This study investigates a novel approach both to precisely plan for project execution and to monitor execution status in near real-time. In this approach, two lean construction techniques-such as pull planning and integrated project delivery-are combined with the fine-grained planning and near real-time monitoring of the executed work. In order to plan for and monitor the flow of work, work packages are defined at the smallest discernible amount of work, the task. Work packages are divided by unique location sectors, and hence further discretized. Deviations based on predictions of completed work are proactively reported and assessed in near realtime. In addition, productivity ratios for completed projects are utilized to pre-qualify contractors for future project endeavors and to generate accurate bidding information. Thus, an emphasis to stabilize workflow is at the core of the proposed fine-grained production planning and near real-time monitoring approach. Through an intervention test in a facility project, a comparison of relevant metrics is used to quantify and validate the impact of the novel approach.

This article argues that an opportunity to leverage operations flow in construction exists. Operations flow represents the flow of work within a unit of production such as a worker or workstation. To date, construction has mostly neglected operations flow and solely focused on process flow. Process flow represents how the flow of work on a product moves through workstations or tasks. For example, the Last Planner System (LPS) exemplifies a successful approach to plan for tasks with resolved constraints, so that production units (e.g. crews) can flow smoothly through the built product or project. In order to spark a discussion in the construction community, this article provides a theoretical review of process and operations flow concepts and practices. In addition, interviews with subject matter experts in the automobile industry are leveraged in order to unveil how work and information flows are monitored in assembly lines. Based on the previous insights, a model for the continuous monitoring of operations in construction with the support of advanced technologies is discussed. The model is partially implemented in a healthcare project.

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This article assesses the combined influence of information integration and automated data analytics on project performance. To this end, retrospective data on 78 completed projects, with a total installed value of $8 billion, was collected. The level of internal and external information integration and automated analytics were used as surrogates of real-time project controls for statistical analyses purposes. Indeed, non-parametric statistical techniques were used to assess the impact of such technologies on cost and schedule performance. Overall, teams with a sophisticated degree of information integration and automated data analytics can control their projects with more reliable information and in a proactive manner so that informed decisions can be timely made on behalf of the project and the organization. DOI 10.5592/otmcj.2015 Ye et al. 2014;Grau and Back 2015). The performance of construction projects deviates all too often from baseline targets and/or plans. However, such deviations are commonly not timely ascertained by project teams, so that corrective actions are often too late or ineffective. Surprises regarding the cost and schedule outcomes at completion during advance or late construction stages are common (Back and Grau 2013). Part of this record of low performance can be attributed to the ineffective control of the project status condition. Typically, controls information on the status of a project is first reported on a monthly basis, and the control information escalates through chains of management at stakeholder organizations during consecutive reporting efforts. In this study, we have documented cases in which upper managers were making decisions on project information that was six months old. This inability to become proactive, rather than reactive, impairs the decision making process and the ability to deliver projects with the expected cost and time outcomes (Grau and Back 2015). We have found that construction experts consensually understand that an instantaneous, or at least timely, project control capability can be a significant improvement and can result in substantial benefits to project performance and project stakeholders. Thus, a potential solution, which becomes the focus of this study, is to leverage advanced information technologies to control projects in a more timely, or instantaneous, manner.In reality, though, the adoption of new technologies in the capital projects industry has been slower than in other industries, such as manufacturing. Too often the return on investment of information technologies is not evaluated due to the perceived difficulty of such evaluation effort (Johnson and Clayton, 1998). As such, the capital projects industry needs to quantify the costs, benefits, and business implications of real-time project controls with the support of information technologies. For similar reasons several other scholars have attempted to partially identify and quantify the benefits from the adoption of these technologies, and understand whether information technologies c...