Senda Matrix Software as a Control and Planning Tool for Project Delivery in Civil Engineering

Abstract

This work presents the use of Senda Matrix software as a control and planning tool for project development. Eighth semester civil engineering students in Universidad de los Andes develop a real engineering project through each of its design stages, in a subject called Final Design Project. As a requirement, the project to be delivered has to involve all areas of the Civil Engineering program. As teaching and learning instruments, integrated project delivery (IPD), Lean Construction and project based learning (PBL) are used, through the adoption of some tools as last planner system (LPS), percent plan complete (PCC) and pull management among others. The main objective of these implementation is that students achieve a better control and reduce variability in the development of each phase of the project by applying a cascade planning. This article explains how students use the Senda Matrix software, implemented with Visual Basic for Excel, as a control and planning tool, which assists the construction of the master and phase schedule, the look ahead schedule and the weekly work plans, obtained from different pull sessions. With this software, students manage their work group and the development of the project based on the principles and techniques of Lean Construction.