CE 5020: CONSTRUCTION PLANNING & CONTROL

Bar Charts

Sivakumar Palaniappan
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Bar Charts
Graphical representation of a project schedule.

Application:
Used as a Scheduling Tool for small scale projects.
Used as a Presentation Tool for almost all projects.

Bar Charts
Developed by Henry Gantt in
1917 d
during
i W
World
ld W
War-II
Bar Chart is also called as
Gantt Chart
Originally developed to plan
and track the p
progress
g
of
manufacturing operations, later
used in construction

Components of Bar Chart

Header
Project Information such as
Project title, brief description of project scope, project location,
project owner
owner, Contract number
number, award date
date, Project status,
status etc
etc.

Task Information
Task id, Task description,
duration,
du
a o , sstart,
a , finish,
s , sstatus
a us e
etc.
c

Time Scale
(years, months, weeks, days depending upon
what level of detail needs to be presented)
Graphical representation of each activity.

A Simple Bar Chart

Activities are time scaled and are super imposed over a calendar.

Bar Chart shows how different activities are related to each other.

Simple graphical representation allows one to grasp schedule

information quickly
q ickl and easil
easily.

A Simple Bar Chart

Each horizontal
bar represents a
Project Activity or
Task
The bars
Th
b llength
th iis
in proportion to the
activity duration.

Time Scale to represent the project duration from Start to Finish

It can be in days, weeks or months.
For small projects, it can be in days
For large projects, it can be in weeks or months.
Phase-I, Phase-2, Phase-3 and so on

Bar Chart of a Home Builder

Advantages
g of Bar Charts
Simple
p
Easy to prepare
Easy to understand than a tabular schedule
No scheduling experience is needed
Used to review project status in meetings

Types
yp of Bar Charts
Bar Chart for a Single Project
Each bar represents
p
one activity
y or a task in the
project

Bar Chart for Multiple Projects of a Construction

Company (also called Summary Bar Chart)
Each bar represents a construction project

Bar Chart for One Project

j

Details of a computer generated bar chart:

Activity ID, Activity Description, Original Duration,
Remaining Duration, Time Scale

Summary Bar Chart for a Heavy

Construction Contractor

Each bar in the chart represents one construction

project of a contractor

Computer Tools to Generate Bar Chart

MS Excel
Mi
Microsoft
ft Project
P j t
Sure Trak
Primavera (P3, P5, P6)
Candy Project Planning Tool

Some Points

How would you decide the time scale? (days, weeks, months or years)?

Maximum size of the bar chart used?

You can have two parallel activities

Buffer (time gap between two activities)

Keep in mind how would you print and distribute bar charts to project participants.
It is good to make it fit to papers of standard size

Overlapping
pp g bars

Depending upon project duration

Depending upon what you would like to present who is the targeted audience?
Summary bar charts in months
Short term look ahead schedule days.

Say, excavation starts 5 days after surveying considering effect of weather conditions such
as rain

No confidential information is included because bar charts are displayed in public.

Some bar charts size 3 feet X 30 feet

Some Points
Avoid

Good
Practice

Concreting
Concreting (Footing)
Concreting (Columns)
Concreting (Roof)

How would you represent LS and LF?

ES

EF
LS

LF

Maximum duration of an activity?

3 months (good practice) if its more split the task into two.

Bar Charts to Monitor Progress Status

Scheduled Vs Actual Performance

Shaded portion indicates the amount of work that

has been completed
p
by
y the current date

Bar Charts to Monitor Progress Status

Scheduled Vs Actual Performance
Inference:
Activity F On
Schedule
Activity G Ahead
of Schedule
Activities E and C
are behind
Schedule
Sc
edu e
Shaded portion indicates the amount of work that
has been completed
p
by
y the current date

Resource Histograms based on Bar Charts

Cumulative S Curve based on cost or resource

Plot the daily resource needs of a specific resource

Check whether it is below or exceeds the available resource

capacity

Value of Bar Charts

One of the major
j strength
g is the ability
y to clearly
y and
quickly present the status of the project
To report the project status to Top Management who are
interested to have a quick idea on the over all status of
the project rather than day to day specific details.
Reviewers of bar charts do not need any special
g of scheduling
g to understand the status of the
knowledge
project

Limitations of Bar Charts

Bar Charts do not show logic
g ((relationships)
p ) among
g
activities clearly.
Without having a clear idea on the interrelationships
among activities, it is difficult to determine the
downstream effect of changes to activities
appearing
i early
l iin th
the network.
t
k
When the project becomes complex
complex, it is difficult to
predict the effect of current changes on the project
schedule.

Limitations of Bar Charts

When the project is simple
simple, the activity
sequencing details are clear.

Limitations of Bar Charts

When the project has many concurrent activities, interrelationships are not clear.
B, C, D starts after A. Similarly
E starts after B and D.
What about F?
F is based on
B ?, D ?, Or based on All?

Limitations of Bar Charts

Individual status of Activities:
F On Schedule
C and E Behind Schedule
G - Ahead of Schedule
It is difficult to determine the
over all status of the project
based on the individual
activities status
status.
Will the delay in Activities C and E affect the over all project completion?
Answer is YES if C and E are on the critical path,
NO if they are not on the critical path

Application
pp
Scheduling Tool for small projects
P
Presentation
t ti tool
t l for
f smallll and
d llarge
projects

Benefits of Bar Charts

Usefulness of bar charts are not limited due to the
mentioned limitations
Major strength is the ability to clearly and quickly present
the status of the project
Highly useful tool to present the over all status of the
project to top management
Bar Charts complement the advanced techniques such
as CPM or PERT in planning and scheduling of a
construction project
project.

Practice
Develop a bar chart for the extension of construction
materials lab.
lab
Develop
D
l ab
bar chart
h t tto summarize
i major
j milestones
il t
off
your professional career in the next 10 years.

Begin with the End in Mind

For your M.Tech. program

Bar Chart
2012
July

Course Work (Semester-1)

Course Work (Semester-2)
Summer Training
M.Tech. Project
j
Work
Campus Interviews
HTTA Work
HTTA Work
Convocation

2013
Dec.

Jan.

May.

2014
July

Dec. Jan.

May.

Summary
y

Bar Charts

Computer Tools to Generate Bar Charts

Uses of Bar Charts

For one construction project

For multiple construction projects
Compare Scheduled Vs Actual performance
R
Resource
hi
histograms
t

Provide over all status of the project to Top Management

Limitations
Interrelationships among activities not clear
Can not predict downstream effects, over all project status,
target activities
i i i ffor acceleration
l
i