Review of project planning methods for deconstruction projects of buildings

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of literature and methods that can be used for deconstruction project planning of buildings. Furthermore, shortcomings of the identified planning methods are presented and research gaps are identified. Design/methodology/approach Requirements to consider for the planning of deconstruction projects are defined, to help in the classification of planning methods. With the help of these requirements, in a detailed literature review strategic and operational planning methods for deconstruction projects are investigated and discussed. Requirements which are not met by any of the identified planning methods can be interpreted as research and/or documentation gaps. Findings On the one hand, the literature review shows that recent approaches deal with planning methods for deterministic time and resource scheduling. Furthermore, project costs can be well planned by several methods. On the other hand, the literature review reveals that recent approaches mostly do not consider risks and uncertainties, environmental hazards or specific safety issues. A major shortcoming is that applied planning methods can only calculate up to a specific level of detail, e.g. with a limited number of activities, due to a very high computational effort in solving such project planning problems exactly. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that provides an overview of literature and methods for the deconstruction project planning of buildings and it is also the first study that unveils research gaps for future research. Furthermore, the classified planning methods assist in identifying suitable methods for the planning of future deconstruction projects.