Published in 1996
At any given time, there are typically 3,500 highway construction projects being prepared for advertisement by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). To determine why some of these projects miss their projected advertisement dates, this study analyzed the process used to establish them. Because VDOT's preconstruction engineering process relies on the Program Project Monitoring System (PPMS) to relay information, the researchers devoted a significant amount of time to analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of this system. The researchers suggest ways for VDOT to (1) establish target dates that better reflect its real potential to get the work done, (2) minimize the number of preventable, last-second advertisement date delays attributable to job performance problems, and (3) build into PPMS and the overall scheduling process the realization that unforeseen problems will occur some percentage of the time.
Last updated: December 17, 2023