Hands-On Class Exercise for Efficient Planning and Execution of Modular Construction

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of a hands-on exercise to improve students’ project management skills on repetitive infrastructure/modular projects. The exercise was to construct a large foam-board model of the University of Waterloo campus, involving over 40 buildings. The exercise design involved training on the integrated life-cycle decisions of a project, including quantity take-off, bidding, repetitive scheduling, assigning workers to single-skill trades, site organization, coordination, progress follow-up, and quality control. Student groups bid against each other in developing least-cost and least-waste execution plans under time and resource constraints. After execution, students gained firsthand experience on reasons for deviations and areas for improvement. Overall the exercise was fun, complemented theoretical concepts, and closely simulated how trades interact. Students also gained a better understanding of the challenges in managing repetitive projects and the role of efficient planning to reduce execution problems. The paper presents the design and implementation of this exercise, discusses its contributions to student learning, and provides guidelines to make hands-on exercises a success, particularly when a large number of participants are involved.