show dependencies do not require time or work.

Duration of any activities should be estimated.

Activity duration estimates refers to the estimated working period that will take to finish the established activity. Duration estimates can be performed by using analogous estimating, parametric estimating, or three-point estimating. This document is usually created during the second step of managing construction projects.

Planning stage will produced schedule of a project , said schedule are composed of network diagram, estimated duration of activity and others, project manager is always responsible person for the outcome of the schedule either realistic or unrealistic schedule.

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Succeed in Project Management for Construction!

Marvin