Industry-based Learning Experiences in Project Planning and Scheduling

Guest speakers are notorious in bringing value to classroom through current and updated information and best practices implemented in companies they are working for. Sharing knowledge this way benefits everyone. However, going out in the field and investigating collaboratively all the pertaining issues regarding these practices motivates students to go into deeper understanding of all related class topics because they are transposed into real scenarios. Also, exchanging communication with Superintendents (SI) and Project Managers (PM) will clarify certain topics or questions if they are having difficulties understanding the materials presented in Planning and Scheduling classes – options that weren’t really available in the past without the help of industry video materials. The complementary live industry-based educational model is intended to validate the concepts learned in class. Through a series of interview questions performed by students, SI and PM are imparting knowledge about major topics learned in class: project description and details of activities with their durations, development of initial schedule, maintaining and updating the schedules during the project, schedule changes and their effects, technology usage in the respective company setting. Using a reversed model (industry-based) will enable students to account effectively for the challenges and duties they will face in the future jobs, therefore becoming more marketable for a difficult job market. This is evidenced by detailed description and analysis of two case studies collected by team of students assigned to work on real case issues that dealt with scheduling the respective projects. Introduction and literature review The course of Planning and Scheduling is presenting fundamentals and techniques for understanding construction projects. Topics include bar charts, critical path method (CPM) using arrow and node activity networks, precedence diagrams, cost-time trade-offs, PERT, resource leveling and management, updating schedules during construction, introduction to project controls and computerized scheduling in Primavera P6. Various network methods of project scheduling, such as AOA, AON, PERT, bar-charting and line-of-balance techniques are presented. Computers assignments used for scheduling, resource allocation, and time/cost analysis are carried out throughout the semester. Simulation modeling may be used in predicting the productivity of construction operations and the performance of project schedules, concept proved by Lee et. al in a study performed few years ago. In particular, a planning and scheduling case study (group project) is assigned to teams of students. They work on a study of the planning and scheduling process on a real project. Each team is identifying with the instructor of the class a current project to study in the area or surroundings. The specifics of assignment are posted in the Learning Management System (LMS) available within University system and they are discussed in class to intimate details. Since technology usage is a major part of this class project, the proposed reversed model will bring to the students industry specific experiences using technology and applications they may or may not have been exposed to in the previous classes. This particular educational model is novel because it studies the application of technology into planning and scheduling of projects in real case scenarios. Therefore, students will leave college with the necessary computer skills and collaboration ability that are crucial in our economy. Practical approach preferred by industry and the more hands-on experience working collaboratively with others (including P ge 24740.2 industry individuals) will benefit students in understanding project scheduling. Through the industry project-based educational model, students spend their time learning material from experiential case studies brought to the class in small-size groups. After collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data about real projects selected in the University’s region, they are preparing the findings to be exposed in class through presentations and small hands-on demos. These accumulate into a capstone project with all knowledge gained for deeper understanding of a scheduler’s job. Their pragmatic preparation would be orientated to success if they test the current business practices and/or direct applications of the subject matters in the construction jobsite. Early in the nineties, Benjamin et. al. created a knowledge‐based prototype for improving scheduling productivity; the results confirm the system’s effectiveness and support the further development of knowledge‐based systems as tools for improving the productivity of the construction industry. Real-world learning based on industry project-specific context and best business practices may make students a lot more marketable to industry. Every student from each group is sharing comments, opinions, concerns and experiences, field trip notes, and later these are compiled into an overall assessment tool of the teamwork. These factors continuously determine the instructor to maintain an industry-oriented course to impart knowledge about the skills that employers are looking for and implement their requirements directly in the classroom. Further scholarship can be sought from industry practices applied directly to student education based on findings of these projects. In a comparative study, Galloway 2 found that lack of uniformity in the instruction of CPM scheduling, the knowledge base of those graduating and then applying CPM scheduling to construction projects vastly varies, thus serving as a root cause for misunderstandings among the parties relative to what is required by the contract, how the tool is used for monitoring and controlling a project, and how the CPM tool can be used for determining delay and resolving disputes both during and after the completion of a project. The understanding of the CPM scheduling and its correct application to construction projects may be better learnt in the field by witnessing techniques that are directly implemented by project managers to a project plan. Methodology for the project scheduling study – a teamwork study The study of real-world projects has an ultimate objective – to learn about planning and scheduling process and challenges for real construction projects. Each team is identifying a project to study and examine how planning and scheduling is performed and conducted on the respective project, implementation and management of schedules being carefully analyzed. Deliverable requirements for each team projects are two-fold: a minimum of ten pages written report (that may include real schedules, attachments, appendices of interview transcripts and photos) and a presentation with multimedia for in-class presentation at the end of the semester. The report and the in-class presentation will address the following: 1. Project Description: information about type of building, size, type of construction, project duration (if ahead/behind the schedule), information about the project budget (if under/over the budget); project participants (owner, designer, GC, key contractors and subcontractors) 2. Development of Initial Schedule: participation in the development of the schedule, subcontractors’ participation in planning of the project, details about it; level of detail the P ge 24740.3 schedule was developed, how did the planner(s) breakdown the work to activities; how did the planner(s) decided the sequence of the work (sequence of activities and work flow). Also, students are instructed to find if other alternative sequences were considered in the development of initial schedule, and why was the particular sequence selected. The core questions the team needs to answer is how the contractor assigned activity durations, what information did the planner(s) have to gather to develop the schedule and how was this information gathered. 3. Maintaining and updating the schedule during the project: the teams will need to address the problem of how is the schedule communicated to other parties (owner, subs, etc.) and what are the different schedules used (with the respective level of details). Also, on this part they would need to report on the frequency of updating and reason about this frequency. 4. Schedule changes: in order to understand the effects of changes on schedules and to see how these are influencing the updates, teams are required to identify what changes in the schedule took place since the project started and describe them in writing. Also, they need reporting the reason(s) these took place. In the short analysis they are instructed to conduct an investigation about what planning information (if available) at initial planning could have avoided these changes and later schedule updates. In a previous study, Mokhtar et. al. presented a computer-assisted methodology that helps design managers in planning and scheduling changes with interrelated effects on the design information. 5. Technology usage: the student teams are given a guided battery of questions to help them understand how technology usage is helping in the planning and scheduling process. Below are the major questions they need to address based on the company specifics: • What is the software used to help with scheduling: MS Project, Primavera (report on the version), MS Excel spreadsheets, and/or others? • Does the company use Building Information Modeling (BIM) software (Autodesk Revit, Navisworks, Bentley Navigator, Graphisoft ArchiCAD, Synchro, others)? • Is any modeling software used in conjunction with scheduling software for better coordination on and/or off-site? • Does the company provide any sort of communication devices to employees such as smartphones or tablets? If positive, provide the brand and model.