Module-1:Introduction to Construction Management by Dr. Vinay Kumar B M

Syllabus
3/22/2018 Department of Civil Engineering,VVIET,Mysuru. 2

Definition of Management
• Management is the art of getting things done through people
• Managers achieve organizational goals by enabling others to perform the
necessary tasks by effectively identifying the right person for the right
task
“Management is the process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling
the efforts of the organization members and using all organizational
resources to achieve related organizational goals”

Characteristics of management
Management is a continuous process
Management is an art as well as science
Management aims at achieving predetermined objectives
Management is a factor of production
Management is decision-making

Universal application
Management is needed at all levels
Management aims at maximum profit
Dynamic
Management as a career
Management is a profession
Management is a discipline

Functions of Management
Planning
Organizing
Staffing
Motivating
Leading
Controlling3/22/2018 Department of Civil Engineering,VVIET,Mysuru. 6

Planning
It is the primary function of management
Planning is formulation of future course of action
Planning makes things happen
Planning function is performed by managers at all levels
“Failure to plan is planning to failure”

Planning involves determination of
• What is to be done?
• Why it is to be done?
• Who is to do?
• When it is to be done?
• Where it is to be done?
• How it can be done?

Organizing
Organizing is the process of creating a mechanism consisting of group of
people interrelated with each other and working towards common
objectives
It is the process of determining the authority and responsibility
relationship between individuals

Organizing involves
• Determination of objectives
• Listing the activities
• Grouping the activities
• Assigning definite responsibilities to individuals
• Delegating the required authority
• Providing physical facilities

Staffing
Staffing is the process of supplying the required man power to the
organization and maintaining the human resources.
Staffing involves human resource planning, recruitment and selection,
placement, induction, training and development, compensation management,
performance appraisal and employee welfare activities.

Motivating
Motivation refers to the inner drive within an individual to put efforts
for achieving a goal.
Motivation is which accounts for intensity, quality and persistence of
efforts for achieving a goal.
Motivating is the ability to inspire others in putting the efforts for
attaining a goal.

Leading
Leadership is the ability of an individual to influence the behavior of
others for achieving desired goals.
Leaders influence the followers and create shared vision and energize
their behavior for working towards common objectives.
A manager must be a good leader

Controlling
It is the process of checking the actual work and comparing it with
predetermined standards in order to find any deviations so that timely
corrective actions can be taken.
Planning and controlling are two closely related functions
Controlling ensures completion of a task as per the plan

Controlling involves
• Establishment of standards
• Measuring actual work
• Comparison and taking corrective actions.

Importance of Planning
• Planning is of great importance in all types of organization whether
business or non-business, private or public, small or large.
• The organization which thinks much ahead about what it can do in future
is likely to succeed as compared to one which fails to do so.
• Without planning, business decisions would become random, ad hoc
choices.

Planning is important because of the following reasons
• Primacy of planning

• To minimize risk and uncertainty
• To focus attention on objectives
• To facilitate control
• To increase organizational effectiveness

TYPES OF PLANS

• Single use plans are designed for specific end; when that end is reached,
the plan is dissolved or formulated again for next end.
• Standing plans provide guidelines for further course of action and are
used over a period of time.
• Standing plans are designed for situations that recur often enough to
justify a standardize approach.

Hierarchies of plans

Purpose or mission
• As organizations exist in society it is appropriate for them to relate
their existence in the society by contributing the needs
• Mission may be defined as “The role that an organization plays in the
society”
• It is depicted in the mission statement of the organization
• Mission statement describes the basic philosophy and purpose of
existence of an organization

Purpose of mission statement
A mission statement provides answers to following important questions-
 What is our business?
 Why it exists?
 What it should do?

Mission statement of Canara bank

Objectives or goals
• Objectives or goals are end points of all management actions
• They are the specific targets to be achieved by the organization
• Justification for any management actions lies in achievement of these
specific objectives

Characteristics of objectives
• Objectives may be tangible or intangible
• Objectives have a hierarchy
• Objectives can be short term and long term
• Objectives sometimes may be in conflict with each other.

Importance of objectives
• Objectives provide specific targets for managers and all their
activities have to be directed towards achievement of these targets
• Objectives provides basis for performance of all managerial functions
• Objectives bring in personal commitment in employees as their success
in organization depends on achievement of objectives and their
contribution to this

• Reasonably challenging objectives always motivate people and this
makes them to perform in their respective jobs and roles, by bringing
best out of them
• Objectives provide criteria for evaluating managerial decisions at
various levels

Strategies
• ‘Every organization has to develop plans logically from goals considering
the environmental opportunities and threats and the organizational
strengths and weakness.
• A strategy is a plan which takes into these factors and provides an
optimal match between the firm and external environment.
• Two activities are involved in strategy formulation namely environmental
appraisal and corporate appraisal.

Environmental appraisal involves identifying and analysis of the following
factors:
• Political and legal factors: Stability of government, taxation and licensing
laws, fiscal policies, restrictions on capital etc.
• Economic factors: Economic development, distribution of personal income,
trend in prices, exchange rates etc.,
• Competitive factors: Identifying principal competitors and analysis of their
performance, anti-monopoly laws, protection of patents, brand names etc.

• Corporate analysis involves identifying and analyzing company’s strength
and weakness.
• For example a companies strength may be low cost manufacturing skill,
excellent product design, efficient distribution etc.,.
• Its weakness may be lack of physical and financial resources.
• A company must plan to exploit these strengths to maximum and
circumvent it’s weakness.

Policies
• A policy is a general guideline for decision making. It sets up boundaries
around decisions.
• Policies channelize the thinking of the organization members so that it is
consistent with the organizational objectives.
• According to George R Terry “ Policy is a verbal, written or implied
overall guide, setting up boundaries that supply the general limits and
directions in which managerial action will take place”.

• Policies provides framework within which decisions are to be made by the
management in various areas.
• Hence an organization may have recruitment policy, price policy,
advertisement policy etc.,

Procedures
• Policies are carried out by means of more detailed guidelines called
procedures.
• A procedure provides a detailed set of instructions for performing a
sequence of actions involved in doing a certain piece of work.
• A procedure is a list of systematic steps for handling activities that
occur regularly.
• The same steps are followed each time that activity is performed.3/22/2018 Department of Civil Engineering,VVIET,Mysuru. 34

Methods
• A method is a prescribed way in which one step of procedure is to be
performed.
• A method is thus a component part of procedure.
• Example: Medical examination is a part of recruitment and selection
procedure, method indicate the manner of conducting medical examination.

Rules
• The rules are the simplest and most specific type of standing plans.
• Rules are detailed and recorded instructions that a specific action must
or must not be performed in a given situation.
• Rules generally pertain to the administrative area of a procedure.
• For example sanctioning overtime wages to workers, sanctioning traveling
bills etc., need uniform way of handling them.

Programme
• A programme is a sequence of activities directed towards the
achievement of certain objectives.
• A programme is action based and result oriented.
• A programme lays down the definite steps which will be taken to
accomplish a given task.
• It also lays down the time to be taken for completion of each step.3/22/2018 Department of Civil Engineering,VVIET,Mysuru. 37

• The essential ingredients of every programme are time phasing and
budgeting.
• Thus a programme is a complex of objective, policies, procedures, task
assignments, steps to be taken, resources to be employed and other
elements to carry out a given course of action.

Projects
• Projects are part of large programmes which can be identified as a clear
group of activities with definite objectives and time frame for
completion, and which requires specialized abilities.
• Projects have definite objectives like new product development,
manufacturing of a new machine, construction of machine, installation of a
plant etc. and they have definite starting and ending points or completion
time.

• Projects cannot be extended beyond their completion time as it may
results escalation in costs significantly and it results in huge loss.

Budgets
• A budget is a single use plan since it is drafted for a particular period of
time.
• A budget is a statement of expected results expressed in quantitative
terms i.e. rupees, man hours, product units etc.
• Since it is a statement of expected results, it is also used as an
instrument of managerial control.

• It provides a standard by which actual operations can be measured and
variation could be controlled.
• The important budgets are sales budgets, production budgets, cash
budgets, and revenue and expenses budgets.

Construction as a Project
• A defined goal or objective.
• Specific tasks to be performed.
• A defined beginning and end.
• Resources being consumed.

Construction management
“Construction Management (CM) is a professional service that uses
specialized, project management techniques to oversee the planning,
design, and construction of a project, from its beginning to its end.”
• The purpose of CM is to control a project's time, cost and quality

Functions of construction management
• Specifying project objectives and plans including delineation of scope, budgeting,
scheduling, setting performance requirements, and selecting project participants.
• Maximizing the resource efficiency through procurement of labor, materials and
equipment.
• Implementing various operations through proper coordination and control of
planning, design, estimating, contracting and construction in the entire process.

• Developing effective communications and mechanisms for resolving
conflicts.
• The Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) states the
most common responsibilities of a Construction Manager fall into the
following 7 categories:

• Project Management Planning
• Cost Management
• Time Management
• Quality Management
• Contract Administration
• Safety Management
• CM Professional Practice

CM professional practice includes specific activities, such as:
• defining the responsibilities and management structure of the project
management team
• organizing and leading by implementing project controls
• defining roles and responsibilities
• developing communication protocols and
• identifying elements of project design and construction likely to give
rise to disputes and claims

Major Types of Construction Projects
1. Residential Housing Construction
2. Institutional and Commercial Building Construction.
3. Specialized Industrial Construction
4. Infrastructure and Heavy Construction

Residential Housing Construction
• Residential housing construction includes houses and high-rise
apartments.
• During the development and construction of such projects, the
developers usually serve as owners and take charge, making necessary
contractual agreements for design and construction, and arranging the
financing and sale of the completed structures.

• Residential housing designs are usually performed by architects and
engineers, and the construction executed by builders who hire
subcontractors for the structural, mechanical, electrical and other
specialty work.

Institutional and Commercial Building Construction
• Institutional and commercial building encompasses a great variety of
project types and sizes, such as schools and universities, medical centers
and hospitals, sports facilities, shopping centers, warehouses and light
manufacturing plants, and skyscrapers for offices and hotels.
• The owners of such buildings may or may not be familiar with construction
industry practices, but they usually are able to select competent
professional consultants and arrange the financing of the constructed
facilities themselves.

• Specialty architects and engineers are often engaged for designing a
specific type of building.
• The builders or general contractors undertaking such projects may also be
specialized in only that type of building.

Specialized Industrial Construction
• Specialized industrial construction usually involves very large scale
projects with a high degree of technological complexity, such as oil
refineries, steel mills, chemical processing plants and coal-fired or
nuclear power plants.
• The owners usually are deeply involved in the development of a project,
and prefer to work with designers-builders such that the total time for
the completion of the project can be shortened.

Infrastructure and Heavy Construction
• Infrastructure and heavy construction includes projects such as
highways, tunnels, bridges, pipelines, drainage systems and sewage
treatment plants.
• Most of these projects are publicly owned and therefore financed
through taxes.
• This category of construction is characterized by a high degree of
mechanization, which has gradually replaced some labor intensive
operations.3/22/2018 Department of Civil Engineering,VVIET,Mysuru. 55

Construction Projects Participants
• The Owner (The Client)
• The Design Professionals
• The Construction Professionals
• The Project Manager

The Owner (The Client)
• The owner is the individual or organization for whom a project is to be
built under a contract.
• The owner owns and finances the project.
• Depending on the owners’ capabilities, they may handle all or portions
of planning, project management, design, engineering, procurement,
and construction.

• The owner engages architects, engineering firms, and contractors as
necessary to accomplish the desired work.

The Design Professionals
• Examples of design professionals are architects, engineers, and design
consultants.
• The major role of the design professional is to interpret or assist the
owner in developing the project’s scope, budget, and schedule and to
prepare construction documents.

• Depending on the size and sophistication of the owner, the design
professional can be part of the owner’s group or an independent, hired for
the project.
• In some cases design professional and construction contractor together
form a design-build company.

The Construction Professionals
• The constructions Professional are the parties that responsible for
constructing the project.
• In traditional management where the owner, design professional, and
contractors are separate companies, the contractor would be termed a
prime contractor.

• The prime contractor is responsible for delivering a complete project in
accordance with the contract documents.
• In most cases, the prime contractor divides the work among many
specialty contractors called subcontractors.

The Project Manager
• The project manager is the individual charged with the overall
coordination of the entire construction program for the owner.
• These include planning, design, procurement, and construction.

Duties of Project Manager
• Clear definitions of the goals of the project.
• Investigate alternative solutions for the problems.
• Develop a detailed plan to make the selected program reality.
• Implement the plan and control the project.

Project organisation
• There is no single organizational approach to projects.
• Each project is organized to accomplish the work effectively and
efficiently.
• Several factors influence the organizational approach to execute a
project.

Factors influencing project organization.
• The complexity profile of a project
• The culture of the parent organization
• The preferences of the project manager
• The knowledge and skills of the team
• Parent organization with a project management

• In developing the project organizational structure, the project manager
considers the span of control for each manager.
• The span of control represents the number of people reporting to a
manager.
• For example, the project manager does not want all the engineers on a
project reporting to the engineering manager and assigns senior engineers
to report to the engineering manager with other engineers reporting to the
senior engineers.

Typical Project Organizations

Construction Planning and Scheduling
• Planning, scheduling is an important part of the construction
management.
• Planning and scheduling of construction activities helps engineers to
complete the project in time and within the budget.
• The term ‘Construction’ does not only denotes physical activities
involving men, materials and machinery but also covers the entire gamut
of activities from conception to realization of a construction project.

• Thus, management of resources such as men, materials, machinery
requires effective planning and scheduling of each activity.

Planning in Construction Management
• It is the process of selecting a particular method and the order of
work to be adopted for a project from all the possible ways and
sequences in which it could be done.
• It essentially covers the aspects of ‘What to do’ and ‘How to do it’.

Importance of construction project planning
• Planning helps to minimize the cost by optimum utilization of available
resources.
• Planning reduces irrational approaches, duplication of works and inter
departmental conflicts.
• Planning encourages innovation and creativity among the construction
managers.
• Planning imparts competitive strength to the enterprise3/22/2018 Department of Civil Engineering,VVIET,Mysuru. 74

Types of Planning
The three major types of construction project planning are:
1. Strategic planning: this involves the high-level selection of the project
objectives.
2. Operational planning: this involves the detailed planning required to
meet the strategic objectives.
3. Scheduling: this puts the detailed operational plan on a time scale set
by the strategic objectives.

Strategic planning
• Strategic planning is done by the owner’s corporate planners.
• In this they decide what project to build and what the completion date
has to be to meet the owner’s project goals.
• The construction teams formulates the master construction execution
plan within the guidelines set in the strategic and contracting plans.

Operational Planning
• Operational planning is done by construction teams. They ask certain
questions before making operational plan for the project.
• Will the operational plan meet the strategic planning target date?
• Are sufficient construction resources and services available within the
• company to meet the project objectives?
• What is the impact of the new project on the existing work load?

• Where will we get the resources to handle any overload?
• What company policies may prevent the plan from meeting the target
date?
• Are usually long delivery equipment or materials involved?
• Are the project concepts and design firmly established and ready to start
the construction?
• Will it be more economical to use a fast-track scheduling approach?
“All these questions are answered in preparation of the construction
master plan before detailed scheduling of the project”.

What is Construction Master Plan?
• A construction master plan addresses how will the project be planned,
organized, and major work activities be controlled to meet the goals of
finishing the work on time, within budget and as specified.
• Contracting plan is the major consideration in formulating the master
construction plan, which answers a lot of questions.

• Questions related to government and social restraint, resources for
construction, owner’s policies or legal requirements, contractual requirement
affecting master plan are not answered by contracting plan.
• Answers to these questions must be found during the development of the
project execution plan.
• Project execution plan shall be reviewed and evaluation shall be done as the
work progresses. Minor variations are common but major changes shall be
considered with extreme caution.

• The construction project master plan shall be completed and approved
and after that time plan (scheduling), budget plan, resource plan shall be
carried out.

Scheduling in Construction Management
• Scheduling is the fitting of the final work plan to a time scale.
• It shows the duration and order of various construction activities. It
deals with the aspect of ‘when to do it’.
• Scheduling of the programming, planning and construction process is a
vital tool in both the daily management and reporting of the project
progress.

• Requires managers to think the project through prior starting the work.
• Provides a structured approach to planning
• Means of communicating the work plan to others
• Identify problems before they arise
Practical benefits of good scheduling

• Identify long-lead fabricated items
• Assess resource requirements
• Forecast cash flows
• Serves as primary documentation for delay claim analysis and other time
impact considerations

• Define Activities – identifying the specific actions to be performed to
produce the project deliverables.
• Sequencing Activities – identifying and documenting relationships among
the project activities.
• Estimate Activity Resources – estimating the type and quantities of
material, people, equipment, or supplies required to perform each activity.
Basic Steps in Scheduling

• Estimate Activity Duration – approximating the number of work periods
needed to complete individual activities with estimated resources
• Develop Schedule – analyzing activity sequences, durations, resource
requirements, and schedule constraints to create the project schedule.
• Control Schedule – monitoring the status of the project to update
project progress and managing changes to the schedule baseline

Work breakdown Structure
“A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a hierarchic decomposition or
breakdown of a project or major activity into successive levels, in which
each level is a finer breakdown of the preceding one”.
• The full scope of work for the project is placed at the top of the
diagram, and then sub-divided smaller elements of work at each lower
level of the breakdown.

WBS of Residence Building

• At the lowest level of the WBS the elements of work is called a work
package.
• A list of project’s activities is developed from the work package.
• There is not necessarily a right or wrong structure because what may be an
excellent fit for one discipline may be an awkward burden for another.

• Stages of a project, that is, pre-construction, construction and commissioning
and handing over stage.
• Functional or technological disciplines, that is, WBS is based on technological
disciplines
Example: civil and plumbing works, electrical works, air conditioning works,
etc
WBS shall be prepared with respect to,

• organizational structure, that is, WBS is prepared as per the reporting
structure.
Example: works to be monitored by each department or hierarchy
level is a sub-project.
• Physical location, that is, WBS based on spatial location.
Example: each floor of a building is a sub-project

Gantt Charts (Bar Chart)
• A Gantt chart, commonly used in project management, is one of the
most popular and useful ways of showing activities (tasks or events)
displayed against time.
• On the left of the chart is a list of the activities and along the top is a
suitable time scale.
• Each activity is represented by a bar; the position and length of the
bar reflects the start date, duration and end date of the activity.

At a glance, we can able to observe:
• What the various activities are
• When each activity begins and ends
• How long each activity is scheduled to last
• Where activities overlap with other activities, and by how much
• The start and end date of the whole project

Basic Terminologies in Network diagram

Activities Relationships
In order to identify the relationships among activities, the planning team
needs to answer the following questions for each activity in the project:
• Which activities must be finished before the current one can start?
• What activity(ies) may be constructed concurrently with the current
one?
• What activity(ies) must follow the current one?

• A circle of activity precedence will result in an impossible plan.
• For example, if activity A precedes activity B, activity B precedes
activity C, and activity C precedes activity A, then the project can
never be started or completed.

Overlap or lag
• Overlap between activities (negative lag) is defined as how much a particular
activity must be completed before a succeeding activity may start.
• The absence of overlap means that the first activity must finish before the
second may start.
• A negative overlap (lag) means a delay is required between the two activities

Types of activities relationships
• Finish to start (FS).
• Finish to finish (FF).
• Start to start (SS).
• Start to finish (SF).

Finish to start (FS).
• The successor activity can begin only when the current activity
completes.

Finish to finish (FF).
• The finish of the successor activity depends on the finish of the
current activity.

Start to start (SS).
• The start of the successor activity depends on the start of the
current activity.

Start to finish (SF).
• The successor activity cannot finish until the current activity starts.

Drawing Project Network
• A network is a graphical representation of the project activities and
their relationships.
• A project network is a set of arrows and nodes.
• Before drawing the network, it is necessary to ensure that the project
has a unified starting and ending point.

• The need for this start activity arises when there is more than one
activity in the project that has no predecessors and the end activity is
needed when there is more than one activity that has no successors.
• Also, networks should be continuous (i.e., each activity except the first
and the last has both preceding and succeeding activities).

There are two ways that are commonly used to draw a network diagram
for a project:
1. Activity on Arrow (AOA) representation.
2. Activity on Node (AON) representation

Activity on arrow network (AOA)
• In this method, the arrows represent activities while the nodes
represent the start and the end of an activity (usually named as
events).
• The length of the arrow connecting the nodes has no significance and
may be straight, curved, or bent.
• When one activity depends upon another, both appear on the diagram
as two arrows having a common node.

Basic patterns of AOA diagrams

The following are some rules that need to be followed when constructing an
AOA network diagram:
• Each activity must have a unique i – j numbers, where i (the number at the
tail of the arrow) is smaller than j (the number at the head of the arrow).
• It is recommended to have a gap between numbers (i.e., 5, 10, 15, etc.).
This will allow for accommodation of missed activities.
• Avoid back arrows.

Dummy Activity
• In some situations, when more than one arrow leave the same node and
arrive at another node, dummy activities must be used.
• The dummy activity is an activity with zero duration, consumes no
resources, drawn as dashed lines, and used to adjust the network
diagram.
• A dummy activity is also used when one activity depends upon two
preceding activities and another activity depends only upon one of these
two preceding activities

Activity on node network (AON)
• This method is also called the precedence diagram method.
• In this method, the nodes represent activities and the arrows represent
logical relationships among the activities.
• If the arrow starts from the end side of an activity (activity A) and ends
at the start side of another activity (activity B), then A is a predecessor
of B

• AON representation allows the overlap or lag representation on the
relationship arrows connecting activities.

Basic patterns of AON diagrams

Comparison between AOA and AON
• There is no need for the use of dummy activities in AON representation.
• AON are more easily to draw and to read.
• In AOA, an activity can only start when all its predecessors have finished.
• AON allows for overlap/lag representation.
• AON allows for the representation of the four types of relationships while AOA
allows only for the finish to start relationship.

• CPM is a network diagramming technique used to predict total project
duration.
• A critical path for a project is the series of activities that determines
the earliest time by which the project can be completed.
• The critical path is the longest path through the network diagram and has
the least amount of slack or float.
Critical Path Method(CPM)

• Slack or float is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without
delaying a succeeding activity or the project finish date.
• Reducing an activity’s completion time is called “crashing.”

Procedure for Finding the Critical Path in a Network Diagram
• Draw the network diagram.
• Identify all paths in the network diagram.
• Find the duration of each path.
• The path with the largest duration is the critical path.

Construct a network diagram using the data given in the Table and Find out Critical
Path

Module-1:Introduction to Construction Management by Dr. Vinay Kumar B M

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