Construction Programming Consulting Module

1. It is known that Construction Programming Consultants have walked among us for many years and at this run of the SCL Construction Expertise 101 course, we were honoured to be provided the opportunity to present ourselves at the Construction Programming Consultant Workshop.

2. While the nuts and bolts of what we do was not difficult to cover, the format for the content of our presentation did cause a moderate level of head-scratching. In particular, the subject of formal qualifications, professional associations, statutory obligations and the like.

3. The first part of our presentation was to deal with the issue of ‘What is a Construction Programming Consultant’. It is safe to say that Construction Programming Consultants do not have a formal professional institute or association so formal qualifications, statutory obligations, CPD and ethics are not directly applicable. However as many of us hold memberships to other professional institutes and associations, we hold ourselves accountable to those that we are affiliated to.

4. As to the history of Construction Programming Consultants, this was an iterative part of the presentation as it has been an evolving discipline more akin to management consulting and process improvement following the various developments brought about by industrial revolution to the advent of computing to present day technology.

5. The second part of our presentation allowed us to open the toolbox and display the wide array of tools and methodologies to explain what we do and how we do it. This again had to be handled with care as all too often we can spend an hour or more in what can only be best described as ‘speaking in tongues!’

6. That being said, it was necessary to dive into the software used and the outputs generated. This did allow for the presentation to become more graphics orientated by displaying slides that showcased the various outputs that describe the sequencing and arrangement of construction programmes. The norm is the bar chart display which, even for practitioners, is cumbersome. From the bar charts our presentation moved into the simpler and easier to digest staging diagrams, timelines, histograms and the like through to a short movie on 4D planning, which also allowed us a moment to take a breath.

7. In presenting and concluding this section, and the session, we hope that we were able to highlight some of the key takeaways that we have found to be the most common pitfalls in acting as Construction Programming Consultants. That being that the programme is only as good as the information it is based on, the risks involved, and the assumptions made.

8. The audience was engaged and even though our presentation took us through to the allotted time there were questions from the floor that extended the session.

9. We felt that the presentation was well received and the response was positive and appreciative.

Contributed by: Stuart Begbie, Director, Driver Trett & Trevor Lam, Head of Singapore, CTBH