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Greetings all,
I would appreciate it if you could share some notes from your experience, suggestions and ideas on using MS Project in maintenance operations. Especially planning, scheduling and managing shutdowns. Any implementations of multiple project management with MS Project in managing maintenance operations...
Best Regards.
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Hello all!
Here are some links that helped me in the past learn a little more about project management with MSP. Hope they help!
1. http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/create-a-project-schedule-with-mic...
2. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Microsoft_Project_Crash_Course/Level_1/Tas...
3. http://www.microsofttrends.com/2015/01/21/how-to-use-microsoft-project-e...
4. http://www.tacticalprojectmanagement.com/microsoft-project-deadline/
Also, you should check out Transpose!
I used MSP for quite a while before switching to Asana, then Transpose, as Transpose is closer to full-fledged ERP software.
I had some trouble with the cluttered nature and over-complication of MSP. Do check out Transpose if you get a chance!
David
Dear Abdullah,
I have a suggestion. Use MSP or Primavera just for weekly scheduling, daily scheduling and shut down scheduling.
Based on my experiences, P6 hase a good software for resource planning. As a planner you should know that wich jobs has more priority for next week, aslo you know the amount of possible availabile resource. Primaver can assign jobs to resources. To cope with the time of start and finish of a specific job on a specific machine, use some input job parameters such as "latest finish", "latest start" and earliest start in these software. Any problem?
Shahmoradi,
Maintenance consultant in Institue of reliability engineering and asset management (I-REAM)
Dear All,
I have a suggestion. Use MSP or Primavera just for weekly scheduling, daily scheduling and shut down scheduling.
Based on my experiences, P6 hase a good software for resource planning. As a planner you should know that wich jobs has more priority for next week, aslo you know the amount of possible availabile resource. Primaver can assign jobs to resources. To cope with the time of start and finish of a specific job on a specific machine, use some input job parameters such as "latest finish", "latest start" and earliest start in these software. Any problem?
Shahmoradi,
Maintenance consultant in Institue of reliability engineering and asset management (I-REAM)
Dear All,
I have a suggestion. Use MSP or Primavera just for weekly scheduling, daily scheduling and shut down scheduling.
Based on my experiences, P6 hase a good software for resource planning. As a planner you should know that wich jobs has more priority for next week, aslo you know the amount of possible availabile resource. Primaver can assign jobs to resources. To cope with the time of start and finish of a specific job on a specific machine, use some input job parameters such as "latest finish", "latest start" and earliest start in these software. Any problem?
Shahmoradi,
Maintenance consultant in Institue of reliability engineering and asset management (I-REAM)
Dear All,
I have a suggestion. Use MSP or Primavera just for weekly scheduling, daily scheduling and shut down scheduling.
Based on my experiences, P6 hase a good software for resource planning. As a planner you should know that wich jobs has more priority for next week, aslo you know the amount of possible availabile resource. Primaver can assign jobs to resources. To cope with the time of start and finish of a specific job on a specific machine, use some input job parameters such as "latest finish", "latest start" and earliest start in these software. Any problem?
Shahmoradi,
Maintenance consultant in Institue of reliability engineering and asset management (I-REAM)
There is one further issue on shutdowns: the process of compressing and optimizing the schedule. This should always be an important process, but it's often overlooked (or performed in half-assed fashion) on one-time projects. Even here, Critical Path Drag (and Drag Cost) computation can be of great help.
On shutdowns, where the process is usually one of optimization of a templated process over periodic iterations, Critical Path Drag computation is of huge value, allowing targeting of specific CP activities for crashing and/or fast tracking. With a Drag Cost on, for example, a nuclear plant refueling shutdown of over $1 million per day, Drag computation allows optimizing of both planned and actual (ABCP) schedules to optimize the template up front, and to identify useful adjustments when and if the CP changes during the shutdown.
To my knowledge, the only two software packages that compute Drag are Spider and the Sumatra Project Optimizer add-on to MS Project. And since there seems to be agreement that MSP is not sufficiently robust for outage management, I guess that leaves Spider.
Fraternally in project management,
Steve the Bajan
Hi JN
Vladimir is right - MSP and P6 are not sensitive enough.
I was engaged to plan a whole series of power outages for when a new sub station came on line in North London and the power had to be fed into the grid in strict sequences.
One part of the work could only be done on Friday Morning between 1:30 and 3:45 am in many different locations.
P6 software could not cope with this detail in the calendars so I used Asta PowerProject which coped well - I am sure Spider could do equally well.
Best regards
Mike Testro
I am grateful for your comments and information. I'll post back for further questions. Thank you again.
Recurring tasks can be modeled applying special task calendars (defining one work week per quarter as an example).
In this case delay of one event means changing calendar exceprtions and it will not cause automatic delays of other events.
But I don't see problems in creating several tasks (one for each maintenance activity) instead of one recurring task. It is easier to control and it is easy to hide them showing one work package that contains all similar activities.
Shutdown planning and management usually requires advanced resource planning with activity durations determined by amounts of work to be done and productivity of assigned resources, with durations measured in minutes, with work in several shifts, etc. In any case for these projects it is necessary to optimize resource constrained schedules and take into account existing uncertainties. I don't think that MSP and P6 have necessary capabilities.
Greetings JN,
I was in a place where you are currently, trying to use Primavera and MS Project for Maintenance Planning. My intrigue stemmed from the difficulty I was facing in SAP PM, and i tried to use both these software’s to see which gave the best results.
Although Primavera is a very efficient tool when it comes to allocating and managing resources, its main drawback when it comes to Maintenance Planning is that it does not have recurring task function. So if you have a Chiller PM to schedule 4 times year (Quarterly), you will have to create 4 tasks “Chiller PM" and give them a 3 month lag. Then to show your completion dates for your OMS and other regulations, you will have to mark these activities as completed with Actual Completion dates. The problem arises because in the real world we do not do the Preventive Maintenance on exactly the same day as Planned for various reasons, so now if you have delayed your PM by a week your next PM will automatically be delayed by week as you have set a lag. So if you have had 3 PM's delayed by lets say a week each then the fourth PM will have delayed by 3 weeks. With time, there is possibility that you have may done 3 instead of 4 PM's in a year without actually knowing it.
Or you could go ahead and create 4 activities and then set with constraints that are calculated with the PM frequency in mind. This way your next PM will be driven by the actual completion date, but then you can imagine the number of activities that you will have to set up. If you can get a team together and set this up it should work fine, but you will have to do this massive job once every year and set the PM schedule for the coming year.
This is the reason MS Project scores over Primavera when it comes to Maintenance Planning. Its recurring task function allows you to set the dates for the PM's that you have planned for a year. It also allows you to set a "day of the week" or a "date in the Month" on which you would like to have the PM Activity scheduled. This is more like the "Time Key Date" function in SAP if you are familiar with it. I found this capability of MS Project very attractive. The best part it also asks you if there is date that you have in mind for ending the Recurring Task from showing up in your schedule. If you done select this end date than you will have the schedule appearing year after year without you having to reset it yearly.
Since I have assigned different areas in our Plant on specific days of the week for PM activities (example Utilities PM is done of Tuesdays) the function of MS Project to schedule my recurring tasks on theses specific days has proven to be extremely beneficial. This helps my Electrical and Instrumentation maintenance teams to be self aware of planning their tools and work force for the day and also helps the Production Team in making the equipment available for PM.
Similarly if i have an issue with an Equipment Reliability that is picked up by the Condition Monitoring team it is easy for the Planner to schedule the corrective action of a the day the Equipment is due for PM.
If there is a Shutdown that is planned, I simply mark one single activity is MS Project that displays the length of the shutdown and I name the activity as "Schedule XYZ", I allocate all the resources to this shutdown from my Pilot PM Schedule and assign it top priority. This defers my others PM's during that time. As for the detail scheduling of the shutdown "Schedule XYZ' i create a separate MS Project plan using the same number of hours and resources that i had assigned in the Pilot PM schedule.
Regards,
Abdullah Merchant, PMP
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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