A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR A CRANE PLAN AS PART OF A GENERIC CONSTRUCTION PLAN Frans van Gassel and Wim Schaefer Eindhoven University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning Department of Construction Engineering and Management, Eindhoven, The Netherlands f.j.m.v.gassel@bwk.tue.nl and w.f.schaefer@bwk.tue.nl Abstract: After a building has been designed the construction process necessary to make the building also has to be designed. The theoretical framework of the “Construction Plan” has been adapted to our research project in order to structure the design of this process. The crane plan exists in this framework as an important sub-plan. A crane is a very important piece of equipment on the construction site. It can influence production time, costs, working conditions and the quality of the product. The choice of a suitable crane is essential in designing the construction process. We have developed a crane plan as a decision support tool that fits into the generic framework of the Construction Plan, using a knowledge base and a database for cranes. This not only supports the choice of a crane necessary for the job, but also takes account of relationships between construction sub- plans and specific scenarios within the whole context of the construction process. The crane plan has been tested by making use of an expert panel and by applying for the reconstruction of a recently finished construction process. Keywords: Crane Plan, Construction Plan, Decision Support Systems. 1. INTRODUCTION Construction activities complete the building to the extent that the requirements of the contract documents are met as well as the needs, expectations, and conditions of the party that commissioned the building and its potential users. Before those activities can start on site, a rather complex production process of on-site activities has to be developed and a generic plan for the construction designed. This paper describes a tool for designing one part of this generic plan. Developing tools for designing production processes for buildings on site is one of the research topics of the Construction Engineering and Management Department at Eindhoven University of Technology. This research group has developed a theoretical framework for an integrated approach to the aforementioned generic construction plan. Within the boundaries of this theoretical framework, a decision support tool for designing the crane plan has been developed [8]. Use of this crane planner is limited to the construction processes for (non-) residential buildings, where telescopic, crawler and tower cranes are used. We describe the incorporation of the crane planner into the “Construction Plan”. A prototype of this decision support tool has been built as a software package. The model of the crane planner is explained as well as the validation results. 2. CONSTRUCTION PLAN In the building trade, there is a growing realisation that the work preparation phase is crucial to the building process. To achieve maximum output in the construction process, an integrated plan for that process has to be designed: the Construction Plan (see figure 1). The process designer creates the best possible construction plan with the help of Decision Support Systems. A specific theoretical framework for that plan is a platform for the approach we have chosen to developing a decision support tool for the use of cranes in the construction process. A database where all information can be stored is a major part of the process of designing the Construction Plan. Information can be external (architect or supplier) or internal (the tentative results of the Construction Plan). This theoretical framework consists of a number of related plans and scenarios (see figure 2). Leijten et al. distinguished a collection of plans and scenarios in the Construction Plan. A plan contains data on a specific production aspect like setting up, safety or equipment needs. All data on the production of a single part of the project or a building element are included in a scenario.