Construction Project Management
Guide for Kit Homes

This is a guide to construction project management for the owner builder of kit homes.

As the site supervisor you must have produced and make available all survey, house plotting, architectural, engineering, and structural drawings.

You will also have to supply all specifications, consent approvals, consultant reports and contract conditions.

Construction project management requires:

Project time frames
Material requirements
Labour requirements
Equipment requirements
Operational constraints
Regulatory requirements

Establishing a planned sequence of house construction works revolves around a logical 'Trade Order' approach. Booking and purchasing 'in time' for when you need it to happen, ensures time over-runs don't occur.

Construction project management tools

Bar chart programming is a great tool to plan and track events and activities. A component bar chart can show you where the time killers, potential over-runs and efficiencies can be found. It can also show you simple comparisons of time required for jobs.

These are easily made in MSExcel, although they can be just drawn up within MSWord in a regular table. If you really want to do it right get some Project Management software which will create all manner of monitoring setups, reminders, contingency management and time management programs.

My bar chart shows the relationship (and speed) between the work I will do
and the work a tradesman will do. An even more useful chart is the Gantt Chart. This can help you create a timeline of events and activities giving real time results as you go.

It has dates and event programming shaded in so you can pre-plan requirements for each activity. It provides a schedule that can be monitored, re-scheduled and provide controlled progress.

Gantt Chart

The very best and most useful chart is the Gantt Chart. This type of chart sets out all the activities of the house construction and shows how long they should take, when they start and finish in relation to the next task.

Gantt charts help to plot:

Extensions of time for completion of work
Changes to the sequence of work
Acceleration of the contract program (if time limited)
Prolongation of the contract program (if more time is required)

Good construction planning will provide:

Project time efficiencies
Project cost efficiencies
Effective resource management
Effective Cash Flow management

Regarding time efficiencies, these construction project management charts show where you can possibly get two or even three jobs happening at once. For example the electrical rough-in can happen while the cladding is being installed.