Petri Net-Based Scheduling of a Bridge Project
Anil Sawhney, Amarneethi Vamadevan · 2000
Scheduling of construction projects is an important planning function that provides a clear representation of the construction activities, construction sequence, and construction resources to the agencies/parties involved in construction. In this paper, the authors present a Petri Net-based scheduling technique that utilizes simulation to model a construction project and to perform the scheduling computations, Petri Nets are graphical and mathematical modeling tools that can be used to perform static and dynamic analysis of systems. Under the proposed technique, modeling elements of a Generalized Stochastic Petri Net (GSPN)—places, transitions, arcs, tokens, hierarchical transitions, and fusion places—are used to develop the construction schedule for a bridge project. Features such as hierarchy, modularity, resource modeling, and colored tokens are utilized in the schedule development. With the aid of the scheduling of the bridge project, the paper demonstrates the strategies for overcoming deficiencies related to traditional scheduling techniques and in attaining additional benefits. The paper also summarizes the steps required to perform the scheduling of construction projects using the proposed technique highlighting the advantages.