Physical Progress

John,



In principle you’re quite right - using manhours is a perfectly good unit-of-measure. We also use manhours to monitor the progress of both the design elements and manufacture. The good thing about manhours is that it is normally a uniform unit of measure that can be applied almost anywhere - thus becomes very easy to summarise in a complex programme structure. However, you’re also quite right in that, in compiling the initial estimates for the job, (especially on site work) you’d use a unit that is physically evident, such as metres-of-pipe, number of terminations etc. Ultimately though, all these units need to be converted into MONEY. This can be done via an intermdediate conversion into manhours or directly into a monetary value.



I’ve had many a discussion/debate with my peers and PMs as to how you could/should monitor progress. There is no absolutely right/wrong way of doing it. The important thing is that the people understand how it’s being done, and if it is being done automatically, then to understand how the system calculates it. This is why we mostly use manhours - because it is very easy to use, and the system recognises and calculates it - and it’s also far easier to determine whether the output data is a pile of poo.



When it comes to summarising a progress value for a project, it can become horrendously complicated if using different sets of measurement units. This is why both P3 (as far as I understand it) and MSP do not summarise Physical % Complete. It cannot do it because it is not using a uniform unit of measure.



When debating such issues, I like to take the example of manufacturing a new car. Are you going to monitor progress by using the total weight, the quantity of components or the manhours to build it? All are physical entities, but each method will give you a different Physical % Complete for the same stage of completion However, they will still give you the same total result in monetary cost. This is why it is absolutely crucial, when using EV, to get your initial % complete as accurate as possible - because all other EV data originates from the BCWP result. So if you get your % complete wrong, then the rest of your data will be skewed.



So, when our PMs, Directors etc. ask about "physical progress" I start by asking them about which physical entity they wish to know. It’s a smart-ass question, but if they wish to know a value that can be mathematically proven, then they have to tell us which one they want to use. Of course, when they think about it, they have absolutely no idea. The only common understanding, therefore, is MONEY...which is precisely why EV is always ultimately converted into such terms.



Cheers.



james.



Cheers.

Hi James,



I have been using Earned Value for many years and have only once ever used "Money" values, the rest of the time I have used the "Manhour" value.



This has always worked well and proved to very benefitial to the project etc, i.e. you can forcast manpower requirements, overloads etc.



When using the Money value the results mean very little, just so many noughts after a number, as labour cost became lost in capital cost etc.



As for for physical quantities, I find very useful when working on say an E & I construction job, when the talk is in metres of cables pulled, numbers of glands made, terminations made etc etc. This is the language the engineers/supervision are used to and understand so perhaps best adopted.





Regards



John

James,

we usually use several WBS in one project. One of these WBSs is organized by activity types. In this WBS physical percent complete can be calculated for all project phases. Actualy I don’t like percents, I prefer volumes (quantities) that have been done.

Then you may apply some weights for different types of work or use Money. The last approach is common. But it shall not be called as physical.

Gentlemen,



Excellent discussion. The use of Earned Value was introduced in order to get rid of the concept of Physical Progress - owing to the fact that such a calculation was impossible to understand.



There remains a problem with many people, owing to the fact that their mind-set still seems to think in terms of the "physical quantity". That is fine if you are working with a single item that can be conceptualised and calculated. However, when you get lots of different items, all being physically calculated in different ways, it becomes virtually impossible to summarise the "physical % complete". When will they get-over this "physical" hang-up?



As you will notice, all Earned Value is calculated according to monetary value. This is because everything in any project always converges toward the common denominator - MONEY and time. However, this is where EV calculations also become confusing - because the method of calculating your Earned Value [BCWP] is dependent upon correctly calculating the % Complete. So we now we have to return to the original question: How do we summarise the physical % complete or howsoever the progress is calculated? The answer is: You Don’t. Physical % complete is relevant only to each activity individually - so in order to summarise, you have to return to the common denominator - MONEY or time. Any other method of calculating progress is just a sub-set method of reaching the same denominator of money or time.



Anyone want to debate this?



James :-)

go Zhang, you tell them!

I use to work always on multi disciplines project, as power plants or refinery !!

As most of you know, in this kind of projects you have to plan and monitorize civil, mechanical, eletrical & instrumental activities ! So different u.m. !!

At the beginning of the project , when you have to prepare the master schedule and the level 3 schedule , you must receive all the quantity you can relatited to the different disciplines. Then applying production rates you calculate the hours to to that activities. So you have all the hours diveded by disciplines and overall hours.

Then you calculate the activities weightage for each activities inside disciplines and the weightage by disciplines for the overall.Then you can calculate phisical progress in two ways : discipline one and overall.

I’m sorry for my english .

Regards

Luigi

I Agree with Zhang.

I think if you can generate report with respect to cost & duration, it is more than enough for a project team to know where we are heading. Putting % weightage using quantities in each activity may require a lot of time and confusion will arise if not properly done.



Some of the questions that should be answered

1. What is the weightage that we can give on a. structural works b. finishing works c. MEP works? are you going to include snagging also?

2. On what basis did you arive on such weightage? a. by previous experience b. by sitting with the construction team c. using company’s past project or d. combining manhours and cost.

3. Why do we require this one? and not use cost/duration?



Hope this help...



Regards,



Rolyn

Hi Yeo,



I think the CEO level of understanding the term "physical progress" may mean the overall progress of the SCOPE of WORK.



or



It is the responsibility of the planning engineer to explain the physical progress and the overall physical progress, earned value, critical indicator.



It depends on you or the level of understanding of the project management team.



When I worked in Malaysia sometimes in 1994 to 1996, my company was one of the major player in building construction in the property sector. I’m the first to introduce S-curve in comparing overall progress: actual against baseline.



As I travel around the world, I’m shocked that some companies dont know S-curve and overall progress including the effective use in short term management by objective (MBO). You heard the word Management By Objective (MBO).



I will wait for your response and ascertain if there is a need to move on to higher level.



Cheers,



charlie

It’s only my opinion.

I don’t want put my project style to others.



If you want you can put weightage for each every activity,and happy with "now the physical progress of our project is 34.66%":)

Hi Zhang,

U must understand requirement in different project, U cannot put your project style requirement to another.

There is so many style of requirement sometimes they need for upper management to review so they never do very detail.

Hello,

I’ll not try to get the overall physical progress.

Just think why you need it. concrete is conrete, cable is cable, you can not combine it.



You may combine it using weightage,but what is the basis of the weightage, why set this avtivity 0.1, the other 0.15,maybe it is based on cost or duration. then what is the difference between duration/cost progress



when updating remain duration, I will use actual quantity and actual productivity rate to make it more acurate for each activity, that will give me a more resonable forecast of time.



We are managing time / cost, so progress based on duration / cost is enough.

Yes ... but P3e/P5 do not summarize Physical % Complete by WBS ... thts why use physical weight units ... in Assignments, u can get % Complete by any level of WBS.



Regards.

Primavera use 3 kinds off progress types

One of them is Physical. (Duration and Units are the others)

So Physical in not neccecarely related to Duration and also not to Units (or money). For instant you developed 1 prototype of something. The order is to produce a thousand. Making of this prototype did cost you 90% of the effort. but you still didn’t make any progress in terms of real produkt. But you could say i’m like 90% (physical) complete So this is not nessesarely related to time,units,cost.

big advantage is that you could fill it in without P3e doing calculation with it (so nothing changes as you dont want them to change)



Kind Regards



Henk

I had already wrote about this subject in a thread called S-Curve (i think)



U have to estipulate physical weights for all activities. Use 1.000.000 = 100%, so u will not have to use a lot of decimals (eg 0,0000008). In P3e u have to create a ficticius resource and assign to all activities using your physical weights as budget units. Define duration type as Fixed Units and Duration. Update with informations u get from construction site.



U can get S-curve from P3e (Activity Usage Profile) or go to Assignments and copy / paste to Excel (i prefere this option)



Regards.

Hello Yeo,



Physical progress is base on the quantities. During the tender stage the estimated quantity, for example only, of concrete is 100 cu.m.



During construction, if you casted concrete let say 10 cu. m. then your physical progress is (10/100) * 100 = 10%, that is the physical progress.



Simple, isn’t it.



A little complication start when you have excavation 100 cu. m. and concrete work 50 cu.m. If during construction you have exacavated 50 cu. m. and casted concrete 15 cu. m.



The question, relating to your post is "what is the physical progress".



This is the basic in planning wherein you have different unit of measure.



Cheers,



Charlie

Nicolas,



Why should you develop somethings what’s already in the software. I think people better start learning how to use it.

Ofcourse i understand that a lot of people want to use there own tools. Also costcontrollers have this attitude and i can understand because they dont want to learn the planningsoftware. But i think as a planning engineer you better use the software. When we look at Primavera (P3e or P3win) it can give you al the % complete’s and details you want on each level manhours and/or financial.



Kind Regards



Henk

For each project I’m on, I develop a unique database adapted to the project needs, reporting agreed with Client, etc...

Concerning weightage, most of the time it is based on CBS (Cost Breakdown Structure) and then for lower levels discussed and estimated according to Discipline engineers, Procurement people, Construction (prod rates) and installation rates, etc...



Are you working alone ?

Yes it is, but I don’t like how P3 calculates % percent complete.



I prefer to use a dedicated database on Access which is usually an export from P3 but in which I can calculate Progress from Physical quantities and relevant manhours spent at a designated level. Then I update P3 automtically.

what do you mean Nic, P3 is not a database?

I recommend not using P3 or other scheduling software for Progress but a dedicated database or Excel spreadsheets.

But both must be linked obviously based on weightage.

It depends on the software you are using. In Spider Project you just enter physical quantities that were done along with the time and money that were spent. Nothing special.