NUMBER OF ACTIVITIES

KISS KISS KISS
for those that dont know
this means keep it simple stupid

Hi to all you you on PP. I’ve just come across this thread, owing to the fact that I’m new to PP. It was so interesting that, instead of doing my work, I just had to go back to the beginning and "read-all-about-it".

Great discussion; excellent viewpoints and experiences. It just goes to show that "planning" is a combination of an art, a science, management philosophy and contract definitions. There is no Golden Rule (as asked in another thread) other than the reply to said thread, being: "He Who Has The Gold Makes The Rules".......brilliant!.

With regard to the number of activities in the schedule: My basic philosophy is: "The level of accuracy and detail to the answers, that you wish to extract from the programme, is proportionate to the amount of time and money you wish to spend on the planning function". KISS(ing) the programme too far means that you’ll save money on the planning/administration....but also you limit the detail and accuracy of the data. Conversely, too much detail and the administrative burden becomes overwhelming. The word OPTIMUM is the order of the day.

Ultimately, I suppose that the real test of the programme’s function is the accuracy of prediction relative to what actually happened. Without being too much of a smart-alec; I detailed my latest project from a basic 800 lines to 4000, running 30,000 manhours over 18 months. In our company, such a project size is not unusual, but the use of a 4000 line programme is unheard of. At 800 lines, on the Tender Programme, it looked achievable (I hasten to add that I wasn’t involved in the Tender Programme). At 4000 it was instantly obvious that it wasn’t achievable. Unfortunately, the budgets/contract had already been agreed. We were in for a really good stuffing!

During subsequent execution of the work, the programme has accurately predicted (relatively speaking) drawing-checking bottlenecks 9 months ahead of schedule. In our business, such a forward projection is pretty-darned good to correctly predict that level of detail so far in advance. Unfortunately, the company’s philosophy toward planning is one that is much more geared toward paying it lip-service than heeding its advice. It’s now paying the price!

I have stood-by my programme since the project. My PM knows that I will stand by the programme and argue with him, because it is derived from detailed discussion with engineers - and he is welcome to investigate any aspect of it. He wants to ignore the data, as would any other PM. However, he also realises that good data is invaluable and that there is no point in kidding himself. The data, however, is utterly useless and a complete waste of money if no action is taken.

All of the above is based on getting the right level detail. If it takes 500 or 50,000 activities, it is irrelevant. The question is: Are you professionally satisfied with what you’ve done?

I really do have to get back to work now.

James :-)

James good point
However
Often I see the same group copied and pasted across the entire programe in an effort to break a record
Complete worthless c**p and often better done on a line of balance now their is a thought
Oscar

or is it, He who has the gold, breaks or burns the rules? now ACT, ACT, ACT...

Edgar.....ouch!! That remark about "....has gold...breaks rules...". It has just hit a really sore point. We have a client who has done that....and all I can say is "kill, Rover, Kill....just bite his leg off and chomp your way up through his left bo**ock".

It was all politics. Unfortunately he’s paying our wages...so is it a case of Nuts to the professionalism and just bow to the politics? Oh God, do I have to compromise my principles, just to feed my children?

Oscar: Agreed. Like anything else, lots of it doesn’t mean that it’s any good. I like to minimise my workload but I also like to have a good handle on the job. If 500 does the job, then 500 it’ll be. By the way, could you expand on the term "Line-of-Balance". Although I’m fully au-fait with the term in manufacturing, I’ve not come across that one in Project Planning.

Cheers.

James.

Hi Clieve,
UR post seems making sense..
But a bit difficult to understand for me.
Can u eloborate?
Regards,

Brij.

There is only one Line of Balance software in the market today. The software was produced by Graphisoft of Finland.

We are currently using it on the Venetian Project in Macau. The software is good for high rise buildings or repetitive tasks.

You can browse the internet and look for Graphisoft.

Cheers,
Daniel

Clive,

I get a "Page Not Found" error when I try your link.

Daniel, I know of 3 distinct line of balance applications. I don’t have any experience with any of them, however.

Stacy
PMKB

Clive,
Sorry for the late reply..I only open my email once a day.

anyway, 6 months ago when we were looking for a good "line of balance software" Grahpisoft Project Control 2005 was the only one we found in the internet, which corresponds with our needs. (Previously called Dynaproject)

Actually, we just started using it and had undergone training recently.

You were quite right in your brief view of its usage. It is like a time chainage in vertical position, which is good for high rise buildings or repetitive works where there is a lot of interface between various trades.

In addition to what you have said. The sofware requires quantities and production rates defined which will be the basis of your plan. Actual production on site is then monitored. The flowline view (line of balance chart) is an excellent tool for managing the project ilustrated on a single chart. You can then adjust your resources base on your actual production rates to bring it back on line. The beauty of it is that at any point in time you know where every trade is working and how they are doing by just looking at single chart.

The software has many features and includes reports and status of tasks which maybe be discuss in progress meetings of the construction team who are actually doing the work.

This is all for now, I might be mistaken as a Graphisoft representative.

Cheers,
Daniel

Hi Guys,

Been absent for a while. There a several Line of balance or time vs chainage programs available, however after a serious evaluation, we decided to go with Tilos, a german product. I work in a joint venture company, international, on a linear works project. We use Primavera Project Managemet V5.0, and as a result had to find a product with the least finicky interface from our Primevvera schedule, to produce LOB or T vs Ch diagrams. It took a bit of thinking to get the process right. Firstly to try and produce the TvC diagram directly from P v5was impossible,as the number of activities cluttered te diagram to such an extent it was totally illegible. The question was how to export summary activities to Tilos in a form it could read without the minor detaild. The answer was simple, create a hammock (level of effort project) and export from there there to Tilos, the Hammocks had to be coded as per normal procedures, and voila we had a beautiful line of balance diagram, for anybody who is interested contact me. I can send you a PDF of what it looks like. It just requires a bit of lateral thinking.

Regaeds

Philip

Hi Philip,
glad you are back.
What you described is hard to do and produce results that are not quite correct. Hammocks will be represented by straight lines though on activity level the shape would be different. Maybe I don’t understand something.
Regards,
Vladimir

Philip,

Although the scheduling technique is similar, Line of Balance is more applicable to vertical construction or high rise buildings and repetitive tasks where there is a lot of interface between trades, say works such as construction of a village with 100 houses. Time Chainage on the other hand is good for horizontal construction, Roads, Bridges, Viaducts, Tunnels, Railways, etc. where you can plot your work chainage against time.

Cheers,
Daniel

Hi Guys,

If you see a diagram you might understand the concept, True linear activities (eg. continuous activities such as tunnels, trackwork, lateral drainage, finishing layers, viaducts, etc) are shown as sloped lines as the time is vertical and time chainage axis horizontal. Non-linear activities (or activities that is spread over a limited chainage eg. stations, shafts, culverts/utilities crossing the centre line at right angles, etc) is reflected as vertical bars, with the various sub-activies stacked within the bar. For Linear activities such as cuts and fills, where the work is spread over longer chainages (over the whole chainage) we use triangles. The reason for this is that you can use the direction in which the triangle is pointing to indicate where the cut is going, or where the fill is coming from. We use straight horizontal lines to indicate activities such as accesse over certain chainage distances. The beauty of it all is the you can spot clashes or incorrect logic very quickly, and make your corrections in the schedule, something which is much more difficult to spot in in ghantt chart of 200 pages.

Daniel, you are quite correct in that all you are doing is using height instead of chainage, hence, the term line of balance is probably more applicable. However, the symbols you use to depict activities still have to be picked correctly to get the right effect. It may also be interesting to use the horizontal axis for time and height vertically, as this can be done fairly simply. I find that these diagrams are very simply understood by all other disciplines, as the use of colours, patterns and outlines, can depict types of activities, resources etc.

Regards

Philip

Hi Philip

Welcome back, I had seen the Tilo product and its quit good in terms of the graph that is produce and the interface package. My question is whether summary(hammack) bar will be correctly represent the programme. Especially with the interface between differernt parties(Contractors) within an single area.

My point is not so much about the software but more on technique use in planning. Agree??

Alex

Hi Alex,

The tilos report is just another report, and the quality is dependant on the amount of thought you put into what the picture should be.

Regards

Philip