Workflow Stabilization With Fine-Grained Work Packaging and Near Real-Time Progress Monitoring

Detailed understanding on the efficiency of construction workflow is critical to improve execution performance. Building on previous efforts, the hypothesis of the study is that minimizing the size of work packages and also increasing the frequency of progress monitoring stabilizes workflow variability, so that deviations from the baseline can be timely and proactively corrected. While a significant amount of efforts have been successfully reported on location-based scheduling and fine-grained work packaging, the study also proposes to incorporate a near real-time monitoring approach to proactively assess progress and identify corrective actions as deviations occur. While fine-grained work packages can facilitate a more instantaneous control on the executed work, such rapid control can result in a proactive response to progress issues on the site. An intervention test on the drywall construction for a new hospital facility revealed the effectiveness of this fine-grained planning and monitoring approach. In phase I or control, a classical Critical Path Method (CPM) to plan for the execution of the drywall package was used. In phase II or intervention, work packages at the task level were defined, and further split the task-level work packages according to work zones locations. Such packaging enabled flexible resource allocation in response to unidentified constraints. Progress was monitored on a daily basis, so that deviations from planned work were proactively corrected. Based on four performance metrics, the results indicate that the fine-grained work plan and near real-time monitoring approach significantly improved the performance of phase II relative to phase I.