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was working in the kitchen moving the sink hours of each activity are identified; see The total delay time in this example is
and installing a new waste disposal unit. Table 1. 177.3 hours. The original total labor hours
The carpenter realized that the owner had needed to finish these six activities was 210
not yet told the contractor (his employer) In step 3 the logic sequences of 21 hours. The results show that owner's delay
where the owner wanted his new power links are established. In this model each affected the labor productivity significantly,
outlets and telephone sockets. As a result work activity represents a separate joint as by 84.4%. Table 1 also shows that the
the electrician was unable to lay the in a structural frame. For example, arrow 1 indirect labor productivity loss is much
cabling which would allow the carpenter to shows the owner-caused delay to more than the direct labor productivity
close the flooring. electrician when he was working in the loss: 7 hours vs. 170.3 hours. In practice
So, the carpenter decided that the best bedroom. Arrow 2 shows that the this indirect, ripple impact is usually hard
thing was to work around the problem by electrician could not finish cabling and to prove and very arguable. The graphical
laying most of the floor. That carpenter diverted to work in the shower. nature of the SD model helps to
then moved to installing the kitchen demonstrate such ripple effects.
cabinets early, in order to keep working. In step 4 the causal coefficients are
But it got crowded in the kitchen with the developed according to the relationship of SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
carpenter and plumber fighting for space, the two activities and the "stiffness" (to OF THE COEFFICIENTS
and their work was slowed because of the borrow terminology from network methods
congestion. of structural analysis) of the successor One of the most important tasks in
The carpet layer arrived at the jobsite activity. If an activity has no disruptive establishing the SD model is to estimate
on time to start work in the bedroom, effect on its successor activity, the the coefficient values. Coefficients
which meant the carpenter had to get the coefficient of the causal relationship represent how much disruption ripples
electrician to complete the cabling. This linking the two activities will be 0. Though through the network. The analyst has a
resulted in an interruption to the a more complicated situation, the choice of how to define these coefficients.
electrician, who had been installing the coefficients can be allowed to change as They can be based on either the
power supply to the new shower in the the model cycles through different predecessor or successor activity's
bathroom. However he changed tasks and iterations [4]. Step 5 computes the total workhours. In this example they are based
made his best guess on the location of delay of the current iteration. The process on the successor activity's workhours
outlets, which would allow the carpenter to is continued until further iterations result because a delay to the successor activity is
lay the floor. This meant that the carpenter in minimal impact; see Table 2. highly dependent on the characteristics of
stopped working on the kitchen cabinets. the successor activity. For example, the
While all these activities were being The results are presented in Table 1 material, equipment, working space, and
worked on by the electrician and carpenter, for three iterations. For this example the supervision constraints of an activity have
the carpet layer waited. Unfortunately, delays are 125.5, 48.1, and 3.7 hours in the significant influence on its own
after the electrician and carpenter finished first, second and third iteration, productivity performance. In other words,
working on the floor, the owner notified respectively, meaning a grand total of 177.3 when the coefficient of A-B = 0.2 in the
them to relocate the power outlets and hours. first iteration, the B (50 workhours) activity
telephone sockets. (The carpenter's guess is delayed by 10 (0.2*50=10) hours.
about the sockets was wrong and rework From Table 2 it can be seen that These coefficients are a function of the
resulted.) This delayed the carpet layer. activity G is the most seriously delayed. linked activities' locations, times of
And even though the electrician is Even though the carpet layer arrived on performance, types of work, crew sizes and
competent and experienced, he mistakenly time, he could not start to lay the carpet compositions, supervisors, and numerous
omitted part of his work in the bathroom until the wooden floor was finished. So in other factors. Specifically, productivity
when he went back to the previous task. the first iteration 30 extra hours were spent impacts can be caused by factors such as
An activity-level SD model for this to solve all the problems associated with work area congestion, resource diversion,
small example is presented in Figure 1. the owner's delay in decision-making. skill dilution, stacking of trades, waiting for
From steps 1 and 2, the scope and work shared equipment, and dilution of