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Total float

16 replies [Last post]
Rola Sabbah
User offline. Last seen 10 years 25 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Dec 2009
Posts: 61
hi
hello every body, i need alittle help please:
regarding T.F, i have some activities that have a big TF, so what i did is linking them to other activities which is closer to the finish date or even to a critical activities, but i made sure that those activities early start is bigger than the activity with the big total float so it wont change the logic of the schedule, is that ok?
for example, i linked roof works with tiling side walks.

Replies

Samer Zawaydeh
User offline. Last seen 5 years 8 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 3 Aug 2008
Posts: 1664
Dear Vladimir,

Thank you for the comment.

With kind regards,

Samer
Samer,
you shall add "and unlimited resources".
In other case apply the traditional resource constrained scheduling.
Best Regards,
Vladimir
Samer Zawaydeh
User offline. Last seen 5 years 8 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 3 Aug 2008
Posts: 1664
Hi,

You can search the net and google "Line of Balance". This applies in this case when we have repetitive activities.

With kind regards,

Samer
Shahriar Parvaz
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Joined: 1 Mar 2007
Posts: 24
Rola,
If you define resources and recourse groups and assign it to activities it’s easy to see your resource histogram, as a example you can define five tilling team as T1,T2,T3,T4,T5 and all of them should be in resource group T, then after resource assignment you can have histogram of each one or histogram of group.

regards,
Rola Sabbah
User offline. Last seen 10 years 25 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Dec 2009
Posts: 61
hi shahrair,
your correct, i have tilling team for villa 1, and other tiling team for villa 2 and so on.
how can get the total number of tiling teams on the whole project?
Rafael Davila
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Posts: 5229
To all,

If you have good software capable of implementing good resource constraining and capable of providing true float after resource leveling then using dependencies as a substitute of true resource constraining functionality is bad medicine.

As a matter of fact in some of our CPM specs this trick to force or substitute resurce constraining is explicitly prohibited.

Best regards,
Rafael
Shahriar Parvaz
User offline. Last seen 3 years 30 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 1 Mar 2007
Posts: 24
Hi Rola
There are 5 villas, if you are going to start and finish all of them together you will have 5 sub-schedules, actually there is not physical relation between activities of each schedule with other schedule and you will have huge TF, which is not true in fact. Because in this case your resources (manpower/machinery) are constrain. For example why you should have 5 team of tilling , one for each villa .you can do tilling by one team ,Villa 1, then 2 ,then 3 ... .so I think you can link similar activities of those 5 schedules together to consider your resource constraints, it will reduce TF.
if you are going to finish those villas in consecutive way, you will not have huge TF because finish dates of the villa 1 will be start date of villa 2 and ... .

regards,
Mike Testro
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Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 4418
Hi Rola

Identify a number of key resources that have limited availablity.

Filter on these one by one and link them across the villas.

Best regards

Mike Testro
Samer Zawaydeh
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Joined: 3 Aug 2008
Posts: 1664
Dear Rola,

If the CM is asking you to submit a detailed schedule for 5 years. Reject it by clearly stating that you are able to submit/commit a milestone schedule at this stage. You can commit yourself to a detailed Schedule for 1-2 years. More than that would be not practical.

With kind regards,

Samer
Rola Sabbah
User offline. Last seen 10 years 25 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Dec 2009
Posts: 61
Hi all,
actually i did seperate schedules at first but the CM, refused it in order to be able to transfer resources, by the way im using P6, so if linking activties to reduce T.F what is the best practict to do it?
Shah. HB
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Posts: 773
Hi to all

I had the same circumstance in my project .Main reason I found is improper and illogical links in the existing programme done by third party. Arrange the activities in the priority order of occurrence and link them with logical relationships .Total float tends to increase if the most priority activity is tied with least priority level activities just for the sake of arriving specific dates which is incorrect way of doing project schedule
Mike Testro
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Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 4418
Hi Rola

You have not said what software you are using but in most modern systems you can combine more than one project in the same file and set up cross project links for such things as resource management.

In this format you can show sole project critical paths or total project float - even without using end by flags.

As far as I know this is not possible in P3 or MSP.

So - what software are you using?

Best regards

Mike Testro.
Samer Zawaydeh
User offline. Last seen 5 years 8 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 3 Aug 2008
Posts: 1664
Dear Rola,

You have a 5 years program. This should be a higher level program not a detailed program. Level 1 is the Milestone and Level 2 are the major activities.

Going to the detailed activities after 2-5 years does not make sense at this time.

If you Contract is for 5 years then you can’t submit a detailed schedule within the 1st 28 days from the Commencement Order. You need to disucss this clearly with the upper management. Like Mike said, have 5 programs would make more sense. You can work on the complete details for each, but the start date would be connected to the Milestone associated with that villa.

With kind regards,

Samer
Mike Testro
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Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 4418
Hi Rola

In your situation the total float is perfectly normal.

Why not have 5 programmes - 1 for each Villa?

Best regards

Mike testro
Rola Sabbah
User offline. Last seen 10 years 25 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 5 Dec 2009
Posts: 61
Dear samer,
i checked the schedule, and the CM advise me to do that, the schedule consists of 5 villas, and the last activity in the first villa finishes on Aug/2010 and the completion date is Aug/2015, im not allowed for partial completion milestones, even if i am i tried it and its not working.
Any ideas.
Samer Zawaydeh
User offline. Last seen 5 years 8 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 3 Aug 2008
Posts: 1664
Dear Rola,

Go back and study the relationships, resources, and durations. You need to spend time debugging your schedule until it makes sense.

What you are doing is not correct.

With kind regards,

Samer