Critical Path Scheduling - Construction CPM - Micro...Critical Path Scheduling 1/3/2013 8 Micro...

Micro Planner X-Pert

Micro Planning International LtdJanuary 2013

America – Australia – Europe Project Management Software ,

Training and ConsultancyBy Raf Düa

1/3/2013 1

Critical Path Scheduling

18th Century – Bar Charts Invented

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“…a longer or a shorter space of time may be most commodiously and advantageously represented by a longer or a shorter line.”

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804)William Playfair (1759-1823)

Critical Path Scheduling19th Century – Bar Charts In effective use

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Critical Path SchedulingEarly 20th Century – Gantt developed Production

Management Systems for Factories

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Critical Path Scheduling20th Century – 1957 CPM Invented

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CPM is based on a logical networkDiagram!

Planning the logical precedes calculating the schedule

Critical Path Scheduling20th Century – 1961 PDM Invented

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As a manual process –drawing the logic precedes calculating the schedule

PMI / PMBOK® Guide6.1 – Plan schedule6.2 – Define Activities6.3 – Sequence Activities6.4 – Estimate Resources 6.5 – Estimate Durations6.6 – Develop Schedule6.7 – control Schedule



If CPM scheduling is supposed to be a logical process why do so many tools and planners

work from 250 year old Bar Charts?

CPM was supposed to be an improvement!

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Micro Planner X-Pert is a true CPM System that supports the PMI schedule development process

And lets you chose the networking stylePDM or ADM

Micro Planner Products

Macintosh Windows

X-Pert XPM XPW

Manager MPM MPW

Plus•Product Training and Support•PM Consultancy, Consultancy and Mentoring



• Superior Project Management– Network logic - excellent visualisation– Time– Resource– Cost– Earned Value Program Management (EVPM)– Reports - with built in report writer



The preferred tool

• For the professional planner and scheduler

• Used for Project Management

• Has the best arithmetic scheduler for– Time– Resources– Costs


How X-Pert Works

• Network logic generated (not Bar Charts)• Critical Path networks using either

– ADM Arrow Diagram Method– PDM Precedent Diagram Method

• ADM means– No “lag drags”– Use of “ladders” for schedule compression

• Micro Planner uses “SS” & “FF” without lag drag



X-Pert Capacity

• Maximum Num of Tasks/ Activities 15,000

• Maximum number of Sub Projects 100• Maximum Num of Tasks/ Acts per Sub Project 1,364

• Maximum Number of Labels– Zones 500

– Responsibility 500

– Cost 500Maximum Number of Calendars 250

Maximum Number of Resources 250Maximum Number of Resources per Task/Act 20

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Calendars

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X-Pert translates the various duration types into abasic unit of numbers of minutes per day.

This is carried out by the Calendars

Calendars are constructed of several objects

•The number of hours per day•Non-Working days•Overtime days


Calendars

The objects are defined by the Weekly Cycle

The cycle defines for every day, how many hours are worked in 15 minute intervals

Thus a week can have days of varying length

X-Pert provides six standard calendars, the user may specify a further 194, giving a maximum of 200

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Calendars

• The following record types need a calendar specification

• Work Breakdown Element

• Activity / Task

• Link

• Specified Nodes

• Resource Definition



Calendars

Micro Planner X-Pert durations for tasks may be expressed in either• Weeks• Days• Hours• Minutes• Shifts

Or in combination, eg

• Weeks and Days• Weeks, Days and Hours• Days and Hours• Shifts and minutes

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CalendarsThe Calendars and Weekly Cycles are found on the desktop in their own folders

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Calendars

The Standard six calendars provided in the Calendar Folder

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Calendars


Calendar Folder showing standard X-Pert Calendars withthree user defined calendars


Calendars

Italicised characterIndicates aNon-Working day

Indicates Normal Working Day


Weekly CyclesThe Standard six weekly cycles provided in the WeeklyCycles Folder

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Weekly CyclesStandard Five Day Weekly Cycle Showing Standard Eight Hour Day

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Holidays


Ensure Overlay Cycle Is set to Holiday

Ensure Click Action is set to Change Cycle


Holidays


Ensure Overlay Cycle Is set to Holiday

Ensure Click Action is set to Change Cycle

Holidays


Place Mouse Pointer on Selected Holiday and click


Overtime Weekly CycleNote Extra Hours on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday Morning


Changing Cycles

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Overtime Cycle


Select Overtime as Cycle Overlay

Place Mouse Pointer on Selected Overtime dayand click


Overtime Cycle

Overtime applied to day

Click on View Day Details

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Overtime Cycle

Indicates the extra hours overtime

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Introduction to Resources

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Why Plan Resources?

• Need to know what resources are required by your project

• Thus the project manager MUST carry out resource planning

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Resource Planning

• When you analyze a project on timing alone, the results show how soon the project can complete and what the deadlines are for each operation.

• Analysis of time does not tell you whether there are enough people to meet this schedule or whether the available machines can cope or how much cash you need.

• Time Analysis calculates when each operation could happen but to find

out when each operation should happen, you need to consider resources.



Time vs Resources

• Note: In calculating task durations some consideration has been made about resource levels – what we are discussing today is the optimisation of time and resources.

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Defining Resource Information

• Before you can allocate resources to individual operations and analyze the workloads, you need to know the following information…

• The resources available to the project

• The cost of each resource (optional)



Resource profile

• Need to define the name of the Resource and how much is available and when e.g.

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Resource Types

• Having named the Resource need to know whether it is either– Normal

– Pool

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Normal Resources

• Normal resources are those which are available for work each time period (day) as in people


Pool Resources

• Pool resources are ones which are actually consumed, e.g bricks

• Which may be replenished at various time periods

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Utilisation of a Pool Resource

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Replenishing Pool Resource



Resource Usage Method

• Before you enter a quantity, decide whether to specify how many resources are required (as a Rate) or

• whether to enter the Total number of People Days (or machine days, bricks, cash etc.) for the entire duration. (Also known as Level of Effort)

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Rate or Total (1) ?

• Specifying usage as a Rate means the specified resource quantity will be used at a steady rate, regardless of length of day, week or duration. If the duration changes so does the total resource usage – the resource allocation is variable.

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Rate or Total (2) ?

• If you specify a Total allocation then a specific amount of work time is spread evenly over the duration.

• As a result, no matter how much the duration changes, the overall allocation does not – it is constant.

• For example, imagine you have an operation that would take 1 person 4 days and you want it done in 2 days…


Rate or Total (3) ?

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Rate or Total (4) ?

• You could express the work content either as a Rate of 2 people per day, or as a Total of 4 Man Days. At this point, the resource allocation is the same – 2 people per day for 2 days.


Rate or Total (5) ?

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Rate or Total (6) ?

• However! If the duration were greater, say, 4 days then the Rate method uses 2 people per day for 4 days – a total of 8 man days.

• Whereas a Total allocation of 4 man days does not change – allocating 1 person per day for 4 days.

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Resource Analysis

• Resource Analysis is the process by which you examine the availability of resources and figure out when tasks should be scheduled to work within that availability. During this process, the analysis tends to level out the usage of resources.


Resource Analysis (Cont)

• X-Pert Resource Analysis produces a schedule of dates for every task in the project showing when they should start and finish and also produces totals for the usage of resources throughout the project.


What Does Resource Analysis do?

The Parallel Scheduling by Resource Analysis could best be described as a bulldozer technique.

Imagine that every task on a project is able to happen at its earliest time –as calculated by Time Analysis. The result could be usage which fluctuates regardless of how many resources are available.


Preparing to Resource Schedule


What Does Resource Analysis do (2)?

The availability of resources can be set at a specific level – like a bulldozer blade.

As the Resource Analysis bulldozer starts up and moves forward from Time Now, it pushes the peaks of excess resources into the troughs of unused resources.




What Does Resource Analysis do (3)?

There will be times when there is too much earth for the required level to be reached.

There may also be insufficient earth to maintain continuity at the required level.

That is the theory, in practice it works like this…

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The Time Analysis Schedule of Tasks


Resourcing After Day 1








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Splitting


Defining Minimum Split

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Stretching Tasks in Resourcing

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Resourcing after Day 1

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Full Impact of Stretching Schedule by Day 7


Deadlines or Resources?

During Resource Analysis, you may meet a situation in which there are insufficient resources available for an task which has no more float. You are, therefore, faced with a decision – do you delay the task so that the project completion or some other deadline is delayed, or do you overload the availableresources?

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Types of Resource Analysis

The answer comes in the form of two types of Resource Analysis – Deadline Critical and Resource Critical.

• Deadline Critical calculates how many extra resources, if any, are needed to finish the project on time.

• Resource Critical calculates how much extra time, if any, is required for the existing resources to complete their allotted workloads.


Deadline Critical


Resource Limited


Time and resource thresholds

From the previous slides you may have imagined a certain amount of anarchy going on in X-Pert when the chips are down.

First, during a Deadline Critical analysis, the resources can be overloaded. You may have asked yourself two questions:

1. Can I limit this overloading so that, at least, it is within reason?

2. Is it possible to specify that some resources cannot be overloaded even during Deadline Critical analysis – a kind of selective Resource Critical analysis?



Time and resource thresholds (2)

During Resource Critical analysis, the project can be delayed beyond its deadline. You may have asked yourself:

Is there any way that I can limit this delay?

The answers to these questions come in the shape of Thresholds…


Resource thresholds in deadline critical


Time thresholds


Unavoidable split/overload

When you choose a Resource Critical Resource Analysis, you specify that the resources must not be overloaded and, under certain circumstances, the only way of achieving this may be the interruption of oneor more tasks...

... but what happens if these tasks are Non-Split or Consecutive?



The Solid Fixed Block:

Imagine that tasks A and B require the same resource and that task Bis forced to start on day 3 because of a Fixed Earliest date. A fixed

date takes priority over everything else

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Resource Distribution




Deadline Resource Histogram


Resource Limited Resource Histogram

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Cost forecasting

Cost Analysis in X-Pert


Costing Rates

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The Cost of Each Task


Costing details

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Daily Wastage Costs


Total Estimated Costs or Cash Flow Profile



Comparing schedule costs


Updating a Micro Planner X-Pert Project Plan

Reporting Progress on Tasks, Resources and Costs

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Reporting Progress

• Opened the file, go to the Analysis menu and highlight Progress Details and click.


Reporting Progress

• Opened the file, go to the Analysis menu and highlight Progress Details and click.

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Reporting Progress


Reporting Progress


• Enter the appropriate Time Now date,

• Eg 15-Sep-03

Reporting Progress


• Go to File on the Menu bar and select

• Save As ..

• Eg HOMUpdt1.xpj

Reporting Progress


• Go to the desktop and open the sub project to be progressed

Reporting Progress


• X-Pert shows all the tasks and events which should have started and finished since the last Time Now, with a “cross” or diagonal line through the task box

Reporting Progress


• Double Click on the first event/task to be progressed


Reporting Progress


• The progress cells now appear

Reporting Progress


• Enter the actual achieved date for the “Start” event; eg “18Aug03”

Reporting Progress


Progressing Tasks• Double Click the first task to be progressed

Reporting Progress


• Enter the Task’s “Actual Start and / or Actual Finish Dates”• Eg Actual Start was 18Aug03 and Actual Finish was 22Aug03

Reporting Progress


• Reporting “Actual Resources Used”

• Click on the Resource Usage button

Reporting Progress


• Click on Actual Usage


Reporting Progress


• Click on “Copy Planned to Actual”

Reporting Progress


• Note that cells are filled for you, with the data originally entered

• Click OK and the progress data is now entered

Reporting Progress


Continue to report progress

• For a Task which has started but not finished, you must report abalance to go or a % Done to date, as shown

Reporting Progress

• Note: A task should not have a balance duration reported if both the started and finished dates have been entered. Also % Done will not be used as reporting percentage work done is rather subjective and the more objective form of estimating time to complete a task is preferred.

• If a task is reported with an Actual Start Date and the rest of the fields are left blank, X-Pert will assume progress has occurred since the reported Actual Start Date and Time Now. Should there be insufficient balance left at Time Now, then the task will be assumed completed


Reporting Progress


• Run a Analysis to view the results of “Progress”

• EG Resource Analysis – Deadline Critical


Reporting Progress

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Reporting Progress

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Critical Path Scheduling - Construction CPM - Micro...Critical Path Scheduling 1/3/2013 8 Micro...

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