PLANNING, SCHEDULING AND MONITORING FOR CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT IN A RURAL WATER SUPPLY PROJECT

Planning, scheduling and monitoring are the most important aspects contributing to the success of a project.

How these three factors affect the construction productivity is studied and discussed in this paper. With good planning and

scheduling, there is a great chance that the work would be completed within the targeted cost and time. It is important that

proper works method and job sequences with the optimum usage of materials, manpower and machinery be adopted. The

techniques normally been used for job scheduling, namely the Bar Chart and Critical Path Method, were reviewed and

discussed. Proper job monitoring is another aspect that directly contributes to the improvement of construction productivity.

This has not been widely practiced in Malaysian construction job site. Monitoring is normally been done based on the time

dependence only. However, job monitoring should include all the details of works method adopted, job sequences, optimum

usage of resources and labour efficiency in respect to the time targeted. A case study on the concreting works for the

construction of intake chamber for water supply project at Telupid, about 130 kms from Sandakan, Sabah was carried out

using the Time Study and Work Sampling methods to show the importance of proper job monitoring. This paper presents the

results of the study and suggestions on the productivity improvement.