The process timeline for sustainable construction management: case study in the construction of an educational centre

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is hard work, especially when it comes to the creation of an innovative, ecologically correct and sustainable project, and the small entrepreneur, in addition to facing bureaucratic and fiscal obstacles, has great difficulty in running his business, planning and optimizing his production for lack structured management knowledge. This is what happens with the company studied, where the construction of an educational centre, thought to be a model of ecological and sustainable building, did not have a schedule of execution, thus becoming dependent on very short term planning, accomplished at each step, rather than a structured action as a whole. In this sense, the Critical Path Method (CPM), which uses simple estimates for the duration of the building stages and the PERT technique, was implemented among a variety of schedules and methods for planning and control of works execution. This method is suitable and simple to use by small businesses. This methodology, easy to be understood and implemented, generated benefit to the company, allowing planning, predictability and control of the works.