Work front
A work front is the practical unit used to organize field work. Instead of building the project from start to finish in a single sequence, it is split into zones or activities —foundations, a floor, a building, a stretch of road— that can advance at the same time with different crews. Each of those blocks of work is a front.
Working by fronts has one direct goal: compressing the schedule. If two fronts advance in parallel, the total time is not the sum of the two but the length of the longer one, provided there are enough resources (labor, equipment, materials) to serve both. That is why deciding how many fronts to open comes down to balancing a shorter schedule against not spreading crews too thin or overloading supply.
The concept relies on project scheduling: the critical path defines which activities cannot be delayed, and work fronts are the way to attack them simultaneously. On both public and private jobs, "opening a front" or "having fronts available" is the language of site logs and progress meetings; a "stalled" front or a crew "with no front" means the crew cannot work because the area, the material or a design decision has not been released, and it is a common cause of delay and of claims.
Example
On a 40-house subdivision, 4 fronts of 10 houses each are opened, with one crew per front. Instead of building all 40 in sequence, the 4 zones advance in parallel, cutting the total schedule to roughly a quarter of what a single front would take.
Frequently asked questions
What is the point of opening several work fronts?
It lets you run activities in parallel with different crews and so shorten the overall construction schedule, as long as there are enough resources (labor, equipment and materials) to keep each front moving without stalling it.
What is the difference between a work front and a crew?
The work front is the zone or activity where the work happens; the crew is the group of workers that carries it out. A front can be served by one or several crews, and the same crew can rotate between fronts.
What does it mean for a front to be stalled or to have no front?
It means the crew cannot make progress because the released area, the material, the equipment or a design decision is missing. It is a typical cause of delay and is usually recorded in the site log as support for claims or time extensions.