Dr. Jesus M. de la Garza is the holder of the Vecellio Endowed Professorship in Construction Engineering and Management at Virginia Tech. Dr. de la Garza has been inducted into the National Academy of Construction. Dr. de la Garza is the Editor-in-Chief for ASCE’s Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. He has served as Director of the Civil Infrastructure Systems program at the National Science Foundation. His research is organized in three tracks, namely, Project Controls, Information Technology for Construction Management, and Infrastructure Asset Management. He has advised 13 PhD students, 90 MSCE students, and co-authored more than 100 refereed publications. Dr. de la Garza received his MS and PhD from the University of Illinois and his BSCE from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico. He has held visiting professorships at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, Arizona State University, and Georgia Tech.
Shortcomings in Plain Vanilla CPM Schedules
This talk will provide an overview of some of the challenges faced while interpreting results from the application of traditional Critical Path Methodology (CPM). The Lecture will focus on two distinct concepts, i.e., resource-constrained scheduling and single-duration activity estimates. These concepts are mainstream elements called for, explicitly or implicitly, in construction scheduling specifications. The Lecture will show why the Critical Path (or lack thereof) cannot be trusted without performing additional checks and balances and it will also demonstrate and explain, albeit theoretically and via simulation, why many construction projects overrun the baseline schedule. The Lecture will suggest mitigating strategies for each of the challenges. In many ways, the Lecture will “burst the CPM bubble” however, it will do it proactively because ignorance will never be an excuse. Knowledge is power, indeed, but its usage comes with immense responsibility.
