Vankadaru Aravind

CM4050

The complexity and scale of modern construction projects require more efficient planning process than the traditional planning methods. While scheduling methods like CPM are prevalent, they have drawbacks and limitations, such as not accounting the micro planning for the tasking, unable to identify the prerequisites and not focusing on make-ready process. 
The objective of this thesis is to understand the effects of the production planning and management systems on small and medium scale enterprises how the pull based planning could be incorporated. The purpose of this research is to develop and evaluate pull planning system based on the Last PlannerTM System (LPS) to improve the production process and stabilize the workflow in the small and medium scale enterprises.
The Last Planner System (LPS) is a promising methodology that includes scheduling phases and allows foremen to participate in planning and scheduling procedures, resulting in significant improvements in project safety, productivity, and predictability. However, LPS requires skills and practice to master. To help organizations learn and experiment with LPS, a risk-free simulation game called Villego® is proposed. 
For this research three different projects residential cum commercial project based out of Ahmedabad, educational building and auditorium project in Chennai was used to ground the context where the action research was chosen to apply over these case studies. The action research process involves diagnosis, action planning, action taking and evaluation, during this process the problems were identified and possible solutions were applied over the chosen project these solutions are based out LPS and Industry 4.0 technologies such as BIM, 4D planning, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and drone technology for progress monitoring and control. 
The outcomes of the research supplement the construction process for the pull based production planning using technology in the small and medium enterprises that helps in reducing the stress during the execution of activities