System and methods are described for assisting a contractor in managing information associated with a construction project. The amount of information relating to labor, materials, scheduling and billing and the number of individuals accessing the information can be overwhelmingly large for even a simple construction project. As such, the system and methods described are particularly useful for gathering, maintaining and disseminating the voluminous amount of information associated with a construction project. In one method, a drawing from a construction project is provided that has one or more intelligent objects. Information is then gathered relating to labor, materials and schedules for the project. The information is associated with the respective intelligent object and visually represented on the drawing. The drawing is displayed and certain aspects associated with the intelligent objects can be quickly identified. In addition, reports may be generated that quickly and efficiently organize information according to any number of user selected criteria. In some embodiments, emissive tags, such as RFID tags, associated with construction items are used in the data gathering process.

System and method for tracking and managing construction projects

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution to this paper by James Lyneis at PA Consulting Group
and David N. Ford at Texas A&M University, and the support for this research received from InteCap Inc., the
National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the White House PECASE Award CMS-9875557.

Dynamic change management for construction: introducing the change cycle into model‐based project management

A system and method for managing workflow including the ability to manage system-level workflow strategy, manage individual workflow activity, and provide suggestions to optimize individual workflow activity, is provided. The system may provide suggestions to workers based on their schedules and activities that the workers have to perform. Users of the system may configure the criteria used in determining which suggestions to provide to workers. The system may refine the suggestions provided to workers based on feedback received regarding the suggestions previously provided.

System and method for managing system-level workflow strategy and individual workflow activity

Concurrent design and construction has been lauded for streamlining projects in terms of time. However, such an approach may actually make projects more uncertain and complex than the traditional sequential design and construction process. The main sources of risk that have been identified with concurrent design and construction are iterative cycles that result from unanticipated errors and changes and their subsequent impacts on project performance. As an effort to address these detrimental impacts, a framework for quality and change management that identifies those negative iterative cycles is proposed. The proposed framework is incorporated into the system dynamics model of dynamic planning and control methodology (DPM), which has been developed to evaluate negative impacts of errors and changes on construction performance. Relevant to practitioners and researchers, the potential of DPM as a robust design and construction planning methodology that could effectively deal with errors and changes inherent in the design and construction process is demonstrated through a case study involving the Treble Cove road bridge in Massachusetts.

Quality and Change Management Model for Large Scale Concurrent Design and Construction Projects

Simulating the impacts of policy scenarios on the sustainability performance of infrastructure projects

A dynamic planning and control methodology is developed by integrating the applications of axiomatic design concepts, concurrent engineering concepts, the graphical evaluation and review technique (GERT), and the system dynamics modeling technique. The goal of the proposed methodology is to help create a dynamic project plan for design/build fast-track civil engineering and architectural projects where unforeseen changes can be absorbed in the project schedule without creating major interruptions. The axiomatic design concepts are applied to formulate and evaluate various work methodologies, and to create a project plan based on the selected work methodology. The concept of concurrent engineering is adapted to develop a fast-tracking framework based on the task production rate, the upstream task reliability, and downstream task sensitivity to the upstream error. The GERT diagramming scheme is used to calculate the project duration probabilistically by incorporating the possible branches and loops in the p...

Dynamic planning and control methodology for design/build fast-track construction projects

A dynamic planning method (DPM) generates a DPM project planning model. The DPM project planning model provides an activity pre-structured process model for activities of a DPM project plan. The DPM project planning model also provides a relationship pre-structured model for activity time precedence relationships of the DPM project plan. The DPM project planning model is dynamically adjusted to generate a DPM project plan, whereby reliability buffers are associated with one or more activities of the plan. Time precedence relationships are associated with the reliability buffers and with the activities. A variety of DPM simulation outputs are also generated. The DPM simulation outputs provide a comparison of the DPM project plan with conventional project plans generated by conventional project planning models.

Dynamic planning method and system

A reliability buffering technique applies a reliability time buffer to a project planning model having activities. The reliability time buffer is placed before an associated downstream activity to provide a buffered downstream activity. The reliability buffer is provided having a time duration value and an activity time precedence relationship, including a lead or lag value, with at least one upstream activity. The time duration value and the activity time precedence relationship are generated so as to reduce the overall schedule delay resulting from possible time delays that occur in the one or more upstream activities and to increase the overall project schedule advance from possible schedule advances in the one or more upstream activities.

Michael Li

Papers

Dynamic planning and control methodology for design/build fast-track construction projects

Dynamic planning method and system

Reliability buffering technique applied to a project planning model