Achieving concurrent planning for construction projects through a hybrid-simulation modeling framework

Conventional sequential planning approaches could overlook a large number of feasible execution scenarios throughout the planning process. In such planning, various decisions (e.g. activity-sequencing, resource allocation) are taken in consecutive steps to gradually reduce the solution space. This could result in suboptimal schedules in terms of duration and cost. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework for simulation-based concurrent planning that can simultaneously integrate multiple decision steps in planning procedures. A hybrid-simulation modeling approach is adopted to integrate discrete-event and agent-based simulations. In specific, the framework integrates several decision variables regarding sequencing, site lay-out planning, resource allocation and risk management. The framework is applied to an existing cut & cover operation case study to explore its feasibility. Experts’ validation showed that much detailed and accurate information is generated in a short amount of time. This demonstrates that the proposed hybrid-simulation approach can facilitate concurrent planning for construction projects while obtaining significant efficiency benefits with respect to conventional planning approaches.