Construction planning into BIM environment: comparing Critical path method and Location based scheduling

Abstract

[EN] Construction planning is essential for the project success. It is a fundamental and challenging activity in the management and execution of construction projects. It involves the choice of technology, the definition of work tasks, the estimation of the required resources and durations for individual tasks, and the identification of any interactions among the different work tasks. Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a technology that allows relevant graphical and topical information related to the built environment to be stored in the database for access and management through a project lifecycle. With the development of digital technology, data and information can be linked with 3D components in BIM to provide 4D(Times), 5D(Costs), 6D (Facility Management) and 7D (Sustainability) BIM. Through scientific research, it is proven that BIM could have a marked impact on the construction industry. Two are the construction planning techniques analyzed and compared into BIM environment. On one hand, the Location Based Scheduling (LBS), that nowadays have resurfaced as a methodology for planning repetitive tasks in the constructive process due to increasingly general adoption of BIM technology in the construction industry. the aim is to develop and communicate the schedule with space as resource. It is a Time-Space scheduling Method. On the other hand, the Critical Path Method (CPM) that has been dominant for construction planning since the late 50s, and is lying the keystone on activities and their logical connections, having minor attention on resources. The discipline of 4D BIM focuses on the planning and the execution, adding the time variable to the three dimensions of the parametric model. And this planning can be done both from the criterion of using the work units (the elements of the BIM model) as the centerpiece of the programming (Critical Path Method) as well as using the spaces (Location Based Scheduling), where the constructive activity has to be developed. The starting hypothesis of the Thesis assumed that BIM is becoming the standard for project development, construction and management during its useful life, and it proposes a comparison of both planning method into BIM environment.