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Line of balance & Primavera

17 replies [Last post]
Christian Viddal
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Joined: 24 Sep 2009
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Hi,

I am wondering if anyone has any experience with Line of balance (LoB) as a planner.

The way I am doing LoB now is to export the activities from Primavera and manually manipulate the data in excel in order to present a graph.

Anyone know if Primavera has a flowline view or reports which could help me out. I know that the Vico control software could be used with Primavera but I do not have this software.

Any ideas or thoughts are much appreciated.

Regards,
Christian

Replies

sharon Maxwell
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Mike Testro
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Nothing is free in this world. Asta Powerproject does a line of balance format similar to tilos. You can use it on a 30 day free trial but there are scope limitattions.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Rahman Razmgir
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Hi Raviraj


Which softwares by Graphisoft or Misronet can use LOB technique?
Do you know any free tool?

Tom Hadley
User offline. Last seen 14 weeks 3 days ago. Offline

Hi not sure if this post has been answered. There is  a  sofware tools that you can use called VICO I  think they took over the dynasoft tools which I think includes a mass haul tool as well

http://www.vicosoftware.com/

Good luck

Tom Hadlley

Senior Consultant

The Project Management Workshop

Trainers, Consultants and PM Career Advisors

Projectmanager@pmworkshop.com.au

CHANDRA SEKAR THA...
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Joined: 13 Aug 2007
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Dear All,
Could you please send a LOB sample for a building project (Tower).
Thanks in advance.
LOB usually shows what is planned or done at what place at the project metrics.
Project metrics may be different for different project types.
I don’t understand what do you mean by subsea products - it may be pipeline, platform or submarine/
It is easy to define the metrics for pipelines, not so easy for platform or submarine.
Let’s suppose that it is submarine. In this case you shall divide it on separate parts that have different design drawings, each part will have own coordinates at the project metrics. LOB may show when selected types of work begin and end on each part (on the project metrics).
I am not sure that you really need this presentation. It is very compact way to present project schedule but you will need to train people to understand LOB.
Best Regards,
Vladimir
Christian Viddal
User offline. Last seen 13 years 34 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Posts: 24
Subsea products. But as said I am only planning for the actual engineering part and not for the other project phases(manufacturing,transportation,installation....)Activities which I plan for are for example procedures, specifications, drawings, calculations and such.

Regards,
Christian
A D
User offline. Last seen 3 years 20 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 20 May 2007
Posts: 1027
Engineering Deliverables for what kind of project?
Christian Viddal
User offline. Last seen 13 years 34 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Posts: 24
Thanks a lot for all your comments!

I am trying to run daily LoB on engineering deliverables and not on "typical" plans as you discuss. I am planning for when documentation and drawings should be finished(engineering planning only). So I am not even sure that LoB is suitable in my case as I assumed LoB to be more for long duration repetetive acitivities. Any thoughts around that? Anyway,I still got the request and have to look into it.

Future bucket planning I have never used so I will look into that, thanks.
Hi Raviraj,
Spider Project generates LOB as one of many project reports.
For your example it will generate the separate curves for Gr Floor, 1st Floor, ..., 19th floor because these activities are not linked by FS dependencies. Even on the same floors some types of work can be done in parallel. So it will be shown as a set of curves (or lines, depending on schedule precision).
Best Regards,
Vladimir
A D
User offline. Last seen 3 years 20 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 20 May 2007
Posts: 1027
Hi Vladimir,

We update LOB’s on monthly basis and not daily as it is cumbersome.

Trapezoidal area?

Consider example of any work like MEP First Fix or Civil Final Finish Items

As LOB for Building will be in Floors, it is not possible to show start and finish dates for a floor by linear way.

Like say, ES is 20th April 2010 and EF is 20th May 2010 for Ground Floor and 19th Floor ES is 20th Sep 10 and EF is 20th Oct 10.

Wat v prefer to do is, show trapezoid with four corners starting from
1. Gr Floor, 20/04/10
2. Gr Floor, 20/05/10
3. 19th Floor 20/10/10, and last corner is
4. 19th Floor 20/09/10

If u r using some other better way of presenting it, do let us know.

u said, u dont do it manually. Do u use some LOB software or spider to generate LOB?

Regards,

Ravi
Hi Raviraj,
We use Line of Balance (Linear Diagram) as one of many schedule reports together with Gantt Charts, etc.
Doing it manually means a lot of work and is impossible on daily basis.

Different projects have different metrics.
Pipeline or Road metrics may be defined in kilometers, high rise building metrics may be defined in floors, etc.
For project activities (phases) you shall define its type and start and finish at the project metrics. Activities of the certain type are shown by the same lines (thickness, pattern, color). The software shows planned and actual dates for selected types of work basing on your schedule output. It is always lines that connect start and finish points of project activities.

I have a question - what is trapezoidal areas? How do you get them?

Best Regards,
Vladimir
A D
User offline. Last seen 3 years 20 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 20 May 2007
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Now it depends on which project u r working?

For a pipeline type of project it is very easy, as u hav linear activities like excavation, installation, hydrotesting, jacketing, backfilling etc. but in Building projects it is very tough to use the option u have suggested.

V have linear lines for
Core-wall,
slab,
Cladding works
kitchen cabinets & wardrobes,
light fixtures,
sanitary ware items,
False Ceiling
Cladding (Leave out area) etc.

trapezoidal areas for
Civil Works
MEP works (First Fix)
MEP Works (2nd Fix)
Civil Final Finish works
Elevator Works
Swimming Pool
Sub-Station works
ETS Room
Mechanical Floor
Finishing Items in Parking Areas
T&C
Integrated T&C etc.

Milestones for
Wild Air-On,
Structure Completion,
Apartment Mock-up
Cladding Mock-up
Lift Car Mock-up etc.

I have tried a lot using various options, but i find doing it manually in excel is far easy.

If there is any other option, do let us know.
Arnold Puy
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Posts: 1147
Hi Christian,

If I understood you correctly, why not try to create a "Future Period Bucket Planning" this feature is supported by Primavera. You can input data in accordance to your daily requirement and draw a graph on it.

Regards,

Arnold
Christian Viddal
User offline. Last seen 13 years 34 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 24 Sep 2009
Posts: 24
Thanks for your comment. My problem is that I need a clever way of doing DAILY line of balance updates and would really like to limit the manual work needed in excel. I need to see on a daily basis which activities are due and which are completed or not and present these data. Guess I could use the report function in Primavera but seems that reporting is not the strongest feature in Primavera.

Any other ideas?


Christian
A D
User offline. Last seen 3 years 20 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 20 May 2007
Posts: 1027
Hi Chris,

V r using LOB for monthly updates. Even i m doing it manually as i dont think there is any easy way to do it in excel. Import from primavera and draw in excel.

There r softwares available as u hav said (Graphisoft, Misronet etc.) but i dont think it is worth to invest money in these softwares.

We use LOB mainly for checking co-ordination of different trades and their overlap for hise rise building works.

Sinan Fahmi
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Joined: 17 Dec 2006
Posts: 68
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Dear All,
I am using line of balance in my current project "High Rise Building" and I am using a power tool in Excel "PIVOT TABLE AND CHART"
What I did I just export all the data that I need from Primavera and Import it to my Pivot data and with simple refresh click all my charts got updated, so only you need to spend a time to prepare your structure report and the balance will be easy just you need to update primavera and import it back to Excel.

I would like to attached a snapshot of my LINE OF BALANCE her in this port but unfortunately I don’t know how to do it if somebody knows how to post Picture please let me know.

Cheers,
sinan