Becoming a project manager is a dream of many civil engineers involved in the construction industry for the construction of residential or commercial or institutional building projects, road or railway construction projects or construction of industrial projects, or bridge construction projects. Becoming a successful construction project manager is only possible by gaining expertise & mastery of fundamental concepts in construction project management.
Planning & scheduling is an essential part of all construction project management, If the project manager is unable to do it properly then the project manager cannot manage the project efficiently. So to become a project manager a civil engineer has to gain mastery in project planning & scheduling.
Before gaining mastery on mastery on planning & scheduling the basics of planning & scheduling should be in mind.
So let’s discuss the basics of Planning & scheduling, which a Construction Project Manager must know:
Planning & scheduling both are different terms with different definition & objective yet they are inseparable while it comes to construction project management successfully.
Construction Planning is the stage when a construction project manager should select the right policy & Procedure for the construction methodology to fulfill all the requirements of the project.
Where Construction scheduling involves scheduling the construction project and preparing a project action plan as per the scope, timeline, and cost allocated along with the maintained quality of the construction.
For Example:
If we need to start a Duplex project in a plot size 60 feet by 50 feet, then the steps of Construction Project Planning & Scheduling should be as follows.
Project Planning:
Project Planning will include initially defining all the main tasks & breaking them in to sub tasks like Excavation, Sand filling, P.C.C, Foundation R.C.C, Column, Brick works etc. Defining all tasks & breaking them into sub tasks and activity will help us to find out the estimation, budgeting, Man power planning, Freezing the sequence of tasks or activities, resource break down.
Manpower Planning:
After Defining the task a project manager needs to find out the manpower requirement just like requirement of Engineers, Supervisors, Skilled man power, etc.
Sequence of Task:
Finalize the sequence of each task or activity & total time duration required to complete the specific task.
Resources break down:
In this step, a construction project manager needs to estimate the resource required for each task or activity just like the number of materials, no of Labourers, type of Equipment required like Excavators, dumpers, Transit Mixture, Batching plant, Concrete pump etc.
All the process of defining the task, determining the
duration required sequencing & estimating the resource required is known as
construction project planning.
Construction scheduling is the second stage of
project planning,
This involves the planning of the schedule, defining the activities, frequency of activity,
estimating activity resources, estimating activity duration & developing
the schedule.
So these are the steps of construction planning & scheduling, without which a construction project manager will be unable to manage a construction project successfully.
If you have any doubts then feel free to ask any question in the comment box.
