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Training Course. Popular in this Category. Related Civil-Engg. Activity Name: a unique description, typically begins with an action verb, that clearly identifies the activity. Duration D : the number of working days to perform a specific activity. Early Start ES : the earliest date an activity can begin.
Early Finish EF : the earliest date an activity will finish. Late Start LS : the latest date an activity can begin. Late Finish LF : the latest date an activity will finish. This means that the contractor is responsible for developing a schedule based on the early dates, not the late dates.
A milestone can also designate the start or end of a single activity or group of activities. See the red diamond in Figure The project documents will identify some, not all, milestones that the contractor is required to track and report. See Table for a Table Sample Milestones sample list of milestones. The relationship arrow travels from a predecessor activity to a successor activity and can be either a driving relationship or a non-driving relationship.
Predecessor activity—an activity which controls the start date of the following activity ies. Only the first activity does not have a predecessor.
Successor activity—an activity that can not start until the completion of the activity ies before it. Only the last activity does not have a successor. Driving relationship—the specific relationship between the predecessor and successor that determines the start date of the successor activity. Non-driving relationship—the specific relationship does not determine the start date of the successor activity.
Lag—the duration assigned to a predecessor activity to delay the start its successor. Lead negative lag —the duration assigned to a predecessor activity to allow acceleration of its successor before completion.
Use lag and lead durations sparingly on projects. Be aware, that some contractors may try to use lag or lead durations to hide delays in a schedule. Excessive use of lag or lead durations could have adverse effects on the project schedule, distorting the critical path and causing resource conflicts Winter, To illustrate relationships, we will separate the activities into two walls: Wall 1 and Wall 2.
Assuming that the duration of Prime Wall 2 is slightly longer indicated by a slightly larger activity block than the duration for Wall 1, Dry Time 2 will not start at the same time as Dry Time 1. Wall 2 is the driving relationship since it will take longer to prime and dry. Also, in the example, there is a 2-day lag on the driving relationship, which means that the start of the successor activity Prep Complete will lag the completion of Dry Time 2 by 2 days.
Finish-to-start FS : The successor activity cannot start until the predecessor finishes for example, Activity B starts after the end of Activity A , the most commonly used relationship. Start-to-start SS : The successor activity cannot start until the predecessor starts for example, Activity B can start only after the start of Activity A. Finish-to-finish FF : The successor activity finishes at the same time as the predecessor for example, Activity B must finish at the same time as Activity A finishes.
Start-to-finish SF : The successor activity finishes after start of the predecessor for example, Activity B finishes after the start of Activity A , the least commonly used relationship. By changing the relationship types between activities, project completion can be gained or lost. Placed onto activities or milestones, these dates can be start dates or end dates. Constraints override schedule relationships.
Although constraints can be useful, they can also distort the project float and critical path. Furthermore, using hard constraints will prevent tasks from being moved by their dependencies and, therefore, prevent the schedule from being logic driven Winter, Hard Constraints A hard constraint overrides the network logic and is a restriction that sets the early and late dates to the imposed date.
Mandatory Start Date—prevents the start of an activity before or after the specified date, even if the predecessors are complete. Examples: Notice to proceed, site access, agency approval. Mandatory Finish Date—prevents the finish of an activity before or after the specified date, even if the predecessors are complete or the successors have started. Examples: Completion milestones and project interfaces.
Soft Constraints A soft constraint protects the schedule logic. Start On or Finish On Date—a restriction that will delay the early start or finish or accelerate the late start or finish to satisfy the imposed date.
As Late as Possible Date—a restriction that uses positive float to delay an activity as long as possible without delaying its successor. Using a software program is advantageous for performing the intricate calculations of a detailed network and will perform those calculations in a fraction of the time.
The CPM algorithm—the forward and backward pass—is very important to both owners and contractors. A manager may wish to know which activities are critical and which will be impacted if other dates are delayed. A contractor may wish to know the absolute latest date they can perform a task before it affects other activities on the project.
Knowing how a schedule operates will help troubleshoot problems, find delays, and create meaningful communication with accurate project information. Starting at the beginning of a project and traveling through each activity in the CPM network, each task is analyzed by what precedes and succeeds it.
The forward pass calculates the earliest date a project or task will start or finish, while the backward pass calculates the latest date a project or task will start or complete.
Calculating the Schedule Forward Pass The forward pass is used to calculate the early dates day of each activity in the schedule.
Begin moving along the network, from left to right, assuming that the Start milestone has an early start day ES set at zero. Chapter 3: Critical Path Method 25 Finish-to-Start Calculating the successor early start day is dependent on its Finish-to-Start relationship with its predecessor s.
When there are multiple predecessors, the largest value of all of predecessor activities plus any lag determines the start day of the successor. Similar calculations can be performed for the forward pass with the finish-to-finish and the start-to-finish relationships.
Figure is the start of a schedule to paint a room. The schedule begins with a Start milestone at day 1. Using the formulas, the early days have been calculated. The late start day LS of every activity is the late finish day LF minus the activity duration D plus one day. Similar calculations can be performed for the backward pass with the start-to-start and the start-to-finish relationships.
The goal of the backward pass is to determine float, which will be discussed next. Figure is the end of a schedule to paint a room. The schedule ends with a Finish milestone at day Using the formulas, the late days have been calculated. If the free float is very small, a delay on one of these activities can cause the previously near-critical path to become critical. Free Float According to the Standard Specifications Glossary , a near-critical path is a chain of activities with total float exceeding that of the critical path but having no more than 10 working days of total float.
It is the longest duration path in the network. Any change in duration or delay to activities on the critical path will impact the project completion date. Project Duration After performing both the forward and backward passes, the most critical path can be deciphered.
To determine the total project duration DT , sum all the durations D and all the lags L on a Project Float specific path. To determine the total project float FT , sum all the float F along the path. After all durations and floats are tabulated, which paths are critical, near-critical, and so on can be determined. Path ABCF is the most critical path with a total duration of 21 days and a total float of 0 days. These results state that if there is a delay on any activity on this path, project duration will be longer than 21 days, thereby delaying project completion.
For assistance or additional information, contact the Construction District Training Coordinator. This is a very effective tool for construction scheduling; however, it is also very detailed and has many functions that a scheduler needs to understand before such reviews can be performed.
And, whether just reviewing schedules or having found a reason to create one, it is important to learn how to build schedules. Chapter 4 provides the basic knowledge necessary for use of the P6 software.
Chapter 5 describes how to build baseline schedules, including all the activity codes and work breakdown structure WBS codes. Chapter 6 shows how to create update schedules, and explains the process to create accurate schedule updates.
P6 provides in-depth analysis tools P6 Organization: Enterprise for planning, tracking, and controlling projects, including Project Structure project documentation, project issues, analyzing and Opening P6 resolving time impact analyses. The program is broken into its constituent elements.
Each project can be further described and organized by the work breakdown structure WBS , and then by schedule activities. With the ability to create up to 50 EPS EPS Level 3 levels, project storage structures can be developed to accommodate multiple complicated organization structures. Level 1 nodes represent the districts, Level 2 nodes represent an individual resident engineer office, and Level 3 nodes represent a specific project expenditure authorization EA.
In this way, there is a logical grouping of schedules, which provide an intuitive means of drilling down and summarizing. Each project has a unique work breakdown structure that describes contract scope and groups work activities appropriately. Figure Organizational Structure Contract scope is divided into individual work activities, which describe the order in which work will occur, and how long each activity will take, given assumed resources.
Usage of the program or the installation selections made will effect what window the program opens. If the program has been used, then the default open screen will be the last screen used. If a program is open, then close it by selecting File, Close All, and responding yes to the prompt.
The Open p Project j window opens. Select View, Toolbars to activate visible or deactivate hide the various toolbars. The text names for the buttons on the Navigation Bar, the Directory Bar, and the Command Bar can also be toggled on and off. The Home window, contains five main elements, as shown in Figure Menu Bar—provides access to the variety of tools and options. The important areas of the Menu Bar will be discussed throughout this manual. Navigation Bar—shows which window is open. Forward—navigates to the next screen that the user accessed, after the current screen.
Home—takes the user directly to the Home Window. Program Dir. Directory —toggles the directory bar, on the left side of the window. Help—accesses the P6 help utility. Directory Bar—along the left side of the window, has a total of twelve buttons.
Each button opens a new window. The first four buttons open windows with information at the program level. The bottom eight buttons open windows with project level information, Figure It provides the program-level overview of all the schedules that exist in the P6 database.
Tracking Window—should be used to display and create tracking layouts for the open project. Activities Window—used to view, create, and modify an open schedule. Assignments Window—used to view, add, and delete resources assigned to activities.
For contractor-prepared schedules, the usefulness of assignments is limited. Expenses Window—used to manage costs and expenses for an open project. For contractor-prepared schedules, the usefulness of expenses is limited. Thresholds Window—used to add or delete thresholds for an open project. A threshold is a variance range on a given parameter, such as start date variance, which can be applied to a specific work breakdown structure element.
Thresholds can be used to monitor performance; however, for contractor-prepared schedules, the usefulness of thresholds is limited. Issues Window—used to add, delete, or modify issues for an open project. Issue files are useful to track the ongoing history of a specific activity; however, for contractor- prepared schedules, the usefulness of adding issues is limited.
Risks Window—used to add, delete, or calculate risks for an open project. Risk analysis is a very useful tool for managing projects; however, for contractor-prepared schedules, the usefulness of maintaining risks is limited. Chapter 4: Primavera P6 Basics 41 Directory Buttons—mirror the functions on the Directory Bar; however, they can only be accessed through the Home window, whereas the Directory Bar can be accessed while in any of the other windows.
Status Bar—provides information about the user and the open project. This bar cannot be edited. The Projects window, Figure , is used to globally review the entire EPS and all the projects contained within that structure. This view accesses and edits the project-level data of individual schedules and the project default settings.
Finally, it is through the Projects window that an individual project is navigated to and opened. Activities can be created, viewed, deleted or modified in the open project, including relationships, codes and resources. Activities Toolbar—provides direct access to several useful activity functions, Figure These functions can also be found in the menus button of the Menu Bar. Command Bar—contains icons buttons for adding and deleting activities, cutting, copying and pasting activities, and moving activities within the active view.
Shows or hides the Gantt Chart in Opens the Columns window, which the top layout. Opens the Timescale dialog Shows the Activity Network in the box, which is used to specify the top layout. Shows or hides the Activity Details Group and Organize in the bottom layout. Select predefined or create Shows or hides the Activity Usage custom a filter. Spreadsheet in the bottom layout.
Select predefined or create Shows or hides the Activity Usage custom a grouping and sorting Profile in the bottom layout. Profile in the bottom layout. Opens the Resource Leveling dialog box — used to schedule Shows or hides Trace Logic in the activities using resource bottom layout. Run after the schedule Shows or hides the bottom layout. These activities can be grouped and sorted in a variety of ways, to suit the needs of the scheduler. Additionally, the columns can be modified to provide detailed information about the activity and its status.
Specific information about each activity can be seen and modified from this page. A detailed discussion of the creation and alteration of layouts is provided in Chapter 5. It can be customized both on the timescale and the information shown.
The bars can be customized to show different colors, shapes, and patterns. Labels can easily be added to the right or left. Relationships between activities can also be shown. Summary bars showing the duration of a group of related activities can also be set up. In the standard layout, activities are represented by green bars if they are not on the critical path, or by red bars if they are on the critical path though these colors can be edited.
Activity Network—shows the activity boxes and logic links, Figure The activity network is a graphical representation of the logical network behind the CPM schedule. Activity information is contained in boxes, with logic links represented by arrows. While the location of the activity boxes can be time- scaled, the duration of the activity can only be known by reading the original duration field in the box itself.
Bottom Layout—shows additional detailed information about either individual activities or about the entire project, Figure A number of options can be selected to be shown in the bottom layout, or the bottom layout can be turned off entirely so that the top layout fills the Activities window. Additional information will be covered in Chapter 5. Global level data is used across all project schedules, while project level data is project specific.
As discussed, the Directory Bar splits the global data from the project data. Global level data is available to all projects across the organization and provides the structure necessary for centralized project and resource management.
To minimize the potential for confusion or changed data, this data should be used at the project level whenever practical. This will open the Work Breakdown Structure window, Figure The top WBS level, the parent level, is automatically named with the project name.
Users cannot add additional parent level WBS values; however, users can add values below this parent. Reordering the WBS is called promoting and demoting. For instance, to move the new WBS level under P6. II, and has been re-coded P6. The WBS name remains the same. The cut, copy, and paste buttons on the Command Bar can be used to quickly duplicate or move WBS nodes. This is also true of the delete button on the Command Bar.
Deleting a WBS level will also delete all the subordinate nodes. Chapter 4: Primavera P6 Basics 51 Creating Activity Codes Activity codes are like tags, assigned to each activity within a schedule, allowing customizing of data. They represent broad categories of information, such as phase, division of work, or location. For each activity code, specific values activity code value must be defined that further describe that category. For example, if the project is occurring at multiple locations, a Location code with values such as Main Street, Elm Street, Hill Street, and so forth, should be created.
Activities can then be associated with a specific location, such as Main Street, by assigning that specific code value to the activity. Use of activity codes provides a means to view, group, and summarize activities within the schedule, create reports, select and summarize activities, and organize a layout by grouping and filtering. Activity codes can be organized in a hierarchy. They can be used on both the global and project-specific level within the database and each activity code global or project may contain an unlimited number of activity code values.
The activity code level is project. The Activity Code Definitions Project window will open. Length can be set or the default value 7 can be kept. This is the maximum length of the code value, not the code description. Each activity code value has two fields: Code Value and Description. The order of the codes in this window determines the order of the grouping bands in a layout that uses activity codes. Therefore, ordering the code values logically will lead to a logically organized layout.
Only the code values will be deleted, not the activity code itself. Labor man-power —measured in units of time, can be as specific as an individual, or established as an entire crew as long as the crew is defined.
Material—measured in units other than time such as cubic yards, linear feet, tons, square feet, and so forth. Once a material resource is established in the resource dictionary it can be continuously reused, however on a specific project schedule the material can be consumed by the activities to which it is assigned and therefore is not continuously reused.
To add resources to project activities; on the Menu Bar, select Enterprise, Resources or click the Resources button on the Directory Bar to open the Resources window Figure Figure Nonlabor Resources Details of the selected resource is viewed and edited in the Bottom Layout of the Resources window.
Another method for entering resource details is to use the New Resource Wizard. The following demonstrates the steps to create project resources, using the New Resource Wizard. For a material, click on the radial button for Material, then click on the Expand button to open the Select Unit of Measure dialogue box. Highlight a unit of measures and click Select to select it and return to the New Resource Wizard.
In the example,p tons is highlighted. Contact information can be added for a specific labor resource that is identified by name. A calendar can be specified to limit the availability of a resource.
Click on the Expand button next to the calendar name. Scroll to choose and highlight a calendar, then click Select to select it and return to the New Resource Wizard. Click Finish. The resource can now be viewed in the Resources window. The original duration is the number of working days an activity needs to complete. Calendars can be assigned to individual activities in order to show which days are allowable for progress to occur.
These two activities together are predicted to require a total of 10 working days to complete the scope of work. However, not every day is a working day. If the project is operating on a 5-day work week, then typically Saturdays and Sundays are not available for work see dark grey areas in the calenders. P6 uses calendars to account for the non-work periods, weekends, holidays and so forth, in the CPM algorithm forward and backward pass; see Chapter 3.
P6 skips the non-work periods to calculate the start and finish dates. The successor activity, Activity , begins on the following work week, skipping the weekend, on Monday, June 15th and finishing on Friday, June 19th. Together, these activities have a duration of 10 work days, even though it is actually 12 calendar days to completion.
If Calendar Case 2 is applied to the network, Activity is delayed and starts on Wednesday, June 10th, and finishes on Tuesday, June 16th.
This activity breaks over the first weekend. The successor activity immediately follows and breaks over the second weekend. Since the weekend is a non-work period, the P6 software splits the duration of the activities to either side of the weekends.
As a result, Activity is predicted to finish on June 23rd rather than June 19th from Case 1. Together, these activities have a duration of 10 work days, but it is actually 14 calendar days. This is a simplified explanation of the function that calendars serve in P6. P6 actually calculates time in hours, not days as in previous software versions. Therefore, it is necessary to accurately represent the planned days for working, so that the software can predict, with reasonable accuracy and realism, the start and finish dates for activities.
Click on the Time Periods tab. Close box. Click on the Dates tab. Check either 12 hour or 24 hour and check Show minutes. Chapter 4: Primavera P6 Basics 65 Types of Calendars P6 utilizes three types of calendars: global, resource and project- level. A calendar must be assigned to each activity and it is used to identify when work can take place.
The activity type determines which calendar is used during schedule updating, the activity calendar or the resource calendar. Global calendar—is created by individual users. These calendars are accessible to all projects in the EPS network and are available for all resources and activities.
Resource Calendar—is used to determine when the resource can work, and the limits for that period are determined from the shift definition on that resource. Project Calendar—is created by the project manager or scheduler for specific job use. The project calendar defines when activities can progress. These calendars are similar to the global calendars, but are available only within a specified project.
Established calendars can be assigned to schedules or a copy can be modified to create a project-specific, project-level, calendar. Project has been selected, so the calendars in the current project is displayed. For the example, highlight Standard and click Select to return to the Calendar window.
Verifyy and correct, if necessary. Click on each day of the week and establish the working g hours. On this calendar, all working hours are established as 8 hours per day for each day.
In the example, the only non-work days are on the weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Other non-work days can be added to the calendar such as for holidays or anticipated weather days.
This will change the shading to dark gray, and that day on the calendar will no longer be used to calculate the estimated finish dates on activities. Chapter 4: Primavera P6 Basics 69 Practice You are the scheduler on the project team to construct road improvements in the town of Springfield, at the intersection of High Street and Memorial Boulevard.
The work includes the demolition of existing medians, excavation and installation of new drainage structures, widening of High Street, and installation of traffic signalization and signage.
Create two calendars; a five-day work week calendar, and a seven-day work week calendar. Percent Complete Layouts presents the newly created schedule in concise, Assigning Percent Complete attractive, and informative ways, and can be printed out for Schedule Calculations distribution. An activity is also known as a task, item, or event.
An activity can contain more than just a description and duration; it can also contain all the information about the work to be performed. This is typically used when multiple resources assigned to the same activity can work independently. Level of Effort—is a summary activity which summarizes the latest start and earliest finish dates of its predecessors and successors.
It is typically used for ongoing tasks dependent on other activities as its duration is determined by its predecessor or successor activities. It should be noted that constraints cannot be assigned to this activity type. Chapter 5: Developing and Formatting Schedules 73 Start Milestone—is used to mark the beginning of a phase or to communicate project deliverables.
This activity is a zero duration activity that only has a start date. Constraints and expenses can be assigned to this activity type; however, roles or resource assignments cannot be assigned. Finish Milestone—is used to mark the completion of a phase or to communicate project deliverables, final inspections, etc. This activity is a zero duration activity that only has a finish date.
WBS Summary—is used to roll up dates, duration, and percent complete values for a group of activities that share a common WBS code level. This is similar to a level of effort activity, but provides more summarization functionality. In order to view the details of the activity, open the Bottom Layout of the Activities window, Figure The activity details shows that the newly added activity as the default Activity Type, Task Dependent.
See Figure By expanding the view on the activity code, its code values can be seen. Relationships In order to add, edit, or delete relationships to activities within the project schedule, click on the Relationships tab in the Bottom Layout, Figure On the left side of the Relationships layout is the Predecessors window, and on the right side is the Successors window.
Within either window is the Assign button. Clicking the Assign button under Predecessors will allow the user to assign predecessor activities, while clicking the Assign button under Successors will allow the user to assign successor activities. For the purposes of illustration, a successor relationship will be added. Lags A lag, the delay between the start or finish of one activity and the start or finish of another, can be specified between activities.
There are many uses for lags, and some uses are not generally acceptable. Lags can be positive or negative. Constraints P6 provides nine constraint types for early start or early finish dates when it becomes necessary to impose restrictions on activities to meet external requirements. Start On or After—sets the earliest date an activity can begin.
It forces the earliest start date to the constraint date; however, if the calculated start date is after the constraint, the later date will apply. Start On or Before—places a deadline on the start of an activity. It forces the activity to start no later than the constraint date. Start On—forces the activity to start on the constraint date, regardless of calculations of the schedule; overriding schedule logic entirely.
Finish On or After—sets the earliest date an activity can complete. Finish On or Before—places a deadline on the completion of an activity, forcing the activity to complete no later than the constraint date.
Expected Finish Date—is used as a means to predict a completion date other than the one calculated by the schedule. Mandatory Finish—forces early and late dates to be equal to the constraint date, regardless of schedule calculations. As Late As Possible—consumes the free float in an activity, and pushes an activity as late as it can be worked without impacting the start of the next activity.
In other words, it is used when the activity has fixed resources with fixed productivity output per time period. When the activity duration or units are changed, resource units per time remain constant. This duration type is typically used for resource dependent activities. Fixed Units—used when the units defined as either costs or work effort are a fixed and limiting factor, and increasing resources can decrease the duration.
For these activities, if the user updates the duration or units per time, the units remain constant. These duration types are typically used for task dependent activities, which are activities whose duration remains constant regardless of the number of resources assigned. In other words, the duration remains fixed along with the units, but the crew size increases or decreases in order to complete the fixed scope of work within a fixed time frame. This is most common duration type for Caltrans.
Each activity can have its own duration type. Therefore, each activity will calculate differently, depending on its settings. Different settings could result in different results when the schedule is calculated. The values for Remaining duration and At Complete duration updated automatically to match the Original duration value, and they will update automatically as progress is input into the schedule. This estimated completion status is used by P6 to analyze the probability of meeting a projected date.
The different methods of calculation are: Duration Percentage Complete—is used when progress for the activity can best be reported based on original planned work days and scheduled work days remaining. For example, if an activity had an original duration of 10 work days, and it is estimated that there are four work days remaining, the activity is estimated at 60 percent complete.
This method is only useful when the scheduler is accurately estimating the number of work days remaining based on current information. Physical Percentage Complete—is used for activities whose progress can most accurately be assessed based on the judgment of a construction inspector. This is useful for complicated scopes of work involving more than one unit quantity, where an estimate of the total work in place is the best way to judge progress. Units Percentage Complete—is used when actual work effort accomplished and actual work effort remaining can be used to accurately represent progress for the activity.
For example, if an activity originally had 10 tons of hot mix asphalt, and the contractor has installed three tons, the activity is estimated at 30 percent complete. As with the duration type, the type of percentage complete selected for an activity can affect how that activity is calculated by P6, and the use of different types can impact the estimated remaining duration. Therefore, take care to ensure that the selected type of percentage complete is appropriate to the way the schedule is being used.
Assigning Percentage Complete Assigning a percentage complete to an activity is a common method for updating the schedule. An activity that has not started cannot be edit for percentage complete. If the activity does not have an assigned actual start date, P6 will not accept a value for percentage complete other than zero. Entry of remaining duration based on field conditions is the preferred method.
When the schedule is run, P6 applies the CPM algorithm, the forward and backward pass, in order to determine a predicted completion date for the schedule.
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