The preconstruction engineering procedures required to develop highway improvement programs are inherently complex. Procedural complexity along with normal increases in the size of improvement programs have tended to focus attention on the need for new management systems capable of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of highwayprogramming personnel. The federal highway administration (fhwa) made an effort in the late 1970s to improve highway agency management practices by initiating the development of an information system called the preconstruction engineering management system (pcems). The primary objective for this study was to test and evaluate pcems' potential for accomplishing the preconstruction functions of highway project scheduling and progress monitoring. Testing and evaluation results showed that the system could be effective in administering a large capital program and was subsequently used to schedule nearly sixteen hundred highway projects in the 1990-1996 transportation improvement program. Pcems will be used to monitor progress of that scheduled work during 1990 and determine the percentage of those projects that meet construction contract-letting dates. This paper describes how pcems was implemented and how it is being used to assist the preconstruction engineering staff with the scheduling phase of program development in north carolina. Many of the study findings should be of interest to preconstruction engineering managers who must make scheduling decisions that involve balancing the money, time, and manpower required by the highway program developmental process. This paperappears in transportation research record no. 1262, Planning, management and economic analysis 1990.
Abstract