Construction Planning Tools and Techniques

This book provides a comprehensive information about the use of construction planning T&Ts. In the UK construction industry there are a variety of planning T&Ts available to plan and program the construction projects, and the 15 most common were identified in this study. In addition, this book presents an empirical comparison of different T&Ts used in the construction industry. The research found that the statement made by Bigelow in 1998 on 'why we do not do more planning', summarized some factors such as, it takes time, the plan will change anyway and the cost is fairly expensive. This is still an issue in the UK construction industry. Hence, the aim of this paper is to investigate planning T&Ts, establishing the factors and constraints affecting their choice, mainly focusing on small to medium sized construction companies (SMEs). The research shows that significant large numbers of construction companies rely heavily on the application of 'Bar chart techniques', 'Critical path method' and 'Work breakdown structure' for planning projects, while other potential planning techniques such as 'Line of balance', 'Time-chainage diagram', 'Network techniques' exist.