Integrating Critical Path Scheduling and Resource Optimization in Building Construction Projects: A Risk-Based Project Delivery Framework

Abstract

Building construction projects routinely miss contractual completion dates even when they are planned with the critical path method, because deterministic schedules assume unlimited resources and ignore the uncertainty attached to recurring delay causes. This study develops a risk-based project delivery framework that integrates critical path scheduling, resource-constrained optimisation, construction risk and delivery performance measurement. A structured narrative review of scheduling, resource leveling, schedule risk, delay causation and earned value literature published up to 2021 identified four integration gaps located at the interfaces between these streams. The resulting four-layer framework links schedule logic, parallel resource and risk layers, an integration layer and a performance control layer through six testable propositions and fifteen formal equations, including a new risk-adjusted criticality index computed on the resource-constrained schedule. An illustrative, synthetic thirteen-activity building scenario, computed with a serial schedule generation scheme and 10,000 Monte Carlo replications, shows that leveling to a ten-worker crew extends the deterministic duration from 67 to 78 days, that the 80th percentile resource-constrained completion is 97 days, and that activities ranked highest for risk response differ from those identified by unconstrained analysis. The schedule performance index for identical progress ranged from 0.631 to 1.021 depending on the baseline adopted. The framework gives planners, project controls teams and owners a defensible sequence for building resource-feasible, risk-informed baselines.