I prefer to have the required hours/unit in one column and the types of resources(split hrs according to resources) required to accomplish the task in another column.
Sure, there is not really a big difference but if you refer the productivity rates presented in this page <a href="http://www.planningplanet.com/output_results.asp?view=Activity&Acti…; link </a> you can see that for an instance ref 492, 5.5m2(in the average column) can be completed per hour. i’ve no clue of how many masons/carpentars or labours are required for that.
Insteady if they have given just for an example like 3hrs of mason plus 1 hr of labour per square metre, i.e as you said hrs/unit, we can decide whether to use 1 mason or 3 masons to finish the job in 3hrs or 1hr respectively.
As I was saying, you have a lot of constraints/ variables for each activity. I believe it would be much more effective if we list these variables in a forum, because they are debatable. It would also equip planners with a knowledge base. Planners using this forum would also be able to make better recommendations to the managers (which would help with raises/ promotions).
With regards to manhours, at planning stage you basically try to give a estimate for the resources required. You can’t say what the quality of your workforce is going to be, you don’t know what the site conditions are going to be etc. etc. Generally, if you get it wrong, you get more people. If you’re project is constrained by resouce availability (visas etc.) the client/ estimating dept./ supervisors / site manager shouldn’t have stuffed it up.
The skill ratio and teams are only determined on site, this is the supervisor’s job. A planner is there to make sure he works efficiently.
I still believe that a simple database, with much the same info as the existing rates should be persued. It should just be grouped differently and made more accessible.
We need more participation, otherwise a couple of people carry it and the data is biased.
Which direction should we go to have a database that helps planners of all disciplines?
This is a very complex issue, and should be approached with due caution.
There is not really a big difference, the one is just the inverse of the other. I would prefer that the quantity be the numerator (hrs/m3), then you simply multiply the quantity with the rate.
If you Have a Thousand Metre of Cable to Pull if you put 200 or 400 people to pull the 1000 metre does not mean that you will be pulling double the speed. You must look at the speed of the Drum (Winch) drawable sections etc. Size of the Cable method off Pulling. (If you pull on the ground it goes faster than up in the air because of access for cable guidance etc)
Also Further If you have a 100 Terminations in 1 board does this mean if you put a 100 person (Electricians) on the board it will take 30 Minutes.
No it means you will have two people doing terminations and 98 reading the paper and the duration will be 25 Hrs.
For concrete their is Curing Agent etc. It reduces the curing time for concrete. So the type of concrete and the required strenght (Depended on the load) determines the curing period not the size of the base. That is why you keep it wet. Concrete Curing is a Chemical Process and not a Drying process.
I have an electrical background so civils is not my forte. For time related activities eg deliveries or concrete curing only has time eg. a small plinth takes a day or two, a mass concrete foundation takes a week. It is not based on effort, you cant make really make cure quicker. The units are hours, days, months.
1. With effort driven activities like cable pulling, the more resources youve got the quicker it goes. You just want to structure your team to be as efficient as possible. This unit is manhours/metre. Your duration will be determined by your team size and metres. This works well with labour intensive activities.
2. If you measure your progress by meterage (or tonnage is common in structural), you can just make your unit metre/hr. This will help with the duration of an activity in for example, a shutdown, but not in construction where you have inefficiencies in a large area. Your duration will be determined by the quantity to be installed. This you can use with eg. an excavator, or something that is not labour intensive.
I believe all rates are effort based. Your effort is constrained by certian factors, some are just standards in the industry, so we deem them as time based.
Youre constraints are safety, cost, resource availability and quality. Labour intensive activities are generally constrained by safety resource availability and cost. Time related activities eg. concrete curing is constrained by quality.
In the database we could differentiate between time and effort by the unit. If the unit is per time period, it would be effort based. If the unit is just time, it would be time based.
I would like to revisit my original that we should make the variables as simple as possible. It is useless trying to create a database that has every rate, in every environment and in every type of job. People wont fill in all the information. You are just creating a monster.
I would still like just to come back to my "Who wants to be a millionare" idea. A decent breakdown is in place. I still believe that we should just try and get as many instances for each rate. You would at least see what the spread is and you can then estimate your value, based on your circumstances.
We should have a place in the database where you can have a small write-up of the factors that affect a specific group of activities. You could even have a new forum category for rates.
I think that the best way to get data into the database would be that planners e-mail BOQs to PP with just the country. It would have to be recieved in strict confidence, Im sure that companies will not like their estimating data to be where you can identify them.
A couple people can just code/ rework the spreadsheet to go into the database. You would get enough raw data that way.
I hope it wont be too difficult to get planners to submit this info. If just a couple of planners submit all the info, the data would become very bias. You wont cover all the disciplines, in this case.
I would suggest a Production Rate excluding all factors.
1)The country Factor should not be brought into the Rate since I have worked in third world countrys with the following experiance.
Project Number 1. No Training Program - Poor productivity.
Project Number 2 With a Training Program we have achieved productivity approx double than project number 1.
2 The Company Factor. 2 Companys on the same project I have found that one company can achieve much higher productivity than the other due to the right controls /management structure in place.
3 Project Location Factor. My experiance same company / Same project two differenet sections of work one section up to 50 % greater productivity loss due to stopages (gas Leaks etc).
What I would suggest Rate of production should be broken down into sections.
Example Welding
Direct Time - Arc Time
Indirect Time - Setting Up Time /(Per Shift/Weld)
Non Productive Time - Smoking / Eating / Drinking / Loo etc
I know it is diffucult (Example Steel / Cable Pulling) but that is why it is called estimating and not applying production rates.
RE: Production Rates
Daya,
It will be difficult to accommodate all the different resources. I am sure that a skilled and un-skilled collumn should be fine.
Regards,
Erik
RE: Production Rates
Hi Erik,
I prefer to have the required hours/unit in one column and the types of resources(split hrs according to resources) required to accomplish the task in another column.
Regards
Daya
RE: Production Rates
How will you want to see that?
RE: Production Rates
Dear Erik,
Sure, there is not really a big difference but if you refer the productivity rates presented in this page <a href="http://www.planningplanet.com/output_results.asp?view=Activity&Acti…; link </a> you can see that for an instance ref 492, 5.5m2(in the average column) can be completed per hour. i’ve no clue of how many masons/carpentars or labours are required for that.
Insteady if they have given just for an example like 3hrs of mason plus 1 hr of labour per square metre, i.e as you said hrs/unit, we can decide whether to use 1 mason or 3 masons to finish the job in 3hrs or 1hr respectively.
Regards
Daya
RE: Production Rates
Jaco,
As I was saying, you have a lot of constraints/ variables for each activity. I believe it would be much more effective if we list these variables in a forum, because they are debatable. It would also equip planners with a knowledge base. Planners using this forum would also be able to make better recommendations to the managers (which would help with raises/ promotions).
With regards to manhours, at planning stage you basically try to give a estimate for the resources required. You can’t say what the quality of your workforce is going to be, you don’t know what the site conditions are going to be etc. etc. Generally, if you get it wrong, you get more people. If you’re project is constrained by resouce availability (visas etc.) the client/ estimating dept./ supervisors / site manager shouldn’t have stuffed it up.
The skill ratio and teams are only determined on site, this is the supervisor’s job. A planner is there to make sure he works efficiently.
I still believe that a simple database, with much the same info as the existing rates should be persued. It should just be grouped differently and made more accessible.
We need more participation, otherwise a couple of people carry it and the data is biased.
Which direction should we go to have a database that helps planners of all disciplines?
This is a very complex issue, and should be approached with due caution.
Cheers,
Erik
RE: Production Rates
Hi Daya,
There is not really a big difference, the one is just the inverse of the other. I would prefer that the quantity be the numerator (hrs/m3), then you simply multiply the quantity with the rate.
Regards,
Erik
RE: Production Rates
Hi Team,
Isnt this all about deciding on which elements / items we need to store for each rate?
Dont we need a certain number of fields for each rate so that we can cover all of the options?
Regards.
RE: Production Rates
Sure, the production rates database can be classified into two groups. There is certainly a difference between the following two:
1. To produce 1m3 of concrete ____hrs are required.(hrs/m3)
2. In 1hr _____m3 of concrete can be produced.(m3/hr)
also type of resources required to produce the concrete can be added in a separate column.
RE: Production Rates
Erik
I still Disagree with this method.
Example talking Electrical.
If you Have a Thousand Metre of Cable to Pull if you put 200 or 400 people to pull the 1000 metre does not mean that you will be pulling double the speed. You must look at the speed of the Drum (Winch) drawable sections etc. Size of the Cable method off Pulling. (If you pull on the ground it goes faster than up in the air because of access for cable guidance etc)
Also Further If you have a 100 Terminations in 1 board does this mean if you put a 100 person (Electricians) on the board it will take 30 Minutes.
No it means you will have two people doing terminations and 98 reading the paper and the duration will be 25 Hrs.
For concrete their is Curing Agent etc. It reduces the curing time for concrete. So the type of concrete and the required strenght (Depended on the load) determines the curing period not the size of the base. That is why you keep it wet. Concrete Curing is a Chemical Process and not a Drying process.
Cheers
RE: Production Rates
Hi Jaco,
I have an electrical background so civils is not my forte. For time related activities eg deliveries or concrete curing only has time eg. a small plinth takes a day or two, a mass concrete foundation takes a week. It is not based on effort, you cant make really make cure quicker. The units are hours, days, months.
1. With effort driven activities like cable pulling, the more resources youve got the quicker it goes. You just want to structure your team to be as efficient as possible. This unit is manhours/metre. Your duration will be determined by your team size and metres. This works well with labour intensive activities.
2. If you measure your progress by meterage (or tonnage is common in structural), you can just make your unit metre/hr. This will help with the duration of an activity in for example, a shutdown, but not in construction where you have inefficiencies in a large area. Your duration will be determined by the quantity to be installed. This you can use with eg. an excavator, or something that is not labour intensive.
Regards,
Erik
RE: Production Rates
WOW
If you say 0.06 Cube Concrete per man-hour it will be effort based.
If you say 60 Cube Concrete per Hour it will Time Based.
Duration = 1 hrs / Resource = 4 Mhrs / Constraint one Pump. Delivery is 60 Cube/hrs
This makes a lot of sense.
Maybe consider two sections in production rates. (One for time and one for Manhour Estimating)
RE: Production Rates
Hi Jaco,
I believe all rates are effort based. Your effort is constrained by certian factors, some are just standards in the industry, so we deem them as time based.
Youre constraints are safety, cost, resource availability and quality. Labour intensive activities are generally constrained by safety resource availability and cost. Time related activities eg. concrete curing is constrained by quality.
In the database we could differentiate between time and effort by the unit. If the unit is per time period, it would be effort based. If the unit is just time, it would be time based.
Cheers,
Erik
RE: Production Rates
Hi Jaco,
I would like to revisit my original that we should make the variables as simple as possible. It is useless trying to create a database that has every rate, in every environment and in every type of job. People wont fill in all the information. You are just creating a monster.
I would still like just to come back to my "Who wants to be a millionare" idea. A decent breakdown is in place. I still believe that we should just try and get as many instances for each rate. You would at least see what the spread is and you can then estimate your value, based on your circumstances.
We should have a place in the database where you can have a small write-up of the factors that affect a specific group of activities. You could even have a new forum category for rates.
I think that the best way to get data into the database would be that planners e-mail BOQs to PP with just the country. It would have to be recieved in strict confidence, Im sure that companies will not like their estimating data to be where you can identify them.
A couple people can just code/ rework the spreadsheet to go into the database. You would get enough raw data that way.
I hope it wont be too difficult to get planners to submit this info. If just a couple of planners submit all the info, the data would become very bias. You wont cover all the disciplines, in this case.
Regards,
Erik
RE: Production Rates
Hi Erik
I have forgotten to ask ???.
Would the production rates be Time or Effort based.
Time = Duration
Effort = Manhours
Cheers
RE: Production Rates
Hi Erik
I would suggest a Production Rate excluding all factors.
1)The country Factor should not be brought into the Rate since I have worked in third world countrys with the following experiance.
Project Number 1. No Training Program - Poor productivity.
Project Number 2 With a Training Program we have achieved productivity approx double than project number 1.
2 The Company Factor. 2 Companys on the same project I have found that one company can achieve much higher productivity than the other due to the right controls /management structure in place.
3 Project Location Factor. My experiance same company / Same project two differenet sections of work one section up to 50 % greater productivity loss due to stopages (gas Leaks etc).
What I would suggest Rate of production should be broken down into sections.
Example Welding
Direct Time - Arc Time
Indirect Time - Setting Up Time /(Per Shift/Weld)
Non Productive Time - Smoking / Eating / Drinking / Loo etc
I know it is diffucult (Example Steel / Cable Pulling) but that is why it is called estimating and not applying production rates.
Cheers.