02 Jun 2023 Project Controls News

Dear Planning Planet Member,

Join the Global Community [1] - did you know that this newsletter goes to the largest community of project controls professionals on planet Earth!  

What does Google and Capital Project Management have in common? More thank you think! In partnership with AACE, hear from our CMO, Meghan Russell, who shares data storytelling insights learned during her 12-year career in product development at Google. Karl Vantine, our CCO and long-time industry expert, will delve into three critical elements necessary to get value out of your data.

You’ll learn about:

• How to organize project data to inform you about budget and schedule impacts
• Untapped AI in Construction and where it may be headed
• Guiding decisions to drive better business outcome

Watch now [3]

Estimating the manhours, type & number of resources, overall duration and cost of work order activities is something maintenance planners need to do every day; however, accurate and consistent forecasting is difficult, even for experienced planners. 

The importance of norms was demonstrated by IAMTech in 2021 when they conducted an experiment during one of their iPlan training courses.

IAMTech provide a software solution called iPlanSTO, which is a comprehensive suite of software tools that helps organisations scope, plan, schedule and execute their Shutdowns, Turnarounds and Outages more effectively. It is packed with features specifically designed to improve STO processes, including norms-based estimation.

Download IAMTech’s whitepaper to find out what they discovered and learn how norms can increase the accuracy of your estimation and refine your estimates; helping you to achieve a plus or minus accuracy of 10% when planning & budgeting for your next STO!

Read the full blog here [5]...

Construction projects are complex and involve many other parties. As a consequence, various construction claims may arise.

Construction Claims can occur as the result of disagreements and conflicts involving poor project planning and scheduling, inadequate financial auditing and monitoring, and errors and oversights in the original contract among involved parties.

Learn [6] how to avoid them and how to use Primavera P6 in these cases.

With their emphasis on stringent monitoring, frequent data collection, status reporting, communication, and adaptability to changes, project controls generate a ton of performance metrics that help keep a tab on the current status and steer the project in the right direction. As a result, projects that have tightly integrated project controls demonstrate stellar results.

Read more here [7]...

Isolating the Earliest and Latest Predecessor Start Dates of a Milestone in P6 PPM Professional

I recently asked the question about P6: “How does one show a milestone's date to reflect the earliest start date of the group predecessors' activities rather than total float driving from the group predecessors' activities.”

After I little bit of thought I devised the following solution.

To show the earliest Start Date and Latest Finish date of multiple predecessors for a Milestone you need to make the Milestone Task a LOE and hook up to all the predecessor tasks with both a FS and a FF link as per the picture below: 

Then format the LOE Tasks to show only a Start shape and Finish shape, such as below:

If you want to show other LOE activities as a LOE then you will need to create an Activity Code for normal LOE activities and Milestone LOE activities and a bar style for both and apply the filter to the two LOE bar styles in the Bars form.

Accelerate your understanding of scheduling software to advance your scheduling career and be able to prepare better schedules with Eastwood Harris books [9], training courses and online videos on the following software packages:

• Microsoft Project,
• Oracle Primavera P6 and 
• Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject 

Online videos available through Udemy by following these links:

• Microsoft Project, [10]
• Oracle Primavera P6 [11] and 
• Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject  [12]

Please follow these links:

• Eastwood Harris books and training materials are available here>>>> [13]
• Eastwood Harris inhouse, one-to-one and public training courses are offered through Primaskills Pty Ltd, more details here>>>> [14].
• Resources for Oracle Primavera P6 users such as third party software that works with P6 and technical papers on Primavera P6 at here>>>> [15].

Paul E Harris

Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd

In project management, an S-Curve is a mathematical graph that properly illustrates the appropriate cumulative data for a project or task. This data can be the cost, resource, or any other unit consumed plotted against time.

Learn more [16] about what the S-curve is used for, how to interpret the results, and how ScheduleReader can be used to present Primavera S-Curves in a better and more presentable format.

Looking for a game-changer for total project management and total turnaround management?

Cleopatra experts Elmer Sachteleben and Babette Schep will present at the AACE International Conference & Expo 2023, demonstrating how Cleopatra Enterprise revolutionizes Total Project Management. 

Learn how necessary tools and integrations in Cleopatra optimize project outcomes in today's competitive business environment! 

Join Cleopatra at the event [17]...

#CleopatraEnterprise #AACE2023 #AACEconference #projectmanagement #projectcontrols #STO

A superior alternative to the "most popular" software for us as planners?

Spider Project 

Spider Project offers numerous unique functional features and is the only PM software that optimizes resource, cost, and material constrained schedules and budgets for projects and portfolios. 

Check it out here [18]...  Ask questions here [19]...

The next LIVE event for Construction CPM Conference 2024 will be held at San Antonio January 14-17 2024

More info here [21]... Seeking Presenters [22]... Latest News [20]...

A FULL DAY of lectures from the SmartPM team on Basics through Analytics and Oversight

To obtain your Zoom Invite please send request to info@constructioncpm.com [23].

Our Continuing Mission Since 2011

• To explore leading edge CPM scheduling concepts
• To seek out new expert schedulers and software solutions
• To boldly go where no scheduling conference has gone before