Construction management scheduling and control: The familiar historical overview

Abstract

The paper suggests that ‘management by exception’ is an historical default control mechanism based on the perception of control as a static process. However, increasingly scholars claim that a dynamic and proactive systems model is a more effective form of project control. These findings are the result of an historical desktop research method that analysed content from a small sample of scheduling methods and control approaches found in online and university library resources. The concept of control has historically influenced both visualization and analytics of different scheduling methods for construction project management. This paper focuses on two control ideals; static and dynamic control mechanisms. The overview begins with the description of early graphical scheduling techniques: Gantt charts and Harmonogram. It continues with examples of contributors to scheduling and control that include: CPM, PERT, LOB, Flowline and Location Based Management. The finding of this simple history suggests that change is the constant element for project control mechanisms. An object-based digital environment such as the data-rich building information modelling (BIM) appears to be continuing the change for new scheduling methods and control mechanisms.