Yes, Tahir,
I also think that we finished discussing this topic.

But we discussed with Alex something different. Not what software is the best but how the software is chosen. And what is the best for one organization may be poor for another.

Cheers,
Vladimir

James,

Thats is a real piece of shut down planning, but thats the way it require in some of the industry like oil and gas industry. Because shutdown the production line mean loss money.... lots of money. I am not suprise that these sort of shut down plan will have "REAL" risk analysis and REAL detail planning during the 9 months of detail planning phase with a few contigency plan on their sleeve. I once come across a 4 weeks shutdown of a steel production plant of averaging 300man/hr for the entire duration. If you maths is good then it mean 28*24*300 = 200,000 hrs. In order to do such scale a lots of planning and process control is require to achieve the result.

I guess we just have to learn from each other of how "Mean" to achieve the final outcome "End".

And as for the P3 functionality, I guess we will need to wait for a product that take over the Primavera market share, I know that Spider Project can do a lots of these function, my concern is market share and planning resource who can utilise the software.

I have a client comes to me once and said, "Yes the product is good it will do all the things I wanted, Can I get 20 experience planner to drive the beast?? The quick answer is NO and his quick answer is also NO. he will not use the product until there is enough trained planner can drive that beast. BTW it was P3e

So if spider project can offer fee training to 20,000 planners worldwide, then I guess it will become more widely use and hopefully take the P3 market share. oppsss, did I give you some hints.

Regards

Alex

Dear James
It is really highly appreciated if you send me the detail defination of planning. So i will learn also how to work in planning department.
Regards
Tahir

Hi Gents

My answer to all these questions of using Calander in shift situation effectively is

"Thats is how we (Planner) manage our plan in P3 to carryout the planning function in a project" Since 80% of us using P3 to planning our works. Can I assume that it means that majority of us can utilise the calander effectively to manage shift works in P3 (May be a wrong assumptions) ^^.

I don’t want to go into too much detail, but certianly I managed a lots of project that require shift works in P3.

yes there may be other software can do that better, I yet to be convinced.

Alex

Tahir - now THAT is what you call PLANNING.

James.

Alex,
if you mean that each small package shall be performed by different shift then:
- it is not clear which shift will start execution,
- it is not clear what is the size of the first package
- you will need to reconsider these small packages each time when you enter actual information
- if resources are limited then there is a possibility that an activity divided into smaller packages will be imterrupted.

A lot of manual work and adjustments, isn’t it?

Dear Tahir and Alex,
now, when this discussion is not restricted by any PM software, I want to explain the problem of shift work simulation.
When you plan the work that can be done in any shift you don’t know in advance who will do it. It may start in one shoft and finish in another, or it can be done in one shift (not known in advance). In any case you don’t know exact start and finish dates before scheduling.
So the software shall assign resources basing on their availability at the moment when activity starts. If the start moment belongs to the first shift calendar work period then first shift resources will be assigned, if this moment belongs to the work time of the second shift then the second shift resources will be assigned. When first shift work day will be over then second shift will proceed with activity execution, etc until planned amount of work will be finished.
I don’t know how to simulate this situation in P3e. If you know please explain.
I am also interested in approaches to shift work simulation used in other PM packages. In particular I don’t know about Powerproject.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

There’s only one thing for it - I’m gonna do millions of experiments, write them all down, figure-out the exact sequence of steps to produce whatever result you want, ensure that I write all the possible interpretations of DURATION, then finally realise that I’ll never have to do it for real, forget all about it for two years, get a new job and then be asked to produce a schedule that has ten different types of working-day. After that, I’ll write a book about scheduling-software calendars, make a trillion quid, retire - and find that nobody understands a word I’ve written.

Are those little piggies that I see flying about?

James :-)

James,

Firstly, thanks for your input and this is a MSP forum I dont want to be sarcastic about MSP but (You know that is coming) MSP do have a few limitation that we all know by its software nature. BTW I know there are also strenght in MSP over the traditional product.

Thats why when you read the voting result in this forum, you will find around 80% of users using Primavera product for planning compare to only 10% using MSP.

My point is IT is catching up in the Project Management Field and same as MSP (Today) is just not to the level as the Traditional Construction Planning Tool yet. Who know about tomorrow, but this moment MSP still have a lots of catch up to do.

I try to contribute as much as you do. ^&^

Alex

Alexandre
Quote
"you will not consolidate 2 projects using 2 different calendars, you will not have people working 8 h/d and other 12 or 16, ..."
I am comments on this paragraph because in my mind that a project will need to have mutiple calendar. I dont think anywrong doing with my comments, but may be a bit confronting to your original mail.

Cool down...^&^

Alex

Gents,

MSP is actually very flexible and is usually capable of doing most of the stuff that people ask of it - if you know how. Where a lot of problems occur, is in the minds of the individual programmer and the person who needs to read the programme.

Take for instance the calendar - and the convention that most people will read the data column called DURATION. The duration, in DAYS, is only based on what you, the programmer, have initially defined as 1 working day, in terms of how many working hours and the start/finish times. When you re-define a working day, for when you have different resources working different shift-patterns etc., the system still references the basic Project Calendar’s definition, and displays the activity’s duration relative to that. The individual resource calendar has to be aligned in order to ensure the correct quantity of hours. Once you have done this, and understand what the software is doing, then you can input the data and interpret the data correctly. I agree that MSP seems to do it in a somewhat convoluted way - but as I have also never done it in P3e, I can’t comment whether P3e is easier or subject to also applying a specific understanding of what it is doing and how it is doing it. However, I read an earlier thread about the summary durations not adding-up - and a member replied with the answer, saying that the calendars had to be set-up correctly and interpreted in a specific way. This aroused my curiosity about whether MSP required the same - and YES, you had to do exactly the same thing in MSP also.

Most of our problems stem from the fact that we have never had to seriously use certain software functions, and if we find that it requires more than one press of a button - and we need to amend our interpretation and thinking process, then we immediately assume that the software is a pile of poo. Ok, nobody LIKES having to think differently and there are always better ways of doing something. Where I’m concerned, the calendars are one of the things that I really do need to get-to-grips with.

Whenever I have stopped and thought as to why MSP has derived a particular result, then it usually proves to be perfectly correct. Once I know how it derives the result, then I can get it to do a suprising amount of stuff. I liken it to driving two different cars, with each having their turn-indicator switch (on a stalk) on opposite sides of the steering-wheel. On one car, you’ll move it down to turn right, on the other side you’ll move it up. If you’re used to moving it in one direction only, altering your mind-set can be extremely difficult. However, they both achieve the same objective equally well.

Lecture over. Now get back to work.

James.

Alexandre

Either your mind is simple or your project is simple, hands up number of planer have projects do have a different calendar for a different type of resource.

Yes you will have people working 8hr 1 shift, and 10 hrs 2
shift and 24 hrs / 7 days (equipment) ... the list just go on.....

But you are quit right that MSP is only for a simple planning job and dont expect the software to do the impossible, they cannot handle major project. My suggestion is change to P3(They are the leader in Project Planning)

Good luck everyone.

Alex

Hi Andrew,

Just a word of friendly advice. MSP calendars are [Deleted]. I’ve been trying to figure them out for years and still have great diffculty in understanding quite how they work and how I get the results that I need/expect. If you’re not familiar with how to set-up the calendar system, including the default start-times and working-hours per-day, project start-times, plus the options of starting each task according to the "Current Date" or "Project Start ", then I strongly recommend that you do a few experiments on a toy project. Don’t worry about doing logic links on your experiments or doing lots of tasks - just three or four will do, using two different calendar set-ups; just get to understand how the project calendar and task calendars interact with one-another. Remember, if you are going to resource your activities, you’ll need to set-up the various resources calendars also, otherwise you’ll get all sorts of funny activity durations and quantities of hours.

I keep saying that I’m going to write-down all of this stuff - but sheer laziness usually takes-over. Therefore, off the top of my head, I cannot advise in the most succinct manner.

Is there anybody else out there who could help, otherwise poor Andrew will probably start ripping-out his hair - very soon?

Cheers.

James.