The impact of continuous resource utilization on cost and duration of projects with repetitive activities using simulation

Other Title(s)

تأثير استمرارية استغلال الموارد على تكلفة و زمن المشاريع الهندسية ذات الأنشطة المتكررة باستخدام المحاكاة

Dissertant

al-Hulw, Muhammad F.

Thesis advisor

Rustum, Rifat N.

University

Islamic University

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

Department

Department of Civil Engineering

University Country

Palestine (Gaza Strip)

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2006

English Abstract

Repetitive activities projects, such as infrastructure projects, multi-story buildings, or house development, have a considerable economic standing in construction industry.

The repetitive nature of these projects makes them more sensitive toward the utilization of resources, which has a direct influence on the project costs and duration.

Many previous studies proved that conventional planning approaches that are commonly used are not qualified to present the optimum resources plan for this type of projects.

This research adopts the simulation technique as a tool to enhance the resources planning process in the repetitive activities projects.

Firstly, the application of simulation technique to plan a construction project was theoretically formulated in the "conceptual simulation model".

Next, a typical simulation model was especially developed for infrastructure projects that includes the basic activities and their logical relationships.

The model was designed to incorporate a great amount of production and cost data of the used resources, and to handle the input data particularly according such statistical approaches.

The structure of this model allows a high level of overlapping between the executed activities through having eight possible scenarios for each project.

In order to have a minimum user interpose during the activation of the simulation process, the model was formulated to be a general template for infrastructure projects, and have a flexible content of modules that is possible to be adjusted.

The preliminary simulation process outputs are possible to be refined.

The user can experiment a large number of execution scenarios, which could be automatically optimized when some related variables are specified.

A case study was applied using both "Critical Path Method" as a commonly used planning approach, and the developed simulation model.

The outputs quality, and the application methodology and environment, of that comparison indicated a considerable advantage for the simulation model.

Besides remedying the planning deficiencies of the conventional planning approaches that applied for projects with repetitive activities, the simulation technique is able to empower the planner to be fully aware with the used resources and all of their related features during the project, just like the execution environment.

Main Subjects

Civil Engineering

Topics

• Costs
• Industries
• Economic aspects
• Construction
• Construction projects

No. of Pages

129

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-301088