S Curve For Construction

Also you can use a template provided by others or use add-in such as the Data Analysis Toolpack.

Good Luck

Hi Rafael,

Thank you very much. Its the same which I am using " as per the planned manpower in a per period of time" which gives me the Planned progresss % (Based on the Manhours Planned in the period of time / Cummulative Hours).

So isnt there anything by which you can get the Planned % Activity by Activity. (The above one is overall or by dicipline)

Regards

Jithin

THANKS FOR YOUR INFORMATIONS

THANKS FOR YOUR INFORMATIONS

Try using Earned Value.  My workaround - I created a dummy cost account named Percent Complete and cost load it to all activities at 100 fixed cost.  Then I could draw the diagrams for individual activities as well as for any WBS Phase.  You can also show BCWS column and any other EV parameter and display only diagram for whole job WBS, by using diagram templates then show only the diagrams for activities of interest. 

As you can see summary lines add the values so in order to get % these values must be divided by the subtotals, this can be easily done if exporting the table to Excel.  Needless to say this should allow you to enter weighted values.

BTW I am not a fan of EVM.

Good Luck.

• If you want to see all activities time distributed data within Excel just create a report template, run it and export to Excel.

• You can change values to percentages by dividing activity/phase values by the subtotal of the activity/phase line.

• If using weighted values instead of updating at weighted values you can apply the weight after transferring to Excel, this is more intuitive but you will have to use formulas not only to calculate weighted activity values but for summary bars/phases the formulas will be different.
• This add a layer of difficulty and distraction; anyway, I do not believe all this effort is worth it.  For whatever reason we are getting into too much granularity in some details and pay little attention to where it matter the most.

That an activity is progressing later than planned by itself does not helps, if the activity is not critical it does not matter, if near critical or critical it does. EVM and analogous methodologies do not take into consideration criticality.

Earned Value Management as a tool for Project Control

• However, an S-curve is a result of schedule logic. On the level of activities, projects tend to have many paths, some of them critical, other not. A tiny (if compared to total project duration) schedule variance of an activity can become a cause for substantial rearrangements in the project network, it can change critical path or order of activities, enforce a total reorganization of works. This cannot be captured by either Earned Value or Earned Schedule calculations - potential problems might be masked by compensating positive and negative schedule deviations.
• You can draw many S-Curves and paint them with nice colors to create beautiful charts, many of not much value.

Hi Rafael,

Thank you very much. A really good input. 

Just wanted to know how you prepare the  S Curve. Is it by loading resource into the Baseline Primavera (If you are using this) schedule per activity and then take the S Curve.

Regards

Jithin

There are many references on the Web on how to create S-Curves with P6 but many forget to mention the issues with period performance within P6.

Other software such as Spider Project automatically creates and store a performance period at every updating.  These performance periods needs not to be pre-defined and can be different for every schedule.

Primavera P6 is different and only one period performance definition can be used per database to the extent if you have different clients requiring different performance period reporting you will need to create different databases.  If the project belongs to a portfolio of jobs with different performance period reporting this can be an issue.

Learn why it is necessary to store period performance in P6 and its impact on S-Curves and EVM.  Also learn how to edit past periods performance if need be.

P6 - Financial Periods and Project Performance

Perhaps the most common use of S-Curves in construction is for billings.  I have a preference to use Excel for billings and keep apart schedule cost loading for other purposes.

The Great Divorce: Cost Loaded Schedule Updating

Hi Rafael,

A good point. I am making S curve based on the Manpower Schedule per Dicipline ( In Months or Weeks) so wanted to learn if I can do it by activity in Excel other than loading the manpower into the schedule whcih would give me a S Curve.

Regards

Jithin

If you want to use effort [man-hours] or resource quantity [ea] just tabulate on Excel for every activity your quantities and build any S-curve you want, activity by activity.  You can use subtotal lines for any WBS level.  It is all in my first post; just the names of the lines and the quantities shall be as per your needs.

The following might be of interest as effort and resource quantities are not the same thing, a simple conversion factor can be deceiving. Say you worked on an activity 4 hours on a given day and so do I.  This adds up to 8 man-hours but 2 resources ea. If only you worked on the activity for 8 hours this yields the same 8 man-hours but 1 resource ea.  Leveling man-hours can yield unfeasible schedules with no warning whatsoever.

Effort, Resource Quantity and Volume of Work

Good Luck