Knowledge based approach for productivity adjusted construction schedule

The nature of the construction industry always resists the adoption of mana gement techniques that is successful in other disciplines. Unlike the manuf acturing industry each construction project presents a unique planning prob lem to project planners and managers. The construction process is carried o ut at a new location and materials, labor and equipment are transported to a new job site. The construction is one of few processes in which the produ ct is built in an open environment subject to various weather conditions an d other environmental factors which affect labor as well as equipment produ ctivity. This paper presents a knowledge based approach for analysis of dif ferent factors that affect construction project duration and generates norm al schedules and productivity-adjusted schedules. Project mangers can be gr eatly aided by such automated system by simulating different factors that r eflect anticipated and unanticipated project conditions and perform several schedule alternatives. An analysis of alternative schedules by using the i ntegrated knowledge based system is presented. The knowledge based system i nterfaces to estimating software, spreadsheet and scheduling soft wares in order to receive data and generate schedule reports. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.