New applications of line of balance on scheduling of multi-storey buildings

New practical applications of the Line of Balance technique are presented, introducing simple and transparent tools for initial planning, short term scheduling and production control on multi-storey building construction sites. These developments were being conducted along an investigation on some construction sites on Brazil. The planning methodology is discussed including preplanning details and the control. Two new computational models are briefly presented, the first one a knowledge-based system used for initial planning and the other one a spreadsheet model used for on site short term scheduling and control. This research aimed to develop simple scheduling and control techniques as well the use of simple computational tools. The practical applications carried out on building sites demonstrates that this goal is being achieved. The use of this methodology also permits the learning process of a construction company to grown quite fast due to the use of information from previous projects and a detailed formal preplanning.