Dear All,

Could we use TILOS effectively for the Conventional Building Construction Projects also?

Hi SMithson,

In CAD or Excel, or Corel Draw . . . you can do "Time - Location (Distance) Diagram" . . . but when you update / monitoring the progress . . .you will redo again.

Tilos do this . .. TILOS visually displays project plans in terms of both time and distance.

for more information or example .. . go to http://www.astadev.com/software/tilos/index.asp

Tu

To All:
Is there any way I can evaluate TILOS?
I would like to be able to download a copy and/or see example outputs. I have Primavera P5/P6 .XER data which I wish to display in CAD (AutoCAD, MicroStation, ...) as Time (X Axis) against Distance (Kilometre Chainages of Highway/Pipeline Projects - Y Axis).
Does TILOS do this, or any other Modules?
Thanks in Advance for any help.
Best Regards,
Michael

Hi Vladimir,
Let me explain the things by 2 examples:
Sample 1: Pipeline
Laying a pipeline you need to have access the land. Some are available at project start, others later. TILOS highlight temporarily unavailable ground that the planer can reflect during scheduling. Similar effect have bird area, where land access is temporary forbidden. These are shown as rectangles in the background of the plan and indicate no work is possible. The clash detector alarms, when other tasks touch this area. Another sample is delivery of hot bends, which can be incorporated graphically as milestones in time and distance.
Both samples affect the schedule but without linear planning site calculations are needed. These constraints have similar effects then the availability of resources of finances but are site based constraints.
Sample 2: Metro
The critical path is most time TBM (tunnel boring machines). They are planned as lines. Station have to be ready before TBM is reaching the stations. Based on position of metro station (Site constraint) TILOS calculates latest end of the work in the station.
With traditional project management you need a lot of site calculations. Tilos solves this with a single site constraint: Keep distance.

As the site constraints are visible the planer can directly use this in planning and determine the sequence of production and level the resources ....

Hi Valdimir,

This thread is entitled "Intro to Tilos". You comments here - particularly to Marc - clearly mislead people to think you are talking about TILOS.

If you want a general discussion about Linear Planning techniques, please create a new thread which makes it clear you are not talking specifically about TILOS.

Kind regards,

Dave.

Hi Marc,

I agree about how effective these tools are in communicating to stakeholders. After a short explanation of the chart, a layman understands it immediately.

I have helped people create plans in TILOS and several people have commented on how useful it is at the tender/bid stage and also to communicate to the crews doing the work.

A rail construction company planner told me that he couldn’t get the crews to understand the importance of the timings on his plan. Once he showed them a plan in TILOS they understood immediately. So now the crews always have the latest linear plan up on the wall in the site office. With TILOS all the planner has to do is press ’print’ and take it out to site each week.

Cheers,

Dave.

Hi Dave,
how to apply resource, financing and supply constraints?
How to play "what if" scenarios with different resource availability and supply schedules.
Regards,
Vladimir

I can see that Tilos is going to help me a lot.
I’ve been using Excel to produce linear schedule ’pictures’ for a number of years, and it has always been very useful for making sure the project (particularly the construction phase) makes sense before commiting to a gantt based programme. Another reason the linear style is so good is that you can scale the whole project on to a single piece of paper (yes - you can get some very big pieces of paper!), still showing all the activities, but also showing physical constraints graphically. Using this ’document’ makes it very easy to explain the project to stakeholders - even if they don’t know the methodology - it is clear for all to see.
I am in the very early stages with Tilos, but I have ’great expectations’ for it!

Dear Hubert,
thank you for reply.
I agree that time-location charts are very useful for schedule analysis.
But in any case resources shall be defined and assigned to activities, calendar and logic constraints shall be entered and resource constrained schedule shows when and what will be done. It is not possible just draw project schedule.

Regards,
Vladimir

Hubert,
planning any project project planner enters WBS, activities, resources, materials, calendars, costs, assigns resources, dependencies, expenses, etc.
When the model is ready then the software helps to create project schedule that takes into account all entered constraints. When the schedule is ready it can be presented different ways - as Gantt Chart, Network Diagram, Time-Location Diagram, etc.
I can understand that there are different ways of entering project data, analyzing and presenting results.

Please explain what do you mean by "planning in the linear way as this is best practice for linear projects"?

Thank you,
Vladimir

Hi Francis Aborot

TILOS is time-location planning software for managing linear construction projects such as roads, rail lines, pipelines and tunnels.

using this software for Time Chainage Diagram . . .

for more information, visit to http://www.astadev.com/software/tilos/index.asp

Cheers

Tu