CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING PRESENT PRACTICE B

In fact, site layout planning is one of the preplanning tasks to be accomplished in a 

construction project. This task has an interactive relationship with the other planning tasks such as scheduling, selection of construction method, procurement and material planning, manpower and equipment planning, and financial planning. So, it becomes a task as important as other tasks that project managers have to accomplish.

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING PRESENT PRACTICE A

In construction, field practitioners manually mark up a single site drawing to include major temporary facilities needed on site throughout the duration of the project. They depend on knowledge of years of experience, common sense, and adoption of past layouts in determining
positions of temporary facilities on site. But, they can not keep track of all factors that could affect the selection, location, and interactions of all facilities to be positioned.

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING THE PROBLEM 1/4

Site huts wrongly located in relation to their effective use, such as: 

- Site office located too near noisy activities such as mixer, or located too near to site roads in dusty conditions, or too remote with insufficient overview of the site. Warehouses having inadequate access for loading and unloading or located in insecure area. Therefore, before moving on to a site, it is necessary to prepare a detailed site plan,  showingthe positions to be taken by every item of equipment, accommodation, ancillary work areas and materials storage areas. 

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING THE PROBLEM 1/3

Inadequate space allowed. Where inadequate space is allowed for the stacking of materials or activities: 

- Materials may be stacked to high or stacked on roadways causing hazards. 

- Working areas may become too cramped or additional areas may have o be allocated 

with the consequent waste of time caused by having to travel between them. 

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING THE PROBLEM 1/2

Plant and equipment wrongly located. For example: 

- The mixer is inaccessible for the delivery of materials; not enough room for the 

storage of aggregates; 

- Fixed cranes are unable to reach all parts of the works; 

- Hoists have insufficient capacity or height to handle the loads or badly located in relation to the floor layout;

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING THE PROBLEM 1/1

Failure to plan the site layout in advance is a prime cause of operational inefficiency, and can increase the overall cost of a project substantially. In the absence of a precise site layout plan, the following problems may occur: 

Material stacks wrongly located. Materials arriving on site are off-loaded into what someone guesses to be the correct location. This problem may involve double or triple handling of materials to another location. For example: 

- They may stocked over a drainage line or near the edge of excavation; 

- They are too far from the work area; 

- They are too remote from the hoist or not within the radius of the crane; 

- They impede the smooth flow of work traffic across the site; 

- Their delivery was wrongly phased and they are not needed until much later in the 

project; 

- They are fragile. 

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING (Additional info)

There are two general objectives which planners should seek to meet through careful organization of the site for construction. First, the site must be designed to maximize efficiency of operations in order to promote worker productivity, to shorten project time and to reduce cost. Second, the final plan must create a project with a good work environment in order to attract and 

retain the best personnel and thus contribute to better work quality and productivity. And The problem of site layout planning has been solved by researchers using two distinctly techniques: optimization and heuristics. Mathematical optimization procedures have been designed to produce the optimum solutions. The heuristic methods, on the other hand, used to 

produce good but not optimal solutions. However, the first category can not be adopted for large projects, and the second category is the only available mean for solving the complex real life projects. 

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING INTRO (Last Part)

NOTE: Construction site layout involves identifying, sizing, and placing temporary facilities (TFs) within the boundaries of construction site. These temporary facilities range from simple lay down areas to warehouses, fabrication shops, maintenance shops, batch plant, and residence facilities. Required temporary facilities and their areas are depending in many factors including project type, scale, design, location, and organization of construction work. 

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING INTRO (Part 5)

Layout planning, in general, can be viewed as a complex optimization problem that has many engineering applications ranging from the layout of manufacturing plants to the layout of computer chips on a board. Since the early 1960's, the problem has been extensively analyzed in 

the Industrial Engineering and Operational Research communities. However, it has not been satisfactory analyzed in the construction domain.

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING INTRO (Part 4)

Site planning in particular, has been the most neglected aspect in the construction industry and the attitude of the engineers has been that it will be done as the project progress. It is important to realize that the site planning will be the conditions that site personnel will live with for the total duration of the construction period. Thus the careful pre-planning is imperative. 

Also, since the labor cost on a large project constitute approximately 50 to 60 percent of the total project cost, significant saving can be occurred if the labor force moved freely and quickly 

within the site. In 1987, the Construction Industry Institute reported in its “Constructability Concepts File” that temporary facilities are important elements that can either enhance or 

adversely affect construction productivity.

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING INTRO (Part 2)

Site management, in general, involves many tasks, such as site investigation before construction process starts, material delivery and procurement management, keeping better site 

records, keeping good site communication and high level of information flow, monitoring performance regularly, establishing a well co-ordination system among different parts, and performing a good site layout planning. 

CONSTRUCTION SITE PLANNING INTRO (Part 3)

Among the important tasks of site management is the site layout planning. Extensive time loss and cost overruns could result in large projects, where the number of manpower, subcontractors, and equipment involved are high, if there is no effective and systematic approach 

to site planning. A detailed planning of the site layout and location of temporary facilities can enable the management to make considerable improvement by minimizing travel time, waiting 

time, and increasing worker morale by showing better and safer work environment. Due to its importance, this research focuses on the site layout planning problem. 

CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT PLANNING INTRO (Part 1)

Most construction sites that run into trouble do so for reasons related to managerial factors rather 

than because of technical problems. The site-based management can make significant 

improvements in the cost and time savings during the construction process without involving a 

mass of additional work. The role of site managers is to control and maintain work performance 

and then taking actions to rectify situations where performance is unsatisfactory.