Break a repetitive project into a location breakdown structure suited to line of balance scheduling.
Project Management
Line of Balance and Location-Based Scheduling for Repetitive Work
A specialist scheduling course covering line of balance and location-based scheduling for projects built from repeated units, such as housing, infrastructure or fit-out programmes.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Repetitive projects, such as housing developments, road and rail corridors, pipeline networks and multi-floor fit-outs, behave differently from one-off projects, and a conventional Gantt chart built around task dependencies tends to hide the thing that actually matters: whether each trade is moving through locations at a steady, uninterrupted rate. Line of balance and location-based scheduling represent that flow directly, plotting each trade or activity as a line across location and time, so a crew about to catch up with the one ahead of it, or fall so far behind that it breaks continuity, becomes visible before it happens. Working from first principles, the course covers breaking a project into locations, defining production rates for each trade, drawing and reading a flowline chart, and identifying and resolving the crew collisions and continuity breaks a flowline reveals. Buffer sizing between trades, sequencing trades to protect the slowest, and translating a flowline back into the reporting formats clients and conventional project controls still expect all get dedicated sessions. On completion, participants can build and manage a location-based schedule for a genuinely repetitive project, from location breakdown through to recovery planning.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Calculate production rates for individual trades from historical or estimated output data.
Draw and read a flowline chart to identify crew collisions and continuity breaks before they occur.
Size buffers between trades sufficient to protect continuity without inflating overall duration.
Resequence trades within a location-based schedule to protect the pace of the slowest activity.
Translate a location-based schedule into reporting formats expected by clients and controls teams.
Recover a location-based schedule when an actual production rate falls behind the planned rate.
Who Should Attend
Planners and schedulers working on housing, infrastructure or other repetitive construction projects.
Construction project managers overseeing multi-unit or multi-floor programmes of work.
Project controls professionals introducing location-based methods alongside conventional scheduling.
Main contractors and subcontractors coordinating trade sequencing across many similar units.
Rail, road and pipeline project engineers scheduling long linear infrastructure works.
Fit-out and refurbishment planners scheduling repeated work across multiple floors or units.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Structuring the Project by Location
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Building a Location Breakdown Structure
- Divide a project into locations at a level of detail suited to how trades actually move through it.
- Distinguish a location breakdown structure from a conventional work breakdown structure.
- Align location definitions with quantities so production rates can be calculated per location.
- Adjust a location breakdown structure for locations with unusual size or access constraints.
Session 2Establishing Trade Sequences and Quantities
- Sequence trades through locations based on genuine technical and access dependencies.
- Quantify the work each trade must complete within every location in the schedule.
- Identify trades whose sequence is fixed against trades that offer scheduling flexibility.
- Confirm trade sequence and quantities with site or delivery teams before scheduling begins.
02Calculating Production Rates and Drawing Flowlines
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Calculating Realistic Production Rates
- Derive a production rate per trade from historical output on comparable past work.
- Adjust a production rate for crew size, location difficulty or expected learning curve effects.
- Reconcile production rate assumptions with the labour and equipment actually available.
- Test a production rate assumption against the overall project deadline before committing to it.
Session 2Drawing and Reading a Flowline Chart
- Plot a trade's progress through locations over time as a line on a flowline chart.
- Read a flowline chart to identify where one trade is converging on the trade ahead of it.
- Identify a continuity break where a trade's progress through locations is interrupted.
- Compare planned and actual flowlines to judge whether a trade is on, ahead of or behind pace.
03Managing Buffers and Trade Continuity
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Sizing Buffers Between Trades
- Size a time buffer between two trades sufficient to absorb minor rate variation without collision.
- Size a space buffer to keep two trades from occupying the same location simultaneously.
- Balance buffer size against the pressure to compress overall project duration.
- Adjust buffer sizes for trades with historically higher rate variability.
Session 2Resolving Collisions and Protecting Continuity
- Diagnose the cause of a flowline collision between two trades before proposing a fix.
- Resequence or re-rate a trade to remove a projected collision without a full schedule rebuild.
- Protect the continuity of the slowest trade, since it typically governs the length of the schedule.
- Decide when to accept a temporary continuity break rather than delay the whole schedule to avoid it.
04Execution, Reporting and Recovery
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Reporting a Location-Based Schedule
- Translate a flowline chart into a summary report a client familiar with Gantt charts can follow.
- Track actual progress by location and feed it back into an updated flowline chart.
- Present production rate performance to a steering group alongside conventional milestone reporting.
- Integrate location-based schedule data with a conventional project controls reporting system.
Session 2Recovering a Slipping Location-Based Schedule
- Identify whether a schedule slip stems from a production rate problem or a sequencing problem.
- Model the effect of adding crews or shifts on a trade's production rate and downstream trades.
- Rebalance trade sequencing to protect project completion when early locations have fallen behind.
- Reset flowline baselines appropriately after a recovery plan changes the original rates and sequence.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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