Spider Project

Hi Itachi,

Spider Project has many advantages if to compare its capabilities with MS Project and P6.

Spider Project works directly with volumes of work to be done in physical units (meters, tons, etc.) and permits to create and to use databases of construction norms (material requirements per volume unit of typical activities, unit costs, etc.). Assigned resources may have productivity and the database of production norms may be created and used in all projects.

Spider Project users may create and assign construction crews (including all resources belonging to these crews).

Spider Project is the only software that simulates the work in several shifts.

Spider Project works with assigned resource quantities and workloads and not with the total workload (resource-hours) as other packages.

Spider Project works with variable resource assignments when you can assign the range of resoure quantity and workload required on activity.

Project cost consists of cost components and you may create multiple cost centers and manage parallel budgets of the same project.

Spider Project optimizes resource constrained schedules creating the schedules with the shortest possible duration. Besides it levels materials and costs.

Spider Project users may create multiple WBS for the same project.

Spider Project includes risk simulation and analysis that works for projects with resource constraints.

All listed above is unique (other packages do not have these capabilities) and that is why most Russian construction companies select and use Spider Project. In other countries (today 34) the number of Spider Project users is small (if to compare with the number of Russian users).

The list of Spider Project unique features is much longer, I mentioned those that are most appreciated by all construction managers. Spider Project exports and imports schedules to/from MS Project and P6. So communications with the users of other packages is not a problem.

And though you will be able to export everything to Excel you may need it for creating some specific reports but not for calculating anything like stock. Everything may be done inside Spider Project.

You may find more information and download Spider Project Demo at www.spiderproject.com.

Let me know if you will have any questions on Spider Project capabilities.

Hi everybody,

Which planning software is better for construction projects ? Ms project , Primavera , Spider Project

Now I use Primavera . Everyday I export all daily required quantities to Excel . After I calculate stock .

Some friends say about planning softwares new version of MS Project is better than primavera now .

In this forum people usually talk about Spider project . Which one better for construction project ?

Mike wrote:

"The latest Asta Powerproject will convert a gantt cart to a time / chain chart at a touch of a key.

I am not sure if Spider can do that yet."

That may be true. Conversely, I believe I'm correct in saying that Asta doesn't compute, but Spider does, critical path drag. This is the most crucial metric in CPM, the one that tells you how much time an individual critical activity is adding to the project duration. For an article describing the importance of critical path drag, read this article in a US Department of Defense magazine, Defense AT&L:

http://www.dau.mil/pubscats/ATL%20Docs/Jan_Feb_2012/Devaux.pdf

Of course, I am quite sure that Asta will one day incorporate drag computation.  But that it doesn't do so currently is a shortcoming compared to Spider (and the add-on to MS Project from Sumatra.com).

Fraternally in project management,

Steve the Bajan

Santhosh,

consider Rafael and Vladimir speeches, and also the other ones in this specific order.

The ease of dealing with, without having to invest in IT managers and licenses and machines, besides the incredible amount of features to model almost every imagined needs in , makes a great difference. You will see.

Here in Brazil we are scratching the top of iceberg just described, and we could also use it as a professional tool, for professional solutions, to professional contracts, where results were essential, not fancy appearance or corporate / commercial licenses agreements. Venezuela and Peru are on the same professional way, and growing.

We have a spider project book - how to use in project management, as a support, originally in Portuguese. We have it translated by some PMI volunteers and now, in it's 4th edition, translated by " a professional translator".

If you beame interested in having it as a Spider Project reference book, we are able to cover up to 70% of Spider Project Professional app, in 600 illustrated pages with Portuguese ( !?) 40hours videos. Twelve chapters plus a SDPM extra one.
Just write to marcus.possi@ecthos.com.br. As a PDF - ebook, I promise you no costs :) - It is a kind of souvenir if compared with Spider Project results.

It's cover price is 60US$.

The 4th edition was free until last june in Apple Store. Of course iin Portuguese.

Due to Monte Carlo and some hevay extra adds, the fifth edition will soon be delivered by november in Portuguese, and one day in English. It is not adherent to PMBOK 5th edition. It is really bigger than that.

Best Regards,

Marcus Possi

Raymund,

Spider Project is used in most large scale programs in Russia.

One of the examples: $70bln program to prepare 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi with more than 280 construction projects and hundreds construction companies included.

The usage of Spider Project for project management is not required by the contracts (it is a bad habit to dictate what to use) but all participants shall submit their schedules in Spider Project format for Program Management Office.

So contractors may use anything (and most of them use Spider) but the schedules shall be converted to Spider to submit to the PMO.

It is used in any industry, not only construction. It is aerospace and defence, banking, manufacturing, mining, shipbuilding, telecom, software development, oil&gas, energy, shutdowns, etc. At the moment Spider Project customers work in 29 countries.

Spider imports/exports projects from/to P6 and MSP. So communication is not an issue.

Mike,

time-location charts are included in Spider as one of reports (together with Activity, Resource, Material Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams, WBS and OBS diagrams, Probability distributions, multi-dimensional Scatter Diagrams, etc.) since 1996, before Linear was created.

They were first used in Caspian pipeline construction project in 1996-1997 and since then are using in hundreds infrastructure projects. What is new in Asta is a history for Spider. But please keep me informed if anything really new will appear in any PM software. For many years we develop Spider Project basing on customer needs and our expertise without real competition in innovations.

Raymund,

At home "Talk of the Town"  is Microsoft Project by an overwhelming majority, perhaps 10 to 1 to all others combined.

Still most contractors like to manage their jobs using a tool under their control and not using whatever others say.

On private jobs where we have negotiating power we usually manage for the Owner to agree on using the Contractor's choice as it facilitates communication. On Government Jobs where we do not have negotiating power "Brand Name" specification is forbidden and at times only Federal Government insists on by-passing our laws.

In such cases as with the Federal Government we take the practical approach to use an outsider for the software we do not use as on every other job the Owner's choice can be P3, at times SureTrak, at times P6, at times Microsoft Project an in rare occasions one of the many WEB based software. We have been required different software by different Federal Agencies. In our opinion the Federal Government has invariably selected substandard scheduling software therefore under this scenario, at the same time the Contractor runs his own schedule using his software of choice where he has control and do not depend on a part-time outsider that lack the understanding of the job dynamics its managers do have. For many it would be like changing accounting software for every job, it makes no sense. Fortunately subcontracting for the other software is inexpensive as the offer of such services is more than the demand. 

We manage our jobs using the tools of our selection. In the case we have to negotiate EOTs and delays using other software we check the math using our software in my case Spider Project as we have found the others are full of Bugs and have poor resource leveling functionality. Here the frustration of Construction Contractors with the others products is quite noticeable. I have read at PP that in other countries some respected consultants verify the math of those other software using Asta PP, similar to our experience, just that some of us use Spider Project. 

There is too much at stake for us to depend on substandard software. 

Best regards,

Rafael

Hi Raymund

Go to the Asta website www.astadev.com and you can download 30 day demos directly.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Mike,

Thanks for the Info.

How to obtain the Demo of ASTA?

Hi Raymund

Asta is mostly used in the UK by Building contractors.

When faced with a delay analysis using P6 or P3 I convert it to Asta to do the work and generate reports.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Rafael & Mike,

I am interested to use ASTA or SPIDER as been describe by you that it have more useful tools compare to others.

But it seems that so often the Requirements from Contract Clauses is to Present the Construction Schedules in PRIMAVERA and PRIMAVERA is like the "Talk of the Town" whenever Construction Schedule is the subject.

Is there specific Region that this or that Programs is to be used and to be specified in Contract Clauses?

Babu,

I suggest you download the demo versions of each and explore yourself. There is no better way to compare products than doing the homework yourself. 

What initially you do not find most probably is because you are new to the product, so feel free to ask specific questions abut each one.

In addition to finding out that both products are excellent and that installation is at a single click of the mouse the most pleasant surprise will be the support by both teams that set them apart of the rest.

Best regards,

Rafael

Hi Sunil

Very little - they are both excelent products which outshine Primavera and MSP in many aspects.

The latest Asta Powerproject will convert a gantt cart to a time / chain chart at a touch of a key.

I am not sure if Spider can do that yet.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi friends,

What are the defference bet, Asta and spider project..?

any body please

Regards

Sunil

Bo,



I agree with you, I am also having problems to search back particular issues. I believe many issues are getting lost in prior pages closing the opportunity for others to discuss them; they just simply are available for a short period before getting lost.



PP is denying the opportunity to others to take advantage of these issues and the responses by Vladimir and yes, a few others. Many topics will be forever be lost as it would not be fair asking the same question several times.



As Vladimir, I cannot understand why Spider does not have it’s place, all I can do is speculate, same as many of you. My speculation always end up at the new PP infrastructure supplier no matter where I start, just follow the money.



As a Spider Rookie I am just starting to scratch the tip of the iceberg, I am starting with the basic and even stupid question such as how to transfer activities ID’s or schedule updates among several versions of your schedules. These are very basic questions but eventually I will want to ask questions regarding more advanced functions such as the Scripting language embedded into Spider Project and the Portfolio functionality for which even the basics is new to me.



At the same time I am supporting Mikes idea on a place for Trivia. I find it refreshing and useful in my social life as these trivias provide me with interesting conversation issues when having a few "Coronas" after work and also with my Skype conversations with my older brother who is living in Chile, we share with the celtics an appreciation for the "craic".



Best regards,

Rafael



... and I thought the Celtics were the players of my favorite Basketball team.

Bo,

after "Trivia & Non Planning Discussion" I have no explanations why Spider Project thread was not yet created.



Best Regards,

Vladimir

Vladimir, Mike, Rafeal et all,



I certainly also thinks that Spider Project deserves its own forum. Just see how many views the thread "Let’s challenge SPIDER" has received so far: 4442 views and 315 posts. Maybe Vladimir and Rafael is accountable for 99,9% of the posts, however, I would assume maybe only 1/3 of the views. That leaves 3000 views by others (incl. my own approx. 25 readings on this subject) and that to me imply that an interest for Spider is present between some of us PP-planners.



I have for now given up to read the "Let’s challenge SPIDER" thread as I now can’t distinct the different subjects, i.e. the different issues I’m trying to learn / get a grasp of in Spider and every Q/A has to be in same thread. I guess that others may be in the same situation concerning Spider and that I think is a shame when such a powerful tool is available (ok, still room for some improvements here and there).



See the new forum discussion group: "Trivia & Non Planning Discussion". It was suggested to create this forum and 2 hrs and 35 min later (if the strange PP-clock can be trusted) it was made by Admin and ready to be utilized by us. That I call excellent service, however, why is the same service not given to Spider?



Regards,



Bo

Hi Vladimir, Mike,



In my opinion Spider Project is not just a software, it is a way of thinking, of modeling the real processes. And there are lots of ways to do it. I don’t have too much experience in working with Spider, but I assure you, it surprises me every time, with new approaches, with new ways of thinking and help in my work.



I agree Vladimir, maybe is time to set a distinct place in PP to discuss the issues and to exchange ideas.



Best regards,

Augustin

Hi Mike,

I think that a lot of users questions can mean several things - the curiosity, the desire to understand the approaches, and poor quality of the software when people cannot do what they need and ask for the help.

I hope that we will have more questions of first two types.

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Hi Vladimir



I reckon that the number of users questions on a particular software is in inverse proportion to the quality of said software.



Your spider thread excepted of course because most queries are curiosity based.



Best regards



Mike Testro

Hi Mike,

I know about 20 active users of Spider Project among PP members. I am not sure that I know them all.

Do you think that we shall count the users by their questions on certain software in PP discussions? If less than 10 questions or answers then not user, if more - then proud user!

Good idea!

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Hi Santhosh,

if you look at the Publications section of Spider Project site http://www.spiderproject.ru/publ_e.php?p=2|6 you will find many papers and presentations on Spider Project approaches and features that are not supported by other softwares.

For brief review look at http://www.spiderproject.ru/library/eng/compare_e.xls

http://www.spiderproject.ru/library/eng/Spider%20Project%20Presentation…

There are so many differences that it is hard to list them.



Spider Project is used since 1993, has many thousands users in 27 countries. In Russia it is considered as the best professional PM tool and is used in most serious programs like Olympic Games preparation, development of Russian Pacific Area, etc. But it is also used by small companies because it is easy to use, don’t need any other software except Windows, has very low hardware requirements. You can level resources of 300000 activities program using ordinary netbook in several minutes.



I’ll be glad to answer your questions. If you will start to use it you will find many features that are not usual. Start learning the software with First Project item in Spider Project Help menu.



Best Regards,

Vladimir

Santhosh kumar,



If you are to deploy Spider Project on a network:



Consider ease of installation and updating. I can download new version from internet and it takes me to download full new Spider Professional versions about 3 minutes and about 2 minutes to install. I have seen how cumbersome it was to upgrade or relocate the network installation and database within P3e and suspect P6 is similar, just compare with Spider.



Consider that eventually you will have to do some manipulation of the database fields and their values. Just compare how difficult it is using OBDC while with Spider Project manipulation using what they call Reference Books is relatively easy.



Finally consider how access rights are assigned by creating an unlimited number of access rights templates that allow you to define access down to the individual field level by using Reference Books and being able to assign them individually per job, per user.



Best regards,

Rafael

Download Comparative analysis of the functional features of PM software packages from link;



http://www.spiderproject.ru/publ_e.php?p=2|6



Best Regards,

Rafael

Hi Santash



As far as I know only Vladimir and Rafael are active users of Spider.



Go and look at the "Lets Challenge Spider" thread and you will get a good idea of the software.



Best regards



Mike Testro