Scheduling for Estimators

Introduction

There is a trend in the construction industry to impose more stringent scheduling demands on contractors. Owners regularly demand that their projects be ready to occupy sooner than can reasonably be expected when employing normal construction techniques. This puts an increasing burden on the construction estimator to accurately predict the cost of construction.

Certain portions of a construction project are very closely tied to construction duration. General conditions, for example, are directly related to the duration of the construction project. The major component of general conditions costs is labor related. The superintendent, project engineer, and project manager costs continue as long as the project continues.

Any project that demands extraordinary effort to complete within a specified time period will certainly cost more. In addition to the added direct cost of overtime, the estimator must also deal with lost productivity due to overtime, shift work and stacked trades.

With this in mind, it is increasingly important that the estimator understand and use modern scheduling techniques during the pre-construction and bidding phases of the project.

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Introduction

Bar Charts are not adequate

Using Preliminary critical path schedules

The scheduling process

Listing and Sequencing

Logical Connections and Lag

Assigning Durations

Summary

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