Construction Scheduling with Primavera P6

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© 2016 Jongpil Nam. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

All screenshots taken from the Primavera P6 PPM 8.3 (2014) are copyrighted and used with permission.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/15/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3049-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3050-8 (e)

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Preface

Project scheduling is one of the vital factors that contributes to a project’s success or failure. A project schedule provides a pathway towards the completion of a project as scheduled, and continuous feedback on how the project is progressing. However, schedule controllers are often frustrated when their schedules are impeded by unexpected events, or at colleagues’ failure to comprehend their schedules correctly and communicate with schedulers efficiently. Thus, a primary concern of schedulers today involves developing comprehensive schedules as early as possible, and using them efficiently to best communicate with their clients and colleagues. Furthermore, a good schedule has to provide schedulers and project management team members with an opportunity to anticipate any risks so that the project management team can prepare countermeasures to mitigate them.

This book focuses on planning and scheduling for construction projects and presents field-site-based best practices related to schedule management and Primavera P6, and offers strategies that utilise scheduling methodologies and tools. These strategies are based on the theory of schedule management and features of scheduling software packages, which can be applied in every field site no matter what the construction project type is. This book introduces examples and tips, as well as suggestions for developing efficient schedules and management methods that ensure immediate improvement in schedule controlling. This book is designed to be Primavera P6 user-friendly, so readers using P6 can understand P6-based schedule management with ease.

This book covers all matters schedulers should know and understand regarding schedule management. It also includes the missing manuals of schedule management textbooks and Primavera P6 manuals. Therefore, I recommend that those who want to be a skilled scheduler make use of this book, along with schedule management textbooks and Primavera P6 manuals.

I wish you success in schedule management.

Jongpil Nam

Schedule Manager, PMP

kity0607@gmail.com

About the Author

Jongpil Nam

He began his career at Korea Rail Network Authority in South Korea in 1995. As a scheduling engineer and project planner, he worked on the construction of the Korea High-Speed Line (an 11 billion USD project) and other sizeable railway construction projects, cooperating with the staff of Bechtel, Inc.

Between 2011 and 2012, he studied for a master’s degree in Railway System Engineering and Integration at the University of Birmingham, UK. His master’s dissertation, entitled Time Management in Railway Construction Projects, explored efficient ways to develop and control the master schedule of railway construction projects, and earned him the University of Birmingham’s award for Best Technical Dissertation.

Based on his vast experience of project schedule planning and controlling, he published a book on the subject in 2014, entitled How Railway Systems Work, which introduces various basic knowledge of railway and railway construction project planning and controlling methods. The book was adopted as a textbook by Woosong University in South Korea.

In December 2014 and March 2015, he conducted lectures for government officials at the Egypt Railway School, which were organised by the Egyptian government. The theme of these lectures was managing construction schedules for efficient railway construction projects.

His current job involves managing the master schedule of the Enhancement Programme of the national railway infrastructure. He lives with his wife, son and daughter.

Contents

OVERVIEW OF SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT

What is schedule management?

Overview of the schedule management process

Schedule and documents typically required for a project

Schedule types in terms of presentation technique

Schedule Management Techniques and Methods

Critical Path Method (CPM)

Earned Value Method (EVM)

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

Rolling wave planning

Applications for Schedule Management

Primavera P6

MS Project

MS Excel

Primavera Risk Analysis

Project Management Information System (PMIS)

Organisations & Requirements for Schedule Management

Schedule Management Team (Project Management Team) and other departments

Is a scheduler a Primavera P6 operator?

Contract type affects schedule management methodology

Schedule levels and types

Procedures

Schedule-related standards

Schedule management of portfolio and programme

Schedule development process at the programme level

Schedule structure in a multi-contractor project

Preparing to develop a schedule

Defining users and security profiles as well as layouts

Sharing layouts

Settings in P6

Fifteen must-remember keyboard shortcuts in Primavera P6

Settings for a new project

How do P6 users select duration types?

How do P6 users choose Percent Complete Types?

Columns and layouts

Handy Tip – Finding missing activities

Handy Tip – Customising names of timescale

PLANNING & PUBLISHING

Strategies in planning

Requirement-oriented project management

Schedule-related requirements in contract documents

The dos and don’ts of developing a schedule

Deceptive schedules are not allowed

Requirements for counterparts

Importing P3 files into P6

Data backup is the most important activity for P6 operators!

Establishing a sandpit database

Easy regular backup

Handy Tip – Finding out who has changed a schedule in Primavera P6

Define scope and develop WBS

Advance preparations

Define scope and develop Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Handy Tips – Various WBS development methods

Organisation Breakdown Structure and responsibility assignment matrix

Developing schedule management documents

Develop activity list and sequences

Recommendations for activity numbering and naming structure

Ways to rename activity IDs

Creating an activity list (or draft of a schedule) and sequences under a work package

Setting steps

Handy Tip – Importing data from Excel to P6

WBS summary activities and level of effort (LOE)

Using filters efficiently

Loading resources

Properties of resources

Role, resource and work crew

Developing a quick S-curve (Top-down resource allocation)

Resource loading (Bottom-up resource allocation)

Monitoring the progress of Physical (deliverables), Units (resources) and Duration

Easy resource loading and project statusing

Handy Tip – Erasing all units assigned to activities in one go

Developing activity duration and relationships

Duration units and activity duration estimation

Graphical evaluation and review technique (GERT) for inspections and tests

Schedule contingency

Suspending and resuming an activity

Activity relationships between work packages

Negative value lag (lead)

Handy Tip – Removing multiple relationships

Assigning calendars

Working hours per day

Workable days per week

Non-working days of the year

Handy Tip – Viewing 12 months at once

Assigning constraints and activity codes

Assigning constraints

Activity codes

Comparing activity codes and UDFs (User Defined Fields) and global change

Handy Tip – An easy way to change the order of columns in an activities table

Refining the schedule

Check the basics

Scheduling

Schedule log review

Finding missing relationships

Spatial constraints review

Intentional delay

Levelling resources

What-if scenarios

Analysing the schedule

Defining critical activities

Critical path and near-critical path

Handy Tip – Showing near-critical activities graphically

Risks analysis

Handy Tip – Finding lag

Remaining early cost curve and payment curve

Organising milestones

Checklist before submitting schedule to client in the planning phase

UPDATING, ANALYSING AND REPORTING

Methodologies and processes of progress updating

Data to maintain in the implementing phase

Communication types for collecting progress data

Collecting progress data by means of XER files

Handy Tip – Importing a higher version XER file

Collecting progress data by means of an Excel file

Collecting progress data by means of a Project Management Information System

Updating the schedule

Prior to updating progress in Primavera P6

Progress updating for each type of activity

Summarising and storing period performance

Handy Tip – Updating progress (EV) using Activity % complete

Setting the Data date

Technique for computing Performance percent complete

Handy Tip – Computing the workload of schedule updating

The reasons why Actual Cost should be updated

Analysing progress

Comparing schedules

Earned Value Method

Payment calculation

Performance analysis

Controlling the revision number of the master schedule

Corrective actions and schedule revising

Activity delay

Delay by retaining logic

Corrective actions for delayed activities

Example of crashing based on Minimum Cost Expediting

Process for revising the project schedule

Reporting

Effective progress report

Developing reports with Primavera P6

Sample monthly progress report

Printing

Probability of on-time project completion

Handy Tip – Displaying all activity names when printing out

SCHEDULE-RELATED CLAIMS AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES

Delay analysis

As-planned versus As-built

Window analysis method

Impacted As-planned

Time Impact Analysis

Detail process of Time Impact Analysis

Dispute resolution and FIDIC

FIDIC

Schedule-related conditions

Issuing claims

Dispute Adjudication Board (DAB) and the dispute resolution process

Advanced technologies for schedule management

4D schedule management tool

Schedule presenting methodologies – Line of balance

XML format

Recommendations for upgrading Primavera P6 PPM

NAM – A new approach to analysing the project schedule

Defining the priority of near-critical paths to monitor

Monitoring near-critical paths

Conclusion

APPENICES

Acronyms

Calculation of data fields used in Primavera P6

References

OVERVIEW OF SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT

What is schedule management?

The aim of schedule management is to complete a project within the timeframe set by a contract agreement or approved by a project owner. When it comes to contractors, time management is one of the biggest challenges because:

• Delivering projects on time is the top priority, as project claims often centre on schedule issues.

• Time is not procurable, except when contractors procure it by claiming an extension of time (EOT) for delays caused by the client.

• Time passes, no matter what; contractors cannot stop it like they can adjust costs and resources.

Schedulers are required to develop a project schedule that will be used not only for managing project time, but also for analysing risks and communicating with all project participants. Thus, many projects require schedulers to have abundant experience and knowledge of schedule management.

To develop a reasonable project schedule and manage it efficiently, schedulers use schedule management methodologies (CPM, EVM, PERT, etc.) and software packages (Primavera P6, MS Project, MS Excel, Primavera Risk Analysis, etc.). When it comes to larger projects, it is almost impossible to manage all of the schedule data without software packages. Sometimes schedule management means utilising scheduling applications based on the schedule management theories and methodologies.

Thanks to advanced technology, scheduling applications have become more sophisticated. Accordingly, schedulers have to deal with greater amounts of schedule data, and understand data flow to manage them. Above all, it is critical to understand the relations between data; schedulers are sometimes bewildered when they update their schedules only to find that the project progress does not show what they expected. Figure 1 shows the structure of progress data for cost in Primavera P6. If a scheduler understands this structure, he or she can easily find any data that have been input by mistake.

Figure 1 – Structure of cost progress data in Primavera P6

OVERVIEW OF THE SCHEDULE MANAGEMENT PROCESS

The schedule management process consists of two phases – planning and performing. The planning stage comprises defining, decomposing, assigning, scheduling, and analysing processes, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Planning phase

• A project starts with the signing of a contract by which quantities of deliverables, payment and project duration are set.

• Based on the contractual documents, the project’s objectives, scope of work and additional requirements are identified.

• To find any constraints (contractual dates and benchmarks) to be taken into account in developing a project schedule, schedulers should carefully review contractual terms and conditions, as these will be critical in issuing and resolving any project claims later.

• With the requirements and constraints found in the contract conditions, schedulers decompose deliverables by creating a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that will be the basis for communication between the client and the contractor. Components at the lowest level of WBS are called work packages, and they should be measurable and assignable for responsibility assignment, progress monitoring, project controlling, and communication between project participants.

• Organisation breakdown structure (OBS) will be developed based on the project type and size, and work packages are assigned to it.

• The work packages will be divided into tasks (activities) by schedulers or staff at departments and field sites, or by subcontractors, and activities will be linked with each other.

• Resources (personnel, equipment, or materials) and calendar are assigned to activities to compute proper durations.

• Appropriate activity codes will be assigned to the activities for easy grouping, filtering and sorting.

• To optimise a project’s master schedule, schedule engineers have to develop multiple scenarios to meet the schedule-related requirements suggested by the contract agreement, considering construction methods, resource and staffing plans, and the constraints of the workplace.

• Prior to being submitted to the project owner or client, the master schedule will be reviewed to assess schedule-related risks.

• After approval from the client or project owner, the master schedule will be issued to relevant organisations, departments, and project participants (e.g., subcontractors).

Since a project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service, schedulers will experience an iterative planning process (decomposing, assigning, scheduling, and analysing) before the master schedule is approved by the client or project owner.

As shown in Figure 3, the performing phase involves four processes – actualising, monitoring, analysing and revising (if necessary).

In the performing phase:

• In accordance with the master schedule, departments, field site offices or subcontractors will perform activities to actualise deliverables; their performance, and completed and/or progressed deliverables, are monitored periodically.

• Based on the collected progress data, schedulers update the schedule and analyse the project status (scheduled dates and activity progress); the baseline and updated schedule will be compared to find any variances between planned duration and actual duration, and planned dates and as-built dates (start and finish).

Figure 3 – Performing phase

• To evaluate performance with Earned Value Method (EVM) technique, resource productivity and cost usage are also monitored.