Automated productivity based schedule animation (APBSA)

Many studies of construction labor productivity are at a macro level. These macro-level studies attempt to quantify the productivity or changes in productivity over the entire industry or a segment of the industry. This study is aimed at a micro or projectlevel examination of productivity. The tool developed allows the user to predict, manage and even optimize the productivity associated with a project or levels of projects. Automated Productivity Based Schedule Animation (APBSA) is a dynamic scheduling methodology that stochastically utilizes weekly trended construction labor productivity data in order to automatically update the baseline schedule that was created at the beginning of a project. APBSA reports the construction activity duration variances and animates the progress of the job with the most current data available in a 4-D environment. Contractors and others can improve their planning by utilizing APBSA with Building Information Modeling (BIM) which will help them to improve their craft productivity. As a case study, the three-story Systems Engineering Facility III at Hanscom Air Force Base (AFB) was modeled. The model was developed in order to demonstrate the impacts of time and cost-based stochastic productivity indices on the baseline schedule. A time-cost trade-off analysis was also performed in order to show effects of duration variations on the cost of the project.