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Mark,

My involvement in shutdown jobs have been very limited but still there are some scheduling issues I would like to share.

1. If you are referring to regular maintenance jobs then the availability of materials can be relevant and must be followed up as any delay in materials will delay activities. Materials are best handled using consumable resources, something you cannot do using regular resource modeling.   http://www.pmknowledgecenter.com/node/104
2. Seems like the scheduling of your jobs is so dynamic that in order for scheduling software to be useful some daily or perhaps a per shift schedule update might be necessary.
3. Some of the most common software cannot handle different shifts on the same activity and shutdowns usually are performed using different shifts. That your software have something they call shift calendars it does not means they are functional for complex scenarios.

• You can try yourself a simple scenario.
• Activity 1 500 cm rock excavation
• Resource 1 production 10 cm/hr and works Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday 10 hrs/day
• Resource 2 production 15 cm/hour and works on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 10 hrs/day

• If activity starts on Monday:
• Monday =>> Resource 1 will produce 100 cm
• Tuesday =>> Resource 1 will produce 100 cm
• Wednesday =>> Resource 1 will produce 100 cm
• Wednesday =>> Resource 2 will produce 150 cm
• Thursday =>> Resource 2 will produce 50 cm in about 3 hours
• Activity will take 3 days 3 hours.

• If activity starts on Wednesday :
• Wednesday =>> Resource 1 will produce 100 cm
• Wednesday =>> Resource 2 will produce 150 cm
• Thursday =>> Resource 2 will produce 150 cm
• Friday =>> Resource 2 will produce 100 cm in about 7 hours
• Activity will take 2 days 7 hours.

• If your software is not capable of modeling the above, simple shift work on a single activity, then you are using the wrong tool. Every time the activity is delayed, the distribution of work is shifted, when you have many such activities and work on different hour shifts, different days it can become quite complicated. For a single shot you can use incapable software with manual distribution of work among shifts for anything else distributing work by hand is nuts.
• Sorry my example is a civil works example as this is what I do, but I suspect you plan your jobs using resource or whole crew productivity and their compositions and production rates can vary depending on the shifts that in your case can be 3 shifts - 8 hours per shift.
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