Hi Trevor !
% weighting for preliminaries (ie activities were labour manhours are not spent) can be given arbitary.
These preliminaries include contracts ,Planning, engineering, Quality, procurement ..etc for a typical constrn project.(Assuming fabrication & erection are the major activities in the contract)
Now the large chunk of labour hours are distributed among - fabrication (Onshore) and erection (offshore)
Your estimators give you target hours for each of these headings.
Say we have allocated 15% for preliminaries (Contracts/ planning /engg/ documentation .etc)
The remaining 85% is to be distributed b/w on-shore fabrication and off-shore installation.
This proportion is arrived based on the target manhours estimated.
Onshore weighting = 85% X (Onshore Manhours) / (Onshore manhours + Offshore manhours)

Offshore weighting = 85% X (Offshore manhours) / (Onshore manhours + Offshore manhours)

Now we have sub activities in onshore fabrication. Weightage can be distributed among these based on the manhours allocated to them.

As explaned in this post and several other posts, for arriving a Physical progress for an activity the following methodologies can be adopted:
1)Use a sub tracker
2)Use qty exected / total qty method
3)Use 0- 100 0r 20-80 method
4)Use expert judgment (Least accurate)
For example , for piping , I use a sophasticated tracker (based on excel)
this tracker records no. of spools prepared, dia inch fitted, dia inch welded, no. of spools hydro tested, number of spools painted.etc
We give weighting to each of these activities based on our previous experience (Manhour based)
like prep-10% , fitup-15%..etc

Hence we arrive at a % completion for each ISO metric.

This is the Physical % complete.

Hand rail erection progress is measured as : Meters of handrail erected / Total length of hand rail
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Good planning is needed for finalizing the progress measurement strategy. The measured progress should reflect the actual progress at work.Above all THIS IS ABSOLUTELY PROJECT SPECIFIC ! What Iam listing here is only one methodology.
Majority of project manhour (90% +) account for labours who do the actual construction work (Banging steel and climbing structures !)
So identify the headings where actual labour hours are spent.
Allocate certain % for the preliminaries(say 10%)
So, the remaining 90% goes to actual construction activities.
Now the issue is how to distribute this 90% among various constrn activities. My practice is , distributing that based on the target manhours for various construction activities.

Once you have the concept , its easy to build a cascading progress tracker.

Hope this helps.

Cheers !

Sreejith
+974-5863241

Hi Cherie !
As per our company practice we measure only labour productivity. Staff & support services are excluded from this measurement.
Our manhour/ labour estimation is also based on labour hours.[So, the target hours for a specific job will only be labour hours]

Now list out the major headings in the schedule:
Example:

Project : Construction of Offshore platform for Shell
1 CONTRACTS (1%)
2 PLANNING (2%)
3 ENGINEERING (4%)
4 PROCUREMENT (6%)
5 QULAITY CONTROL (2%)
6 ON-SHORE FABRICATION (40%)
6.1 STRUCTURAL
6.2 PIPING
6.3 E & I
7 OFF-SHORE INSTALLATION (35%)
7.1 STRUCTURAL
7.2 PIPING
7.3 E & I
8 PRE-COMMISSIONING (5%)
9 DOCUMENTATION (5%)

Allow % weightings for each of the top level items.

Now you have target hours for off-shore fab , say 1000 hrs
out of which 600 is structural
300 is piping
and 100 is E&I

Sum of weightings of 6.1, 6.2 & 6.3 should add up to 40%
so , 6.1 = 40% X (600/1000)
6.2 = 40% X (300/1000)
6.3 = 40% X (100/1000)

Apply the same method to OFF-SHORE INSTALLATION as well

Remember that you apply the weighting to the lower most activity

Sum of all the weightings should be equal to 100%

Manhour required for an activity is generally derived from ’estimation manuals’ - Like John S Page book

There are some thumb rules like, we need 1.5 labour hours to complete 1 dia inch piping. So a job involving 100 dia inch may require 150 Hrs (Example only)

Now, for each isometric, you can distribute the hours proportionally based on dia inch of each isometric.

Similar way follows to structural also, but in structural we use Manhours / Metric Tonne

Now we have the weightings, and weighting adds up to 100%

Progress contribution of an activity to the project = Activity weighting X Its physical progress.

If you want to find the progress for a group of activities (Eg: ON-SHORE FABRICATION )then :
Step 1 : Enter physical progress of individual activities with in this group
Step-2 : Multiply individual activity progress by its weighting
Step-3 : add up weighted progress
step-4 : find out the sum of weightings for all the activities coming under the group
Step-5 :Progress of group (ON-SHORE FABRICATION) =
Sum of weighted progress / Sum of weightings for the group

Okay.. I think I have given enough into this methodology.

I dont mind writing another "Mahabharatha" on productivity tracking based on this progress tracker, if substancial public demand is there..

Till then..
Enjoy your day .. and take care

Cheers!

Sreejith Nair
+974-5863241

I will have to write another "Ramayan" , if you want to know how to derive weightings and generate productivity curves,

I will do that , once substantial public demand is there !

Cheers !

Sreejith

u cannot have cashflow unless u feed in resource and cost.

Use MS Excel

By using week no.s i.e. 1,2,3..... on the top row of spreadsheet.Input activity weeks under each week per week.

Undertake a cumulative count up using excel of each week for the planned activity weeks to give you your cumulative output.

Do the same for actual activity weeks and then plot that curve and compare. The cash flow exercise is the EVA technigue. Your Commercial Manager must give you this information.

Go to reports function in MSP 2007 and you can plot s-curves, cash flows, EVA etc