Location, location, location. 

We hear this all the time relating to real estate value, marketing and sales. And over the past year or so we are hearing it more frequently relating to improvement of real estate, otherwise known as construction scheduling.

The confluence of CPM (and other forms of scheduling) with BIM (and other forms of CADD and CAD) continues apace bringing additional benefits to the users of these tools.

Way back in the 1970s and 80s, as I began my career in CPM and project controls, I used up to four sets of location codes in my CPMs. First was a simple code to locate the activity on the hand drafted pure logic diagrams which were then required by most specifications (and occasionally still specified but rarely enforced) composed of page number (from 30” x 24” prints), then “line” vertically on that page, then horizontal offset across the page of the pure logic diagram.

The failure of software developers to create an easy method to mimic this (including the ability to notate “jumping” from activity to activity rather than use of increasingly difficult to read lines) has probably been the cause of dropping the requirement of submittal of a pure logic diagram, and resultant reliance on the older (1910s) and less informative bar-chart graphic output.

The second set of location codes is to list at least one design document drawing (plan view and often also a section view or spec section) best illustrating the scope of work encompassed by the activity description.

Even today, I record this data as I assist a project team, reviewing the contract documents, to prepare a CPM. It helps to determine if we have covered all project scope. It helps to explain (in more than 48 characters) the scope of the schedule activity (especially if we change project team members midway through a project). It helps explain the scope of the schedule activity to the foreperson who is to perform the work.

The third set of location codes designates the physical location on the project site. This may be horizontal (perhaps even station numbering for a road) or vertical (floor, quadrant, perhaps even room number for a building) or some combination.

As has been discussed in previous blog posts, this must be done with some finesse; we do not wish to degrade the CPM with blind adherence to a coding regime. Should one activity (“set of instructions to a foreperson”) span two or more code designations, we do not wish to mandate breaking up the instruction simply to comply with the code breakdown.

For example, when pulling wire from one location to another, we use one activity and not one for each locale through which the wire is pulled.

The fourth set of location codes is typically used where the designer may or not have properly coordinated sections of the design documents, and may include (for example) competing mandated sequence step numbers from traffic control and erosion & sedimentation drawings. A primary purpose of the CPM exercise is just to address these issues of coordination. But can location-based data further assist the design, procurement and construction of project fulfillment?