Calculation for Actual Units

I just guess that it’s because you input "physical %" manually, you’ll need to calculate actual Qty. as well.

Or maybe you can create formula and make use of global change.

Hi Anoon,
it is not logical.
If 60% of physical work was done it is natural to expect that 60% of materials were consumed. One can expect this to be default setting.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

Hi Vladimir,

For me, not really, as materials may vary and not always needed in the same proportion, so you might need 60% of this and 30% of that and 20% of others to come up with a composition or a work volume.

So again maybe, it all depends on the parameters you set.

cheers

Kaide,

Check under the resource type definition dialog box, I believe there you hava an option for auto compute.

Best regards,
Rafael

Dear Rafael,

I have checked this Auto Compute option, this also gives Actual Qty in line with the ’Duration percent Complete’ as shown in Activity Summary Tab.

To update any other activity data, such as remaining duration or actual units, you must first enter an actual start date for the activity.

Update activities with Physical percent complete type:

In the Activities window, select the activity to update and display the Activity Details Status tab. Enter the physical percent complete and the remaining duration for the activity. If resources are assigned, you must also update each resource’s actual regular units.

Also consider selecting % complete type = units

Select Units when progress is best reported based on the work effort that has been accomplished and how much effort remains. Enter the actual and remaining units.

Units % Cmp = [Actual Units / At Completion Units] x 100

Update activities with Units percent complete type:

If you are updating activities with the Units percent complete type, most likely your focus is on resource planning and scheduling. (You may also have specified the activity type as Resource Dependent and the Duration type as Fixed Units/Time.) You should update the labor units (and/or nonlabor units) for the activity, rather than the duration. If multiple resources are assigned to an activity, you should update each resource individually in the Resources tab. In the Activities window, select the activity to update and display the Activity Details Resources tab.

Hi Anoon,
you wrote:
For me, not really, as materials may vary and not always needed in the same proportion, so you might need 60% of this and 30% of that and 20% of others to come up with a composition or a work volume.

Yes, if this profile was planned.
If it was not defined that material consumption has some profile, then it shall be consumed proportionally to the work volume. In other case an activity was poorly defined.

Hi Vladimir,

No, Material consumption is always (and the first to be) defined (I supposed from a contractor’s point of view).

I don’t understand how you define your "work volume", if you simply see it as a literal volumetric pattern, then you are right, and your formula will work.

Unfortunately, construction is simply not a volumetric pattern, but a combination of several variables (i.e. materials) in order to come up with a composition or what you call "work volume".

A simple example is concreting works (as a composition) - How you might define it in terms of activities and your proportionate material and work volume?

cheers

Concreting the wall consists of the following activities:
1) Re-inforcement,
2) Frames installation,
3) Concreting,
4) Concrete curing,
5) Frames striking
Each of them can be measured in tons, square meters, cubic meters. This is the volume - how many meters, tons, etc. shall be done.

You can define that for each ton of re-inforcement activity (work volume unit) certain amount of different reinforcement materials (different diameters, etc.) shall be installed. And these materials will be consumed proportionally to the volume installed.

If you will download Spider Project Demo you will find an example.

Best Regards,
Vladimir

"You can define that for each ton of re-inforcement activity (work volume unit) certain amount of different reinforcement materials (different diameters, etc.) shall be installed."

"And these materials will be consumed proportionally to the volume installed."

Sorry Vladimir, I don’t agree with the last sentence. Why?

It might take several days to work on your frames and reinforcements, but it might take only an hour or two or a day to pour your concrete. So Durations and Quantities are not proportionate.

Anoon, you still did not understand:

Reinforcement and Concreting are DIFFERENT activities!
And measured in different units (tons and cubic meters)!
And may use different crews!
And certainly use different materials!

Don’t mix them.

Ok, I supposed now I understand.

Thanks, Vladimir but that is how really spider works? (I’m just not sure of the consistency of your statements)

cheers

Yes, this is how we work.
In Spider Project Demo we placed small example.
Look at it when you will have time.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

Anoon

Spider provides you with the standard link types you are used to. It does not prevent you to use multiple resources on a single activity.

You can use the volume lag as it to mean any resource that controls the start of a successor activity.

Without volume lag after updating your schedule and after consuming what you would have used as time lag the schedule would show an incorrect early start for some successors that depend on some work are done on a predecessor activity and not merely time. It is a novel concept we are not use to, but I hope eventually Spider Project do have its own place in Planning Planet, then we will be able to see how the functionality is being used for practical applications. Some of these will be long and in depth discussions with experienced users. I am not an experienced user, I hope next year I will schedule for the first time a job using Spider.

The problem is, that as soon as we start discussing these under foreign threads someone complains that we are pushing too much for it, that our discussion does not belongs to the thread. I won’t be surprised even if someone complains about this posting.

As a matter of fact the way we do our schedules I would not separate reinforcement from concrete, too much granularity for our practice. No doubt when appropriate we would use the functionality in a way that best fits our needs.

I am still recovering from the punches Pacquiau gave Cotto, but for New Years Eve we will have a pig roasted on a stick at home and a few blood sausages and dance to Salsa Music. Hope you will not be singing melancholic Christmas carols, those that makes you cry, be happy.

Best regards,
Rafael

Hi Rafael,
for contractors the schedule is used for resource planning.
We recommend to create different activities for works where different resource crews are involved.
It is not hard to create the schedule with any granularity using typical fragments library.
But using elementary activities where certain crews are assigned, certain materials are used, etc. permits to create and to apply norms databases. And of course resource planning become easy.
We will discuss it at the separate thread.
Like you I don’t feel comfortable discussing things that do not belong to the thread.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

Vladimir,

Unfortunately because we use Primavera, and my clients are nor satisfied with the resource leveling output they do not resource load the schedule. Why doing so if the output is bad?

I do it on my own to double check the "soft relationships" solved the issue, of course we get a less than optimal solution with this approach.

But even when resource loading a few jobs we do not create separate activities for different crews done by a single contractor, we create separate activities, per Contractor (not per crew) that are incidental to the main activity using SS and FF relationships. There is more than just that, it can be a long debate, although there is no universal rule your selection can make a huge difference.

In Spider Project with the use of the Activity Gantt expanded to assignments contrary to your suggestion seems like I will be tempted to avoid recurring to the addition of incidental activities as resource information will be easy to communicate.

Kaide Johar Manasi,

Sorry for moving out of the central theme, I am still interested in being of help to solve the issue on calculation for actual units.

Best regards,
Rafael

Thanks Mr. Rafael

The global change suggestion is welcome, but in the the query Actual Material Unit=Budgeted Material Units*Physical Percent complete, I cannot locate and select "Physical Percent Complete" from the drop down.
Therefore, only option left is excel export or excel6.0.xls

Try to contact Arnold Puy via PP mail, he is very knowledgeable about P6 and is always willing to help. I don’t have P6 so this is as far as I can go.

Even if the only option is excel export his recommendations on the best way to do this most probably will be valuable.

Best regards,
Rafael

Kaide,

try physical % complete = performance % complete, then use performance % complete (not sure though)

Thanks Mr. Rafael Davila...

Hi Kaide,

What Resource Type did you allocate to your activities? Labor, Nonlabor or Materials? I just want to confirm if this Material..

Regards,

Arnold

Hi Arnold,

Yes I have loaded only the material as on now, but will be loading labor also in future and the Budgeted Cost too.

Trying to work out thru Global change. User_Num#= Physical %, Then Actual Material Unit = Budget Mat Units*User_Num#.

But no success