INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

IN CIVIL ENGINEERING
 Strategic Planning for IT
Building a comprehensive strategic IT or engineering plan
that aligns your organizations efforts with the overall
corporate business strategies is essential to ensuring the
success of your department.

You are inundated with requests for new work and status
reports. Your success depends on being able to efficiently
absorb these requests, evaluate their impact to existing
delivery schedules, alter your project teams and resource
plans, and effectively communicate too many different
stakeholders quickly.
 Strategic Planning for IT
CEOs are looking to IT to deliver better
information for improved decision making,
to increase the speed of new product or
service development efforts, and to clearly
measure the impact or value IT has on
increasing revenues, increasing customer
satisfaction and lowering operating costs.
 Strategic Planning for IT
Primavera enables an IT or engineering
organization to manage the work request
process efficiently, to evaluate different
project portfolio scenarios for proper
prioritization of efforts, to enforce reporting
standards ensuring risks and issues are
quickly escalated and to communicate to
various stakeholders pertinent information
about their initiatives.
 Strategic Planning for IT
Specifically, Primavera helps IT and engineering
organizations:
Collect needed information from all work
requestors by standardizing the information
required and approval process to initiate a new
request
Easily review side by side comparisons of
different project portfolios based on key factors
that you decide as well as budget and resource
constraints
 Strategic Planning for IT
Standardize work delivery and reporting processes,
enabling you to effectively manage global teams

Communicate through configurable dashboards the right

information to the right people. The CEO will have a clear
view into the top priorities of IT and clearly understand
their business value. Business unit leaders will have a
unique view into all of the work they requested, seeing
their status and any changes to plans in real time. Each
person is given a window into the information directly
related to them
With Primavera you can not only build an effective IT
strategic plan but deliver against as well.
 High Tech industries and
Financial Services
Prioritize and manage work effectively
Improve visibility and forecasting
Optimize the use of global resources
Align IT efforts with the strategy
Accelerate new product development
 What is a Project?

A project consists of a series of tasks that have the

following characteristics:

Specific start and end dates

Well defined scope and objectives
Have budget and schedule
Generally unique and non-repetitive (particular mega projects)
Consumes resources (e.g. money, materials, people,
equipment)
Generic Project Life Cycle

Termination

Execution

Design

Feasibility Project
Management
 Project Management

Project Management is the overall planning, control

and coordination of a project from inception to
completion aimed at meeting the clients requirements
and ensuring completion on time, within cost and to
the required quality standards.
Project Management

Time

Project
Management

Cost Quality
Five Phases of Project
Management
 The Challenge

Satisfy Consultants
Banking/
Others Financing
Agents

Project
Government Contractors
Manager

Labor Material
Contractors Producers

Owners

Everybody!
 Project Organizations

Organizational structure

Type of team formation Communication pattern

Information exchange

Dynamic Process
 Project Teams

Conventional Setup

Owner

Field
observations

Architect/Engineer General Contractor

Sub Sub Sub

Management Principles
Management includes:
Planning
Scheduling
Controlling
Planning and Scheduling
 Project Planning and Scheduling

Project planning is the process of identifying all the activities

necessary to successfully complete the project.

Project scheduling is the process of determining the

sequential order of the planned activities, assigning realistic
durations to each activity, and determining the start and finish
dates for each activity. Thus planning is a prerequisite to
scheduling.

The objective of planning is to be able to complete the project

effectively within a reasonable amount of time, using
available resources including money, manpower,
materials and equipment. Thus a well-planned project
would be completed without unusual delay and cost overrun.
 Aim of Planning

Making sure all work required

to complete the project gets
done:
in the correct order
in the right place
at the right time
by the right people and
equipment
to the right quality
in the most economical, safe,
and environmentally
acceptable manner.
 Planning Questions

Who should plan?

EVERYONE

What should they plan?

Whatever work they are responsible for

When should they plan?

CONTINUOUSLY
 Who Can/Should Plan?

Client
Architect or Engineer
Contractor
Estimator
PM
Superintendent
Site Engineer
Foreman
Craftsman
Subcontractor
 Planning and Scheduling
Objectives
Objectives include:
The ability to create a simple bar chart and
a simple CPM logic network
An understanding of how to use a CPM for
determining project status and in
identifying float
The ability to calculate resource needs
Planning and Scheduling
The critical path method (CPM) is a
planning and control technique that
provides an accurate, timely, and easily
understood picture of the project.

The logic diagram graphically portrays the

relationships between project activities.
 Planning
Planning creates an orderly sequence of
events. It serves the manager by:
pointing out the things to be done
their sequence
how long each task should take
who is responsible for which tasks or
actions
 Activities
A common technique used to
understand and organize complex
undertakings is to divide the
problem into smaller subparts.

Each activity is a discrete task

 Activities
A time consuming, definable task.
Install Decking Place Cap

Place Stringers
Construct
Abutment
Drive Piles
 Activities
Activities consume time
Activities usually consume physical
resources
Activities
have definable start and
finish points
Activities are assignable
Activities are measurable
 Scheduling
Barcharts (Gantt Chart)

CPM Critical Path Method

Barchart (Gantt Chart)
 Bar Chart
The bar chart is widely used as a
construction-scheduling tool because of its
simplicity, ease of preparation, and
understandable format

Normally the activities are listed in

chronological order according to their start
date
 Bar Chart -
Disadvantages
It does not clearly show the
detailed sequence of the activities

Itdoes not show which activities

are critical to the successful,
timely completion of the project
 Critical Path Method
The logic diagram graphically portrays the
relationships between project activities

With this information, it is easier to plan,

schedule, & control the project

The CPM is a tool that assists the planning,

scheduling, & controlling of the project.
 Tools for Planning and Scheduling
Network Diagrams CPM and PERT-III
Basic inputs Basic outputs
- Activity Early start time
- Activity duration Early finish time
- Activity Late start time
interrelationships Late finish time
Criticality
Total Float
Free Float
Project duration
Critical path
 Critical Path Method

Before the diagram can be

developed, the project must first be
constructed mentally to determine
activity relationships
 Critical Path Method
For each activity ask:
Can this activity start at the
beginning of the project? (Start
activities)

Which activities must be finished

before this one begins? (Precedence)
 Critical Path Method
For each activity ask:
Which activities may either start
or finish at the same time this one
does? (Concurrence)

Which activities cannot begin until

this one is finished? (Succession)
 Critical Path Method
Thetwo basic logic symbols on the
precedence diagram are the node
and the precedence arrow
Critical Path Method
 Schedule Calculations
Sequential Logic
Activity 20 cannot start until
activity 10 is completed
 Schedule Calculations
Concurrent Logic
Activities 5 and 10 can proceed
concurrently
 Schedule Calculations
Multiple Predecessor Logic
Activity 20 cannot start until both
activities 5 and 10 are completed
Schedule Calculations
Multiple Predecessor Logic
Activity 30 & 40 cannot start until
both activities 10 & 20 are
completed
 Schedule Calculations
Multiple Successor Logic
Activity 20 must be complete before
either 30 or 40 can start, 30 can start
only after 10 and 20 are completed
40 can start immediately after 20 is
completed
 Forward Pass
The earliest time each
activity in the network
can start and finish
Theminimum overall
duration of the project
 Forward Pass
Early Finishn = Early Startn + Durationn
 Early start/early finish
Early start time (ES) of an activity
is the earliest point in time, taking
into account the network logic, that
an activity may start
Early finish time (EF) is the
earliest time the activity may finish
 ACTIVITY ON THE NODE
TIME ANALYSIS
Early Start
Early Finish

START 0 10
FINISH
13 30
15 45
9
Early start
 Backward Pass
A backward pass
through the logic
network will produce the
latest point in time that
each network activity
can start and finish, and
still maintain the
minimum overall project
duration
 Late finish/late start
Latefinish time (LF) is the latest
time that an activity may finish
without delaying the entire project
Late finish/late start
 Critical Path and Critical
Activities
A critical activity can be determined from
the logic network by applying either of
the following rules:
The early start and late start times for
a particular activity are the same
The early finish and late finish time for
a particular activity are the same
 CRITICAL PATH
1. ES = LS 4 11
7
2. EF = LF 4 11
The duration must be equal to the difference
between the ES and the EF or the difference
between the LS and the LF.
EF - ES = Duration or
LF - LS = Duration
 Critical Path and Critical
Activities

Criticalactivities are linked together

forming a path from the start
activity to the finish activity called a
critical path.
 Total Float
Total float (TF) is the amount of time
that an activity may be delayed
without delaying the project's
estimated completion time
Total float assumes that all preceding
activities are finished as early as
possible and all succeeding activities
are started as late as possible
 Total Float
Total Float = Late Start Early Start
Total Float = Late Finish Early Finish
Both equations will yield the same answer
An activity can take place at any time within
the interval defined by its early start and late
finish dates, and still not delay the project
 TIME ANALYSIS
20
7 17 15
10 22
12 22 example:
17
TF = 12 - 7 20
or 22 - 17 = 5 48
TOTAL FLOAT (TF)
= LATE START(LS) - EARLY START(ES)
or LATE FINISH(LF) - EARLY FINISH(EF)
 Tools for Planning and Scheduling
Network Diagrams Basic Definitions-I
Early Start (ES)
The earliest time an activity can be started
Early Finish (EF)
The earliest time an activity can be finished
(EF = ES + D)
Late Finish (LF)
The latest time an activity can be finished
Late Start (LS)
The latest time an activity can be started without delaying the
completion date of the project
(LS = LF - D)
Forward Pass calculations give ES & EF
Backward Pass calculations give LS & LF
 Tools for Planning and Scheduling
Network Diagrams Basic Definitions-II
Total Float (TF)
The amount of time an activity can be delayed
without delaying the completion date of the
project
(TF = LF - EF)
Free Float (FF)
The time an activity may be delayed without
delaying the early start time of the immediately
following activity
(FF(a) = ES(b) - EF(a))
where activity a is followed by activity b
 Tools for Planning and Scheduling
Network Diagrams Basic Definitions-III
Critical Activity
An activity which if delayed will delay the completion
date of the project.
A critical activity has zero Total and Free Floats
A critical activity lies on the critical path
Critical Path
A series of interconnected activities through the
network diagram, with each activity having zero, Total
and Free Floats.
The critical path determines the minimum project
completion time
 Tools for Planning and Scheduling
Network Diagrams Basic Calculations
 Project Control Process
Step 1: Define the parameters to be controlled
Step 2: Establish base lines for measuring performance
Step 3: Account performance by:
measuring performance
recording performance
reporting performance deviations
Step 4:Monitor performance by:
consolidating reported performance data
analyzing performance variations
forecasting performance trends
 Project Control Process
Step 5: Communicate information
feedback
management report
record keeping