Improving Productivity of Construction Operation Using Simulation Model

Abstract

Different activities involved in a construction operation are interdependent and some activities require common resources which make it difficult to schedule the construction operation effectively. Eventually it leads to lengthen project duration and make inefficient use of resources. Therefore improving construction productivity to reduce duration and cost is very important for a project. Total Ineffective Time of a construction project can be minimized through proper planning & scheduling prior to construction. Manual calculation and planning is complicated and time consuming considering the interaction of different work activities. This situation has motivated the study to figure out the usefulness of simulation models for minimizing project duration. Simulation models can be an efficient tool to generate effective plans and schedules as they consider complex interactions among various units on the jobsite to evaluate the performance of the construction operation. A simulation model has been developed using STROBOSCOPE simulation language in this study. The model has considered various activity interactions and resource combinations for the analysis. The construction of from real life project has been selected as case project for the study. The construction operation that has been selected for the model development is mainly sub-structure work which consists of piling work, earth excavation, bracing work. Simulation has been run for different combination of resources and interaction among different activities. The results show that simulation model is very effective to select the optimum combination of resource that produces minimum project duration. The simulation model is also effective to find out the amount of concurrent execution of activities to further shorten the project duration. It is hoped that the study will be a guideline for the construction projects to ensure minimum duration.