Developing a Flow-Based Planning and Control Approach for Linear Infrastructure Projects

The Last Planner System (LPS) and Location Based Planning and Control (LBPC) have been successfully used in many projects, either separately or together. Despite previous studies that have discussed the role of each of them, the complementarity between LPS and LBPC still needs to be further explained by using core Lean Production concepts. Moreover, most implementations reported in the literature of those two planning models have been concerned with building projects. Only a few cases are related to infrastructure projects, which have different types of complexity in relation to conventional building projects. This paper reports the initial results of the development of a planning and control model for linear infrastructure projects. This investigation was based on a case study carried out in a construction company from Uruguay. The development of the model considers some specific complexity features of linear infrastructure projects, such as high uncertainty, and independent linear processes spread around large urban or rural areas. The main insights provided by this study are concerned with devising a flow-based planning and control tool for look-ahead planning, the definition of criteria for devising location-based systems, the emphasis of work-in-progress control, and the use of visual management. design the company, and implementation in one pilot project; (iii) the planning and control model, by combining LPS and LBPC, and implementation in the three pilot projects; and (iv) definition of standard practices for production system design (PSD), and production planning and control. PSD can be described as collaborative and systemic pre-construction planning exercise, as described Barth et al. The proposed model for planning and control was built on what kept several existing good practices.