Interactive visual lean system for resource planning of earthwork operations

Poor resource planning and low productivities in road construction projects are among the major factors that contribute to cost escalation and projects' overruns. Although a number of tools and methods have been developed to enhance road construction planning and in particular earthworks planning and visualisation, current practices suggest that these tools are not practical and fragmented. The aim of this paper is to develop a practical, lean and transparent knowledge driven model to reduce the complexity of earthwork operations, improve efficiency of planning processes and reduce waste at operational phase. In this context, this research presents an interactive visual lean system that integrates different earthwork modules (including resource productivity, profile visualisation, planning and scheduling activities) to achieve efficient and productive construction plans. The system integrates atomic model configuration for productivity calculation, profile visualisation for "Mass-haul" and "Time-distance" profile, Gantt viewer for activity planning and management. The paper introduces the theoretical aspects of planning and scheduling in linear projects, develops system framework for the proposed model, discusses the prototype and demonstrates the prototype through a real life case study.