For the schedule I illustrated before I used two approaches, in this particular case both yielding similar schedules and resource floats.  While the model preparation essentially required the same resource loading data but on different activities the number of logic links duplicated on the approach using individual activities.

Only twice because for simplification and to save some space on the figures I limited the number of different teams working on an activity at different shifts.  After initial design it is possible electrical, plumbing, site, structural and architectural designers can work independently of each other.  This makes it easier for the preparation of the schedule and in case of changes also makes it easier to change the logic.

I find it easy to determine when to use shifts on same activity and when not to. I do not see why not using shifts on same activity even if hours/work is fixed when the logic to outside activities is the same and there are no internal links among the resource assignments. 

If instead of 1 activity and six links you use 3 activities for 3 independent teams and 18 links total you got a lot of redundancy, two redundant activities and 12 redundant links because it all could be modeled if using a single activity.  I have a tolerance for some redundancy but not for too much of it.

It is possible that at some stage on the site design you will have, architect, site civil designer, electrical designer, plumbing designer, and a couple of draftsmen, at times working alone [independent of each other], at times working in small different groups [on different teams], at times all working together [as a single team].  If using one activity per team this approach will exponentially increase number of activities and links.

http://www.planningplanet.com/forums/asta-powerproject/576477/asta-pp-re...

I would use the same schedule unless by necessity a Ghost Schedule is necessary to include activities still rejected.

I would update the Schedule/Ghost on a weekly basis, say versions 14, 15, 16 and 17 if four week endings within the month (can be 5).  We would update the additional activities still rejected by the client if this is his approach.

By the end of month I would save last month update as either 17 or 18 if a new DD update is used. This schedule would have the additional activities necessary for our management that are being rejected if this is the client approach. I would save under a separate set to keep monthly updates, say version 4 of monthly updates, would delete the activities the client do not want to see, but all coming essentially from the same schedule, essentially same number of activities with same durations, whatever we determined were appropriate. This I would do for my own jobs as when when I was a project engineer before becoming PM.

Now it is more common a monthly update and use of the fly by night scheduler because each client wants different software to the one the contractor uses. The contractor would schedule one month look ahead using Excel.  The fly-by-night scheduler moving to south, PM moving in any other direction because usually the software mandated cannot follow the way the Contractor is to manage his job due to poor resource planning capabilities that cannot do the basics as variable quantity resource planning. 

If the owner do not want to see all the details he can take a look at another WBS level report, an usual requirement, they usually insist on having all the details on record, they ask for both levels of detailing.

The requirement to limit activity durations in construction schedules is nothing new, as a matter of fact it is a common practice that frequently creates confrontation with some of us that believe in automatic resource leveling. A convenient approach for those who prefer manual resource leveling that might force the scheduler to set aside the automatic resource leveling and use manual leveling.

The schedule granularity may depend on required update periods and management requirements.

• I do not agree schedule granularity shall be dictated by updates periods, it should be whatever it is necessary to make a good model, in my case to make a good automatic resource leveling model, fixing activity duration might preclude a better model.

If the schedule is high level and intended for monthly updates it requires less details if to compare with the schedule that shall be updated and analyzed daily.

If the decision on more precise management is taken then the schedule shall be adjusted to help with daily (weekly) decision making instead of monthly analysis. It can be done using rolling wave technique.

• As I see it the level of detail for each activity, no matter the updating period shall not be dictated by the updating period but by how the modeling works.  If CPM with no automatic resource leveling it would not matter but this is not what I consider good practice as manual resource leveling is not a pragmatic approach on my schedules.

As we both know contract schedule and contractor schedule are not the same.

• As we both know, contract schedule, over target schedule, schedule updates and contractor schedules are not necessarily the same.  Usually contractor schedule update is an over target schedule that makes sense to be very similar to the others, necessary when client rejects true plan because they fear this will represent a change in contractual conditions when only Contractual Baselines do. 
• If for every one month duration activity the contractor schedule must be adjusted to four activities as to limit the activity durations to one week updating both schedules will become a nightmare.  Our approach is completely different we prefer to prepare similar schedule models with minor differences to allow for planning on activities rejected by the client when he insists on doing so, increasing the activity count by four and at the same time losing the continuity of the contiguous model we do not like.

Some of us do not limit our updates to 0% or 100% rule even if it is hard to estimate remaining work/hours to be done some of us prefer to estimate remaining work/hours and if necessary adjust the schedule budget as some of us believe planning is a dynamic thing.

I do not believe our design office common practice is to use CPM Software but they make plans, mostly manual, and update them, the scope might not change but the resource planning [assignments] do.

When the GPCCAR says "ensure" it does not looks like optional, more likely as a mandate across the board.

Some of us believe the CPM model shall capture contiguous work within a single activity unless it is not because there are necessary interruptions to improve the model.  Some of us do not believe on arbitrary splits of the activity and believe updating frequency is not a good reason to put upper or lower limits on the duration of activities.  Arbitrary splitting of activities might be damaging to the automatic resource leveling.

Do you mean that if a schedule to be updated monthly is changed to be updated weekly is no longer valid?  What if the required update is monthly but the contractor wants a more dynamic updating for his own use?

Do not interpret GPCCAR literally, in some occasions there are more exceptions than the rule this draft has.

An activity duration shall be what it is and such rules are nuts.  In linear schedules such as the installation of a trunk line activities might take several weeks or a bit over a month.  I do not believe many months because there are usually intermediate points that call for a split.  Even is the schedule is updated weekly it does not make sense for all activities at what the GPCCAR calls level 5 be limited to updating periods, this is wrong.  When you artificially split activities they the chunks are no longer contiguous and resource leveling might yield undesired results unless you perform manual resource leveling.

The same goes with design schedules, our current practice is to have intermediate approval/agreement points that require individual activities to be split.  The schedule is updated at the design office perhaps weekly as to re-align assignments but activities are not reduced to weeks, that would be nuts.

I would never use GPCCAR "as-is".

Hi,

What i know that P6 can't be/should not be used to model a process i.e. Calculating the number of Transit mixer required for a batching plant or to calculate the number of trucks required per shovel for a haul distance etc. This kind of resource modelling falls under the simulation category and so a software should be used that is escpcially designed to do so (probalistic durations instead of deterministic).

Regards

Rashid

Rafael,

assigning teams we can get the situation that different teams will work at different time and activity duration will exceed its original value.

Besides, P6 cannot model independent teams, so the only solution that I can imagine is creating several activities instead of one.

Hi Oran,

it looks like the second resource will do another job that requires only 10 days and shall finish before the finish of 100 days activity.

Can you describe real life situation that requires such model?