Construction Plant and Job layout

A job layout is prepared by the superintendent at the start of a project. On this layout, he draws to scale, the area available for offices, equipment, storage of materials and warehouses, construction forms and fabricating reinforcement and structural steel members. In preparing the site layout, all areas are arranged so as to reduce the time consumed in carrying materials from the storage area to the project and moving the equipment from the workshop to the site of work. Equipment and materials that are similar in use should be stored close together where possible. When storing cement the stacking of cement bags should be so made that the fist bag in is the first to be taken out. 

Materials handling or hoisting equipment has to perform a large variety of functions in building a darn, and the selected layout must be able to do all that is required of it. The functions include shifting formwork, welding sets, sand blasting equipment from block to block, reinforcement bars and testing equipment and so on. 

It is desirable to make a layout which, as the work goes on, tends to systematize itself. It is a very expensive job to teach 2000 to 4000 persons about keeping their work going in the most economical way for the project as a whole. Where the equipment functions so as to permit everyone to become familiar with its purposes. There is a natural tendency of learning on the part of every man on the job and the job layout will teach a large number of persons within a short time. 

Once the plant layout and the equipment are designed and selected, the entire job is practically fixed. If the plant and layout are right, the job is as good as done. But, if it is wrong, it costs more to change, as a general rule, than can be saved. Mistakes in any selection of plant or equipment not only retard construction progress in general but also lower the morale of the personnel on the entire project. 

Quite often, a small rnodel of a plant layout will serve as a valuable check of a paper study, or will often bring out elements that have previously been overlooked. Models of special equipment will provide valuable information and, in any case, reassurance before my  large expenditures are made on full scale operation that the proposed scheme will work satisfactorily.