Scribd
Upload
180 views7 pages

Compress A Schedule Using Duration Types in Primavera P6

This document discusses how to use duration types in Primavera P6 to compress a project schedule by adding more resources. It describes setting the duration type of selected activities to "fixed units/time" so that doubling the budgeted units/time by adding another excavator and operator will allow P6 to automatically reduce the duration of those activities by half. This technique is shown to compress the schedule for a section of excavation work by 20 days. Proper use of duration types allows testing scenarios by recalculating durations when resources are added or removed.

Uploaded by

senrr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
180 views7 pages

Compress A Schedule Using Duration Types in Primavera P6

This document discusses how to use duration types in Primavera P6 to compress a project schedule by adding more resources. It describes setting the duration type of selected activities to "fixed units/time" so that doubling the budgeted units/time by adding another excavator and operator will allow P6 to automatically reduce the duration of those activities by half. This technique is shown to compress the schedule for a section of excavation work by 20 days. Proper use of duration types allows testing scenarios by recalculating durations when resources are added or removed.

Uploaded by

senrr
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 7

Compress A Schedule Using

Duration Types in Primavera P6


JUNE 6, 2015 BY MICHAEL LEPAGE 9 COMMENTS

  Share on Facebook   Share on Twitter 

Since we’ve been discussing schedule compression and project


acceleration techniques of late in preparation for next week’s
webinar on Construction Project Acceleration, I wanted to share
a quick Primavera P6 technique that is often applied when
compressing a schedule.

When I run classroom training courses on Primavera P6, one


thing I like to do is a group brainstorm on ways to get a project
back on track if you’re far behind.

I’ll ask “What are some actions project controllers can take to get
a project that is behind or falling behind back on track to finish
on time?”
And what’s the #1 answer I get?….it never fails.

“Fire the Project Manager!”

Kidding – that’s actually the #2 answer. But since it’s a


brainstorm, there are no wrong answers, right?

The #1 answer is……”Add more resources.”

It’s always the first answer I get. We are all somehow pre-
programmed to solve that problem by adding more labor or
other Resources to speed things up.

And it usually works too.

So here I want to show you a way to add more Resources to your


project’s activities in P6 and calculate the time savings for you.
Some of you may already know how to do this, but then again, a
review is always good.

Quick Caveat: this is not a complete solution to compressing a


schedule. There’s much much more analysis to be done to
accelerate a schedule and much of it won’t happen in P6. But if
you’re running a scenario or adding resources to a section,
here’s tip putting P6’s Duration Type feature to good use.

1 – The Setup
In this project, we’re going to focus on just a few activities, those
that have the Operator and Excavator assigned to them in the
Sub-Struct WBS element.

Let’s assume that we’ve determined we can safely bring in an


additional resources – an additional excavator & operator to
speed up the work on these 4 activities. Let’s assume that
doubling our resources here will double our output and reduce
each activity’s duration by half.

2 – Adjusting the Duration Type

For most planning tasks, I like to set all my activities to the Fixed


Duration & Units Duration Type. Having this set, I’m pretty free
to edit the Resource’s Units or Budgeted Units/Time fields
without P6 recalculating Duration. In the planning stage, I’m
usually keeping the Duration fixed as it came from the estimate.

But in this schedule compression situation, I want P6 to


recalculate the Duration – or to shorten my Duration as I add
more resources. This is the compression part of schedule
compression.

So I will set the Duration Type to Fixed Units/Time for the


activities that I want involved here.

3 – Increasing Budgeted Units / Time

Now I’m free to visit each activity and to double the Budgeted
Units / Time. Here, my team is working 12 hrs/d. So to show that
we have twice as many resources, we double it to 24 hrs/d. The
Budgeted Units / Time field has always confused people who are
unfamiliar with it. I try to explain this as a “productive capability”
value. In a day (12 hour period) we are able to accomplish 24 hrs
of work. So, we should conclude that we have 2 Resources work
12 hrs/d for a total of 24 hrs/d of effort.

Sometimes it’s a bit easier to understand with different units. If


you goto Edit -> User Preferences, and change your Duration
format to Hour, the Budgeted Units / Time field displays a value
like 1.00 h/h. To me this says, in 1 hour, we can accomplish 1
hour of work. If we double it to 2 h/h, then in 1 hour, we can
accomplish 2 hours of work – thus double the work force.

To come back to this example, I’m doubling the Budgeted Units /


Time for each of my 4 Excavation activities.

Because I’ve set my Duration Type to Fixed Units/Time (Fixed


Units also yeilds the same results), P6 has recalculated the
Duration for each activity, shortening their Duration. You can
clearly see the effect against the Baseline in the Gantt chart.

NOTE: Primavera P6 has all sorts of resourcing options


that change affect how this process works. For success, check
that your Resources are set to Drive Activity Dates which
means that the resource assignment’s Original Duration can
affect the header activity’s Duration. Here’s the field to have
checked on.

4 – The End Result

After a quick rescheduling of the project, I can now gauge how


my increase in Resources has saved me time.
It looks like I’m able to compress this section of work by 20 days.

The process I’m focusing on here is really the proper use of the
Duration Types field to give you a recalculated Duration value to
shorten work periods. You could easily add some automation to
this process and do it on a bigger scale by using a Global
Change to:

 set the Duration Type to Fixed Units on a set of Activities or


the entire project
 increase the Budgeted Units / Time on the same set of
Activities

Use this process to test out scenarios too. Make a copy or


a reflection of your project and to gauge the results of increasing
or even decreasing your Resources.

You might also like