• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.100-109
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• 2012

Large road construction projects are typically partitioned into sections that are then contracted individually to contractors. Each section requires using similar heavy equipment including excavators, dump trucks and pavers, which constitute the highest cost. Normally the equipment is not shared between them, as each contractor wishes to have their equipment readily available. However, such practices result in very low utilization of these equipment. The goal of this research is to develop a programmatic resource sharing system in which contractors can share equipment depending on the changing needs of a multi-sectioned road project. This paper introduces the results of a survey performed to investigate how contractors currently manage the supply and demand of equipment and the equipment that are practical for sharing across a project. More importantly, the paper describes a set of metrics (DPR, nDPR, SDI) needed to quantify the amount of supply/demand variance occurring in each section. The metrics were used on an actual road construction project, and the results show that each section suffers from an imbalance between its monthly planned and actual utilization of equipment. The results also indicate that the sharing of the equipment can lead to potentially large savings as equipment requirements can be met within a project as to short leasing from outside vendors.