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Finding activity duration with limited information and time given

8 replies [Last post]
michele earley
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Question:Im a student and I wanted to know if its possible to find the activity durations if you know the type of materials that will be used in the project, but dont have their estimates and then dividing it from the productivity to get the durations. I know that you can find durations using company database from past projects. Is there some sort of online databse that you can use to search similar projects to get an idea of the durations? 

I have the construction documents, but have limited time to create a schedule for the entire project, and dont have access to a database but willing to use one if theres a public version out there.

 

 

 

Replies

Rafael Davila
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Time Measure shall become decimal friendly.

A decimal day shall have 10 hours.

A decimal hour shall have 100 minutes.

A decimal minute shall have 100 seconds.

Earth shall have 10 time zones.

A decimal year shall have 100 work days and the rest paid holidays!

Can you figure it out the conversion factors?

LOL

Glitter Happy Holidays

Mike Testro
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Hi Michele

It is metric based so you will have to apply a conversion factor from metric to imperial.

I still wish the UK had not gone metric - even when there were no more duodecimals.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Raymund de Laza
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Michele,

As suggested by Rafael, RS Means is recommended. In the Middle East, there is such a Productivity Rate Index and was based from RS Means.

 

Regads,

Rafael Davila
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I suggest you use RS Means and provided adjustment factors specific to your State. At the end of the book you will find a detailed crew composition that yielded such production rate. 

If an advanced course in scheduling and you are given complete set of contract documents you shall read the whole document as it might have substantial impact on your schedule.  You might have interim contract milestones, you might have things to deliver not visible in the drawings and some sequence of work might be impacted by documents as soil study recommendations.

Good Luck.

michele earley
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Raymund, I am located in the US. California to be exact.
michele earley
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Mike, I did a little research on RICS and found information on activity duration calculator software that they have. Does it calculate base off of Information from the UK. I'm located in the US.
Raymund de Laza
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Michele,

One of the Factors that have to be considered in determining the Productivity Rate is the location of the Project. Which Country are you applying the Rate?

In a multi-national firm, other factor affecting the rate is the nationality of the labor.

Further, weather or season is one factor that is considered too.

 

Regards,

Mike Testro
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Hi Michele - welcome to planning planet.

I don't know of any public database but there are estimating software sets that you can buy.

The best that I have found is published by the RICS.

This will give you industry standard production outputs for pretty much every task to be found in the construction industry - including MEP.

An alternative is Spons but they have different categories so you have to buy quite a few to cover the whole field.

Best regards

Mike Testro