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Calculation of Free Slack in MS Project 2000

5 replies [Last post]
Fri, 2007-05-25 04:28
Bo Johnsen
User offline. Last seen 8 years 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 28 Feb 2006
Posts: 119
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Civil Engineering
Hi all,

I have the following simple example to illustrate my problem: Say we have 3 activities A, B and C where durations are respectively 5, 10 and 10 days. Activity C are dependant of completion of both A and B. That means that activity A has a total and free slack of 5 days, which is correct. When I write "FS+1" from A to C it gives A a total and free slack of 4 days. Again correct. However, when I write anything with minus it suddenly reduce the free slack for A to zero, e.g. "FS-1" from A to C gives a total slack of 6 days for A, which is correct, but the free slack is now zero (0 days) whereas it should be 6 days?

I don’t understand this as in my mind activity A could still be delayed 6 days without delaying any other activity (C in this case).

Can anyone please explain?


Regards,

Bo
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Replies

Wed, 2007-06-13 00:26
#1
Brian Ultican
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I just tried this network in Project 2007 and it works as expected. FS-1 produces free and total slack of 6 days on A
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Sun, 2007-05-27 04:35
#2
Hemanth Kumar
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Joined: 1 Nov 2002
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Your Are Right Mr Paul Harris
MS Project Is A Wonderful Tool For Presentation Planning
And Beyond ThatYou Have To Depend On Other Programs



Hemant
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/8830/nethm4.jpg
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Fri, 2007-05-25 16:46
#3
Paul Harris
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Joined: 11 Apr 2001
Posts: 618
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All the schedule tools have problems.

MSP is simple to start with but when one gets into complex schedules such as progressing resourced schedules it gets very hard in MSP and I can do things four time quicker in other products.

It is a case of selecting the most appropriate tool for the job. If you are creating simple projects that you are not progressing then MSP is fine, but it is not the tool for complex schedules.

Paul E Harris
Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Planning and Scheduling Training Manual & Book Publishers & Consulting
www.eh.com.au
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Fri, 2007-05-25 06:40
#4
Bo Johnsen
User offline. Last seen 8 years 38 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 28 Feb 2006
Posts: 119
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Civil Engineering
Brad,

MS certainly has a lots of bugs and it is not the best planning programme, we all know that. However, it is not totally full of s... and none of the other planning programmes (and I’ve tested a "few")is that user friendly as MS Project. Probably the reason why it is still utilized by Tom, Dick & Harry, but not that much of specialized people (eg. construction planners).

Anyway, tried the same as you ("FS-1"), just in Candy and Pertmaster. Didn’t get any errors in those, ie. correctly calculated free slack. Another bug in MS as you stated.

Thanks,

Bo
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Fri, 2007-05-25 05:01
#5
Brad Lord
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Joined: 27 May 2003
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bo

it does this because project is full of bugs and full of shit, i have just tried it on suretrak and you get the correct results, ie when you put the fs -1 from a to c, the free float and total float increase by a factor of 1

regards

brad
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