Parade Game: Impact of Work Flow Variability on Trade Performance

TLDR

Construction workflow variability undermines trade performance, and the critical‑path method inadequately models inter‑trade dependencies, prompting the use of basic production‑management concepts in the Parade Game. Managers interested in schedule compression will benefit from understanding how workflow variability impacts succeeding trade performance. The Parade Game simulates construction workflows where each trade’s output feeds the next, playable by hand or via computer simulation that lets students test alternatives to improve throughput, buffer sizing, and productivity. The simulation demonstrates that workflow variability reduces throughput, delays completion, and increases waste, but decreasing variability can cut waste and shorten project duration.

Abstract

The Parade Game illustrates the impact work flow variability has on the performance of construction trades and their successors. The game consists of simulating a construction process in which resources produced by one trade are prerequisite to work performed by the next trade. Production-level detail, describing resources being passed from one trade to the next, illustrates that throughput will be reduced, project completion delayed, and waste increased by variations in flow. The game shows that it is possible to reduce waste and shorten project duration by reducing the variability in work flow between trades. Basic production management concepts are thus applied to construction management. They highlight two shortcomings of using the critical-path method for field-level planning: The critical-path method makes modeling the dependence of ongoing activities between trades or with operations unwieldy and it does not explicitly represent variability. The Parade Game can be played in a classroom setting either by hand or using a computer. Computer simulation enables students to experiment with numerous alternatives to sharpen their intuition regarding variability, process throughput, buffers, productivity, and crew sizing. Managers interested in schedule compression will benefit from understanding work flow variability's impact on succeeding trade performance.