A practical model for simulation of earthwork construction, with applications for scheduling

From its peak level, achieved in the mid 1960's, growth in construction productivity in the United States has regressed to the level achieved in 1957. A major need exists to develop management methods to improve construction productivity. Extensive research on development and improvement of computerized network scheduling systems and mathematical techniques, such as operations research, has provided some significant improvement. However, for construction work which is repetitive in nature, an alternative management tool has been developed, in the form of computer simulation. Work in simulation for construction has been primarily academic. A 1985 National Science Foundation report listed the primary short term research goal in the field of construction simulation as "Ease of use. " The primary intermediate term goal was "Integration with planning and control systems and project data bases. " Specific objectives of the research presented in this paper were to determine whether it is possible to: (1) Develop a system which permits computer simulation of earthwork construction processes to be performed and evaluated on-site by journeymen in the field who lack training in modeling, simulation, and computer programming. (2) Utilize the field simulation system for the analysis and evaluation of primary sequential process relationships required for application of simulation results to an existing scheduling procedure. The stochastic simulation model was developed for the use of the U.S. Navy Mobile Construction Battalions (Seabees), and is capable of: utilizing resources of variable sizes for the same work task, calculating running task durations during simulation, applying controlled release of resources from queues, and maintaining detailed statistics on each resource used in the process. The model has been given the acronym SEACONS (SEAbee CONstruction Simulation). SEACONS process test results were validated against industry and navy standards, and the system was then used as a test bed for analysis and evaluation of process relationships involved in the application of simulation results to line-of-balance diagram scheduling procedures.