1. Fast-tracking Design in
Megaproject Construction
By Jihad Daniel
Abstract- Concurrent engineering is defined as the process of completing historically
sequential tasks in parallel. In this manner, concurrent engineering serves to reduce
project delivery times. The practice of overlapping activities is becoming a requirement
for fast-tracking complex construction projects. The nature of the information exchange,
also known as the dependency, between pairs of activities determines the level to which
the design and construction activities may be overlapped. This, in turn, determines the
level to which various design disciplines may be overlapped. The first step in the process
of quantifying the exchange of information is to formalize a methodology for studying
dependency among design activities. This paper addresses this issue through the
examination of a real world construction project – a multi-billion dollar educational
facility in the Arabian Gulf. The study makes use of a common scheduling tool, the
Design Structure Matrix (DSM), to build the shortest schedule based on dependencies
among the different design disciplines. Successful use of this approach can yield
significant time savings. This success is, however, contingent on: setting clear objectives
from the owner’s side, ensuring good communication between the consultant and the
contractor, and recognizing construction priorities and incorporating them into the
dependencies.
I. INTRODUCTION
Generally, there are two main approaches for delivering a construction project, the
traditional approach and the fast-track approach. In the traditional approach, the
construction phase of the project starts only after the design is fully complete.
Conversely, in the fast-track approach, some amount of overlap takes place between
design and construction, leading to potential savings in the overall project execution time.
The fast-track approach is usually defined under the umbrella of concurrent engineering,
which is a work methodology based on performing tasks in parallel. Overlapping design
and construction is an important aspect that characterizes the fast track delivery method
and has become more popular in the recent years.
Scope of Work and Research Objectives
This study examines the relationships among the different design disciplines allowing for a
fast-tracked design phase and overlap design and construction. This study also uses the
DSM (design structure matrix), a management tool, to determine optimal work schedules.
After thoroughly defining those relationships, the attributes that govern the construction
start lag and the overlap between design and construction are studied. The questions that
are addressed include: what design information is needed for each design package before
going into construction and how much design must be provided in a package to proceed
with the following one? What are the most significant packages upon which other
packages depend on and without those packages the construction cannot proceed?
This study also examines the level of involvement of the designer in the fast-track delivery
method and the appropriate design methodology. The answers to these questions provide
a set of guidelines that help design companies create a compressed schedule. Concurrent
engineering and the overlap approach in the fast-track delivery method approach are
studied thoroughly to help the design firms deliver projects with better time performance.
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2. II. BACKGROUND
Fast-tracking is often described as overlapping successive activities to reduce project.
Another definition of fast tracking is the compaction of the design and construction
schedule through overlapping of activities [1]. This usually involves starting construction
on a package before the completion of the whole project’s design. This improvement in
project delivery time does not necessarily come at the expense of quality and life-cycle
cost [2]. Fast-tracking design and construction has been successful in reducing the project
schedule on multiple projects with little cost increase [3]. As to, the level to which
activities may be overlapped, this depends on the type of the information transfer
between those activities and on the relationship between those activities whether
dependent (one way exchange of information), semi-dependent (one way exchange of
partial information), independent (no exchange of information), or interdependent (two
way exchange of information) [4]. Another term that is used interchangeably with fast
tracking is concurrent engineering. This is defined as “a systematic approach to the
integrated, concurrent design of products and their related processes, including,
manufacturing and support”[5]. Concurrent engineering uses simultaneous, rather than
sequential, processes. Most of the literature mentions the success of concurrent
engineering in reducing project delivery times in the manufacturing industry. Several
studies investigated the possibilities for concurrent engineering in the construction
industry. Activities in the construction industry can be broken down into upstream
activities such as project conception, specification, design, and downstream activities such
as construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning [6]. Jaafari studied fast-
tracking in construction in terms of total life cycle management of capital projects. He
presented a framework for implementing “concurrent construction”, an extension of
concurrent engineering principles to the planning through commissioning of projects [7].
Eldin presented four case studies of concurrent engineering in construction and concluded
that applying concurrent engineering standards could reduce the project schedule by up to
25 percent in comparison with the schedule under the traditional delivery process.
However, he also concluded that the construction industry was missing a definite model
for applying overlapping design and construction in concurrent engineering [5].
The literature proposed various methodologies which are the first step in a continuing
study to create a formalized process for overlapping design and construction activities
with the goal of reducing overall project delivery times.
Much of the information studied in the literature was about the overlapping approach in
the context of the manufacturing industry. Few authors discussed this approach in the
context of the construction industry. Yet, most of the information provided was about the
benefits of overlapping design and construction with no clear guidelines on how much to
overlap. Furthermore, the studies fall short of clearly determining the characteristics of
the dependencies between the design and construction activities when they overlap.
III. DESIGN STRUCTURE MATRIX
The DSM (design structure matrix) is a tool for modeling sequencing and is considered to
be a powerful and flexible tool for implementing the overlapping approach [8]. The main
advantage of the matrix representation is that it is compact, and is able to provide a
systematic representation of the tasks that is easy to read regardless of project size. It
clearly represents where interdependence occurs, and procedures to identify overlapping
alternatives.
The basic representation of the activity DSM is a square matrix containing a list of
activities in the rows and columns [9]. Fig. 1 shows a basic DSM for six activities. The
classification of activities in the rows or columns in the matrix specifies the sequence of
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3. execution. The information dependencies among the activities are represented with an X
mark in the assigned cells. The activities have are read along the columns as “gives
information to” and along the rows as “needs information from.” [10].
Figure 1.Design Structure Matrix Representation [11]
According to Maheswari et al., the marks above the diagonal are called feedback marks
and the marks below the diagonal are called feed forward [11]. So, the more the marks
above the diagonal the more complex is the process. The DSM representation in the figure
above shows four marks (x) above that diagonal representing feedback information. In
order to reduce these feedback marks (as thus reducing design process complexity) a
simple sorting procedure is performed; that is, shuffling and rearranging rows and
columns (i.e. activities) as a way to force all marks below the diagonal without
augmenting any of the existing relationships.
IV. CASE STUDY
The purpose of the project is to provide educational services and accommodate for about
40,000 fulltime graduate and undergraduate students and about 30,000 teaching staff and
administrative employees. The planned built up area of the project is about 2.8 million m2
on a total site area of 800 ha. With the starting date in January 2009, the time limit for
design and construction is only 2 years as the planned finishing date is January 2011.
Meeting these time constraints was ensured by (Fig. 2):
• Dividing the project into four smaller projects called “packages”
• Allocating the packages to different contractors all working in parallel
• Dividing the packages into smaller zones called “areas” each with certain
functionality (e.g. Academic, Health Sciences, etc.)
• Approaching the design for the areas on a facility by facility basis according to the
client’s priority;
• Designing each facility based on “design packages” that represent the different
design disciplines and construction trades;
• Issuing the design packages to the contractors according to their construction
priority
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4. Figure 2.Project Breakdown Structure during the Design Phase
Project Subdivisions and Team Allocation
As mentioned earlier, the case study project is divided into four packages for construction
contracting purposes. Each package is, in turn, divided into areas, and each area is
divided into facilities or buildings.
The project is also divided into contractual zones. This division accomplishes several
goals:
• Help the consultant manage and control construction supervision;
• Allow the contractors to approach construction according to the priority of each
zone;
• Facilitate site management and planning issues.
One of the goals of dividing the project into areas is to facilitate design (Fig. 3).
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5. Figure 3.Packages versus Design Areas
Milestones
The case study is fast-track by nature. To meet the time constraint, the designer and the
contractors are planning to execute as much work in parallel as possible.
The design team got the contractors on board during the schematic design-SD and design
development-DD phases in order to help them fast-track their work. This was
accomplished by starting common workshops and meetings. The design schedule was set
with both the client’s and the contractors’ needs in mind. The client set the project
priorities in terms of which facilities should be ready to operate first. The contractors also
provided feedback on construction priorities.
For example, the SBS and SPS design packages were not issued at the same time.
Because of its importance to the launch of construction work, the SBS design package was
issued as soon as possible. To further reduce the risk of late delivery of key design
information, an agreement was made between the consultant and contractors where the
drawings could be issued with a 60% in progress status in order for the contractor to start
the shop drawings and procurement activities.
Design Dependencies and Deliverables
Each facility within the project consists of 6 design packages which are: the SBS, SPS,
Architecture, Facades, MEP, and Finishes. These design packages cannot be start or finish
at the same time due to the dependencies. Each design package needs information from
another design package to be able to start the design with the exception of Architecture
as the input of other disciplines to it occurs at a later stage. In this section, the concept of
design deliverables within each design package is discussed, and the exchange of
information is studied and quantified with the goal of quantifying the dependencies among
activities. For this purpose, interviews with group leaders of all disciplines were done
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6. where each gave his or her vision of what and how much they deliver to the other
disciplines by discussing:
• The percentage of work done in each design package before it can be released to
the other dependent design package;
• The percentage or load of each deliverable within each design package.
The methodology used to compute the percentages is as follows:
• Previous experience of interviewed group leaders of the various engineering
disciplines;
• Amount of work done in a certain deliverable (e.g. the layout plan in Architecture is
divided into walls, doors, windows, room tags, door tags, axes, dimensions,
references…. Etc. So, the required amount of information needed to be delivered to
MEP is only the walls, dimensions, doors, and windows and this constitutes about
60% of the work);
• Total number of drawings submitted.
The numbers were then anonymously validated and confirmed by four additional group
leaders from four engineering departments. As an example, Table 1 represents the
percentage and type of information delivered from Architecture to Façade, Sub Structures
(SBS), Super Structures (SPS), Mechanical Electrical and Plumbing (MEP), and Finishes.
As for the Architecture column it presents the load of work put into each deliverable.
TABLE I
INFORMATION EXCHANGE BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND OTHER DESIGN
PACKAGES
Architecture Arch. Facade SBS SPS MEP Finishing
AR1 Architecture layout plans, 70% 30% 50% 50% 30% 60%
sections and elevations
AR2 Stairs details and circulation 20% X 80% 80% X 80%
cores
AR3 Fire zoning 10% X X X X 80%
Total Percentage 100% 20% 50% 50% 20% 65%
V. WHY AND HOW TO FAST-TRACK THE DESIGN OF A CONSTRUCTION
PROJECT?
Overlapping activities that are usually planned in a sequential manner can significantly
reduce project delivery times. However, overlapping design and construction comes with
the risk of costly rework. It is the duty of the project team to assess this risk of rework
against the time-saving by fast tracking project execution.
To identify appropriate overlapping strategies, two main questions must be answered:
1- Why and when to overlap design and construction?
2- How to overlap project activities?
By applying overlapping strategies in the right manner, project managers can make better
decisions on when and how much to overlap sequential activities to reduce overall project
delivery time.
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7. Why and When to Overlap Design and Construction?
The main advantage of overlapping design and construction and overlapping different
design disciplines is to reduce the project time. This time saving is often correlated with
an accelerated cash flow and faster recovery of investment.
As such, the fast-track approach is often followed on large and complex projects which
have a significant impact on the country’s economy or image, which is the case of the
project analyzed in this study. Having this large educational facility operational by early
2011 is essential not only to the country’s economy but also to its image.
This triggers other questions: What are the conditions that trigger or facilitate the
overlapping approach? And which activities can be overlapped?
The analysis presented earlier indicates that all activities representing the different
engineering disciplines can be overlapped. So, one of the conditions that facilitates or
maximizes the benefits obtained from overlapping is the involvement of most or all of the
engineering disciplines, taking into consideration the level of overlap that may vary
according to the percentage and type of dependency that govern each pair of disciplines.
Construction priorities play an important role in directing the overlap process among
activities. For example, Façade is an activity that depends only on architecture with a
small percentage. Yet it is usually designed at a later stage since the SBS and SPS are
constructed first.
Last but not least, dividing the project into several smaller projects and then allocating
each sub project to an office also helps in overlapping the design process and moving the
design of various facilities in parallel in order to fast track the project.
How to overlap project activities?
This section examines how consultants approach the design process with the objective of
minimizing the overall design duration. A process is developed to construct the shortest
possible design schedule, based on dependency data. This schedule is, then, compared
with the planned schedule followed on the case study project.
The first step is to summarize the information and dependency data using the DSM tool.
The second step involves studying the dependency of each pair of design packages. At this
level, consultants use their findings to identify what are the earliest possible and latest
possible time frame limits (or milestones) to release information to the dependent
disciplines or to construction.
The last step in the process of building the shortest design schedule is to combine the
milestones into one overall design schedule.
The type of dependency can be presented in two ways, in the DSM and graphically as
indicated in Fig. 4.
Figure 4.Graphical Representation of Activity Dependencies
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8. The next step is to put all the gathered in formation in both representations in Fig. 5 and
6 as follows:
Figure 5.Graphical Representation of Activity Dependencies
Arch. Facade SBS SPS MEP Finishing
Arch. X X X
Facade X
SBS X X X
SPS X X X
MEP X X X
Finishes X X
Figure 6.Simplified Design Structure Matrix
Fig. 7 illustrates the new DSM acquired after rearranging some of the activities; the marks
above the diagonal indicate interdependent activities.
Arch. Facade Finishes MEP SPS SBS
Arch. X X X
Facade X
SBS X X
SPS X X X
MEP X X X
Finishes X X X
Figure 7.Final Simplified Design Structure Matrix
Fig.8 represents a part of a further expanded DSM including dependencies the different
deliverables within each design package. The DSM was also expanded to include
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9. dependencies during all design phases. The numbers in the boxes represent the
percentages of the released or required information.
Figure 8.Design Structure Matrix
Algorithm
In order to start (or proceed), each design package should receive the information
required from the dependent design packages. The assumption presented here is that in
order to meet the project tight schedule work on an activity starts as soon as some
information is received from the other dependent activities. To make sure that the other
information is received while the activity is still ongoing, we built into the activity duration
computation a condition ensuring that the duration is long enough to allow for all
information to be received prior to releasing the deliverable.
• There are k design packages
• There are nk activities in design package k, where 1≤ k ≤ K
• Duration of design package k is denoted as dk, where:
௡௞
dk ൌ ෍ dki
௝ୀଵ
• dki is the duration of activity i in design package k
• dvj is the duration of activity j in design package v, where design package v is the
predecessor of design package k
• Assuming a sequential design package flow, as represented in the streamlined DSM,
then v = k-1, k-2,… 1
• pvjki = fraction of information required from activity j in design package v for
activity i in design package k.
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10. • tvjki = earliest start time for activity i in design package k due to the required
information from activity j in design package v.
• tk = earliest start time for design package k.
nk activities nk activities nk activities
nk activities K=1 pvjki pvjki
nk activities pvjki K=2 pvjki
nk activities pvjki pvjki K=3
Example of a DSM Representation
• Initialize: For k=1 implies v=0
• For v=1 to k-1
For j=1 to nv ;
For i=1 to nk
vj
• Calculate t ki where:
tv1k1 = pv1k1 x dv1 + tv
and, tvj+1k1 = ∑݊‫ 1−ݒ‬dvj + pvj+1k1 x dvj+1 + tv
݆ൌ1
• Next (v) and Next (j):
Sort tvjki from lower to higher, and then ¥ tvjki find:
- Zvj = Min tvjki + dk
If Zvj > Min tvjki , then stop and set tk = tvjki
vj vj vj
If not, then choose the next t ki to reach Z > Min t ki
Gaps between Optimal Schedule and Planned Schedule
Fig. 10 shows a comparison between the optimal schedule derived from the DSM (red)
and the planned schedule used on the project (blue).
• The architecture design package has the same start and finish dates in both
schedules due to the assumption that architecture always starts first at t=0;
• There is a minimal difference in the schedules of SPS, MEP, and Finishes;
• The planned schedule indicates that the SBS design package starts two months
earlier than the optimal schedule. The reason for starting the design package earlier
was because of the criticality of the SBS design package since it is the first activity
in construction
• Finally, the planned schedule indicates that the façade design package starts four
months after the beginning of the architecture design package in the CD phase,
whereas in the optimal schedule, Façade can start at 0.75 months. The reason
behind not starting the façade design package earlier was again due to construction
priorities.
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11. Figure 10. The Planned Schedule versus the Optimal Schedule
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Summary
Traditionally activities may be completed in a sequential manner. While, in the fast-track
situation, activities are usually overlapped or worked in parallel in order to compress or
reduce time. In order to fast-track large and complex projects it is important study the
major aspects such as project decomposition, team allocation, and dependencies.
Breaking down the project into packages and smaller design packages can facilitate the
process of overlapping and allows for the implementation of the fast-track approach. The
packages are considered as smaller projects and can be allocated to different contractors
working in parallel.
The paper proposes a methodology for quantifying the amount of overlap between pairs of
design disciplines at a detailed level. The methodology describe the dependency in a
detailed manner, taking into consideration the deliverables within each discipline, amount
of information exchanged, and timing of exchange. Then the research suggested a formal
process to translate the dependency information into a design schedule that represents
the earliest possible start date for each activity.
The findings of this research mainly imply that overlap can be applied on various activities
with a project to fast-track it.
Therefore, timesaving can be significant when work is done in parallel, whether between
design and construction or between design activities.
It is imperative to note that fast-tracking has several key requirements. First of all, clear
objectives set by the client and shared with the consultant and contractors are necessary.
So is good communication between the consultant and the contractor; which is
accomplished by providing timely and clear information. It is important to have a capable
consultant with expertise in the fields of design and management, as well.
Finally, construction priorities should be built into the dependencies; for example, priority
of constructing the SBS comes first.
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12. Future Work
Future researchers can build a similar algorithm to study the dependency between design
packages and construction packages. The research can be also oriented to the cost or
benefit for overlapping by studying the quantifying of time saved versus the risk of rework
and the cost that may generate from compressing the schedule. In the project examined,
the consultant was responsible for managing the interface between design and
construction, also in coordinating the process and the communication between the
contractors.
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