Case Study: Application Of Mathematical Techniques On A Construction Project

Abstract

With the continuous decline in profit margins and increased competition in construction projects, construction contractors are finding ways of eliminating waste and increasing profit. Although numerous approaches have been developed to improve efficiency and effectiveness of construction processes, implementing statistical techniques offer the promise to minimize, if not eliminate non valueadding work. Time study is the study carried out to assess human effectiveness by improved planning and sound incentive scheme to its employees. It is employed in the assessment of human efforts in all its aspects to lead systematically to all the factors which ultimately affect efficiency and economy of the situation under study in realizing the objectives of bringing about improvements. The purpose of this article is to highlight the benefits of statistical techniques over the traditional methods employed in construction. The writer intends to explain, why time-motion studies need to be carried out to determine the productivity of the system under study; why waiting line models need to be applied to find out the most optimum solution or method which will give highest productivity. Further, the authors stress that vendors must be rated based on their past performance for punctuality, quality and reliability, and hence a Vendor Rating Index(V.R.I) should be given to vendors, which would help assessing them for present or future assignments. Vogel’s Approximation Method must be applied to a Transportation Matrix for finding Initial Basic Feasible Solution (IBFS).Subsequently method of multiplexes must be applied to the Transportation Matrix to balance between supply and demand and hence find out the optimal units that need to be supplied from a particular site to a particular destination, minimum cost of transportation is obtained.