TY - CONF TI - An Inclusive Probabilistic Buffer Allocation Method C1 - Perth, Australia C3 - 23rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction SP - 183 EP - 192 PY - 2015 AU - Poshdar, M. AU - González, V. A. AU - Belayutham, Sheila AD - MSc, PhD Candidate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand (corresponding author). E-mail address: mpos814@aucklanduni.ac.nz AD - PhD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. E-mail: v.gonzalez@auckland.ac.nz AD - MSc, PhD Candidate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. E-mail address: sbel594@aucklanduni.ac.nz ED - Seppänen, Olli ED - González, Vicente A. ED - Arroyo, Paz AB - The use of buffers in construction presents a tension between theory and practice. From a lean theoretical standpoint, buffers represent waste while they are an elemental part of construction schedules in practice. As a result, a reasonable balance is required to be established between the undesirable waste created by overusing buffers, and high risk of time/cost overruns generated by the lack of buffers. The balanced allocation of buffers includes two main aspects: Determining the size and the location of buffers in the planned schedule. These two factors are significantly affected by the general scheduling policy undertaken to determine the start time of activities. Also, both factors are dependent on the selected set of objectives in the project. Traditional buffer allocation techniques in construction have been informal and often inconsistent in addressing the buffer balancing issues. In this paper, an Inclusive Probabilistic-based Buffer Allocation method (IPBAL) is proposed which applies a mathematically driven strategy to resolve the balanced state in using buffers in construction schedules. It suggests a solution for the multi-objective buffer allocation problem that also accounts for the general scheduling policy. Hence, the method enables shielding the project activities against variability that is one of the steps required to implement lean in construction. KW - Variability KW - Buffer KW - Time compression KW - Scheduling KW - Network analysis PB - T2 - 23rd Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction DA - 2015/07/29 CY - Perth, Australia L1 - http://iglc.net/Papers/Details/1169/pdf L2 - http://iglc.net/Papers/Details/1169 N1 - Export Date: 29 March 2024 DB - IGLC.net DP - IGLC LA - English ER -