Two years ago VisiLean’s CEO Dr. Bhargav Dave wrote an article with Olli Seppänen and Uwe Modrich, on integration of Location Based Management System (LBMS) with LPS. As it is widely known, one of the greatest strengths of the location based management system in construction is its ability to tackle spatial nature of construction projects and address the flow in a simple and visual way. This is in contrast with CPM that does not address the flow aspect explicitly and ignores the spatial nature of construction projects. These aspects of LBMS make it a very good candidate for integration with LPS that also emphasises flow.
As LPS relies on alternative scheduling system for long range planning (i.e. preparation of master plans and milestone schedules), there seem to be a natural fit between the two. While LBMS would address flow at high level long range plans, LPS would ensure the flow in execution and delivery.
One of the biggest weaknesses of LBMS has been the lack of a simple, field based system that can keep the plans updated and provide a direct integration between collaborative LPS implementation. The tools in current use help upfront planning and scheduling, but are too complex and cumbersome (expert oriented) to be used in the field. LPS tools with a few exceptions tend to be superficial (i.e. only supporting short range planning) that tend to ignore the integration with long range plans, or proper production control.
VisiLean had always supported integration of LBMS planning with LPS through Vico™ XML import,
however we have now gone further by providing location swim-lanes in the collaborative planning
view. This way, the field based LPS teams can visualise the lookahead and weekly plans not only in a traditional resource view swim-lanes but also through location swim-lanes. This is a feature that the existing LBMS users will cherish the most, but it should also entice new users who want a simple location based system that is directly integrated with LPS. The next stop in this journey is to add a location based planning and visualisation tool that will help both planners and execution teams on construction projects.
