Parade game: Impact of work flow variability on trade performance

The Parade Game illustrates the impact work flow variability has on the per formance of construction trades and their successors. The game consists of simulating a construction process in which resources produced by one trade are prerequisite to work performed by the next trade. Production-level deta il, describing resources being passed from one trade to the next, illustrat es that throughput will be reduced, project completion delayed, and waste i ncreased by variations in flow. The game shows that it is possible to reduc e waste and shorten project duration by reducing the variability in work fl ow between trades. Basic production management concepts are thus applied to construction management. They highlight two shortcomings of using the crit ical-path method for field-level planning: The critical-path method makes m odeling the dependence of ongoing activities between trades or with operati ons unwieldy and it does not explicitly represent variability. The Parade G ame can be played in a classroom setting either by hand or using a computer . Computer simulation enables students to experiment with numerous alternat ives to sharpen their intuition regarding variability, process throughput, buffers, productivity, and crew sizing. Managers interested in schedule com pression will benefit from understanding work flow variability's impact on succeeding trade performance.