Incorporating the effect of weather in construction scheduling and management with sine wave curves: application in the United Kingdom

The impact of (adverse) weather is a common cause of delays, legal claims and economic losses in construction projects. Research has recently been carried out aimed at incorporating the effect of weather in project planning; but these studies have focussed on either a narrow set of weather variables, or a very limited range of construction activities or projects. A method for processing a country’s historical weather data into a set of weather delay maps for some representative standard construction activities is proposed. Namely, sine curves are used to associate daily combinations of weather variables to delays and provide coefficients for expected productivity losses. A complete case study comprising the construction of these maps and the associated sine waves for the United Kingdom (UK) is presented along with an example of their use in building construction planning. Findings of this study indicate that UK weather extends project durations by an average of 21%. However, using climatological data derived from weather observations when planning could lead to average reductions in project durations of 16%, with proportional reductions in indirect and overhead costs.