Anoon

Mike is into nano-management, he is even a step ahead of micro-management. He does not believe you should be allowed to manage your jobs at your management style but only at his, he feels the urge to ban what does not fit his style.

As you can see I promote to allow more options than to ban them for convenience. Let the contractor’s decide if they want to go with manual leveling or computer aided leveling, both have their place into management.

New functionalities open your options, freedom is about options, don’t become a micro-manager. Empower all in your enterprise, don’t use the tools to steal away middle management authority while keeping responsibility on them, is absurd, you might be creating Micromanagement Zombies.



Many higher learning institutions are developing computer algorithms to solve real life constraints, this mean multiple sets of constraints at the same time, let’s challenge them to include these into our software. Traditional CPM is kind of outdated, Spider Project is taking the lead, no doubt about it.

Best regards,
Rafael

Vladimir,

I don’t really believe that I can absorb what you are trying to say. I supposed my role here is just to hold you and let Mike and Rafael beat you up! Or is it Mike to be beaten up?

If what you are saying with "Spider" is true (considering that I’ve never seen or used it), I supposed your software will make the Planner the laziest worker in this world!

Or maybe it can get rid of the Planner’s or Quantity Surveyor’s jobs (I don’t want to use it of course).

As I understand from what you had said:

1. Different Skills - Defined and categorized with different productivity rates.

2. Crew - Composed of different Skills (Tailored for a specific activity)

3. Roles - Maybe with Skills and Names (I’m not sure)

4. Materials - I don’t know how you’ll define it?

All of the above are stored in a pool or a dictionary, and once you had laid out your activities, you’ll just pick from the pool the appropriate resource or crew and assign it to an activity or activities.

From there, the program will calculate durations for you? (considering that you just leave the original duration blank?).

And it will level resources as well considering that maybe some are in vacation?

Now, Mike and Rafael - all you are saying are obsolete!

cheers!

Hi Vlad,

I refer to your post # 59 and if that his how Spider works ("activity durations are calculated during scheduling"), then I would say that I’ve never done like that (if there’s any schedule that I’ve made).

I presumed that you mean calculations of "original duration" and not remaining duration?

For me, if there’s an existing resource pool (maintained by a certain company for example), then maybe there is an existing "standard productivity rates" as well.

Now, if you had defined your activity or activities in a measurable manner, i.e. with measurable units, like m3; m2; lm; etc., I supposed you can also derive your resources or crew based from the existing "resource pool and rates" and from the activities that you had defined. This is what I meant for quantifying resources or crew.

I supposed as well that at first, you will always assign the average number (and never total or peak). So what’s the main reason of leveling resources when you had already known the average number (and that is supposed to be your budget)?

I also believed that your last paragraph (post # 59) answers the question.

"Resource Leveling" only boils down to "Profit Evaluation"


Rafael,

I never expected that you knew "sabong" as well. Well, maybe because your ancestors brought it to us. Don’t tell us that you’re also playing that? No wonder why you are well versed in "contracts".

cheers!

I really dont know what is going on here.

The thread start with raffy challenging mike

then how come

raffy want mike to help him beat up vladimir.

something wrong with raffy involvement in the pacquaia vs cotto bout

so strange this plannet.

Planning planet.

Thank you,
Scarlett

Vladimir,

It can be a very interesting thread as it will not be limited to a single issue. I will throw my best punches at you; will even throw a kick but no low blows, only relevant functionality. Multiple activities in a single bar is kind of borderline to me but the linear projects report is not, it is at the side of relevant functionality.

Hope it will reveal our needs and frustrations with available software.

I got a few ideas on where to get you. Don’t worry yet, true resource smoothing is something we do not use in construction jobs, I will not ask for it. I am curious about financial constraints, kind of novel to me, not to mention into multi constraint analysis.

Genetic Algorithms to tackle multi constraint optimization to me sound like science fiction, but I don’t care, just give me the functionality.

Mike,

You can hold him while I beat him; I just promised no low blows but mentioned nothing about holding him.

Best regards,
Rafael

Vladimir

What about space limitations when scheduling your activities, this cannot be modeled with the resource allocation functionality within our software? This got to be very relevant in offshore work similar to the shipyards.

Hit them hard, I still have the hope that eventually they will get it, even if by brute force, by repetition. Then they will ask for software with such functionality.

Mike,

LOL and a few more LOLs, thanks, some fun is always welcomed.

As you most probably noticed some of us do what you do with regard of resource leveling. It has worked fine for me but I wonder how difficult it got to be in large jobs when you get falling behind and got to release a multitude of the soft relationships, even when in time most probably the changing nature of resource relationships can make the resource leveling algorithms more efficient. To be able to compare both on the spot would be good. Under these circumstances, when using resource leveling, resource critical path is a must have otherwise is crazy.

Best regards,
Rafael

Hi Anoon,
of course we start with determining WBS and activities, and yes, we define the volumes (quantities) of work that shall be done on each activity. I don’t understand what did you mean by quantifying resources or crews. But assigning resources we define their productivities (volume of work that can be done in one hour). Basing on this activity durations are calculated during scheduling. Resources also have costs, may consume materials and all this shall be set.

The answer to your third question shall be calculated. It is easy to play what if scenarios and to compare project costs in both cases. If standby is profitable then select standby, if not – recall the crew.

Best Regards,
Vladimir

Mike

Some of our specs specifically prohibit the use of “soft logic” of any kind; maybe they consider it a float suppression technique. In such cases you have no other option than to use resource leveling or keep a separate schedule to manage your work.

What really surprises me is that they force you to use resource leveling within outdated and rubbish software as Primavera or Asta PowerProject, software without the functionality to show true critical path under limited resource constraining (resource leveling).

If you are not to be allowed to use “soft logic” then only Spider Project should be specified, is the only software I know that can show you true critical path under resource leveling. If you are allowed to use "soft logic" then Asta PowerProjet is a better option to Primavera products as it provides you to categorize relationships and in this way you can easily distinguish "soft" from "hard" logic.

I understand there is some incompatibility with combining the use of “soft logic” and resource leveling, but the contractor should be allowed to choose his own preference. I accept that because of the heuristic nature of resource leveling algorithms these will not necessarily always yield the optimum solution, “soft logic” also will not. There is no such thing as a perfect plan.

I am against specifications that prohibit the use of “soft logic”, it is your plan, as long as it is reasonable you should be allowed to present it and use it.

Best regards,
Rafael

Mike,

I supposed nobody wants to challenge you anymore as regards resource levelling and your finish-to-start 0 lag relationship. With my limited knowledge (if any), I’m 100% with you.

Now, why you will do "resource levelling"? It is one of the many ways to make Profit.

Another question: How are you going to budget your "resource pool" say on a yearly basis (regardless if your company is big or small)?

Isn’t it still on a project basis? If you got project, you need resources; if you don’t have project, are you gonna get rid of your resources? Or sustain until your capital gets drained?

cheers!

About levelling.

Proper levelling will supply you with the information about the minimal number of different resources necessary to finish the work in three months, when and what number of resources shall work, what materials are needed and when, if material supply has some limitations how to organize the work taking into account these limitations, etc.
Usually organization resources are limited and resource levelling shows how to do the work with the limited resources that you have, what order of activity execution to select to minimize project duration.

Regards,
Vladimir

I bet for Pacquiao.

50 USD if he will fail to win against cotto may go to your favorite foundation for the needy.

50 USD to 0.

Thank you,
Scarlett

Anoon

There are not fixed rules, it depends on the particular needs of your work, the scale or granularity required to efficiently manage your schedule.

For your particular example, in our jobs the construction of the electrical substation building would require a small activity count but the masons would be taken from a pool of masons that might be scheduled to do work on other areas. Resource constraining helps you detect and avoid conflicts in scheduling activities when there is a shortage of resources.

If your company is doing just the substation building whether you use or not resource constraining the duration of the job will be driven not only by sequential logic but also by the assigned resources. Even after all this B.S. I would not take the time to model resource leveling in such a job and hire jack of all trades, expert in none but that can handle multiple trades.

The rule is, there are no fixed rules.

Best regards,
Rafael

.... Pacquiau, Cotto time is nearing.

Vladimir

SureTrak was about 400US$ street price a few years ago when we got our licenses. Now it is about 800US$ the same version, just Google it. We got to love Primavera, with time vintage cars cost more, why not vintage software?

Best regards,
Rafael

Vladimir

An ability to place multiple activities on the same line I do not consider it as the serious advantage of some software, is kind of a gizmo I like for convenience in report presentations for multistory buildings schedules, is a matter of convenience.

But the functionality for True Critical Path that Spider Project has, this is a must have, not being able to see driving logic (relationships and resources) is crazy.

I do not believe in manual resource leveling but with our software lacking the functionality for true Critical Path we have no other option than use soft dependencies to mimic true critical path. And yes we know resource driving relationships move, appear and disappear as the schedule moves. Soft dependencies are far from perfect, very far, we know.

Most of our contractors are small and not in the opulence as the big players, a few P3 licenses and the service contract for a few years would buy you a backhoe, we use SureTrak because of its price and compatibility with P3 and also because it is commonly specified or accepted as a substitute to P3. For your knowledge SureTrak was priced for about 400US$, street price on the internet, until Primavera/Oracle decided to raise the price of a product they no longer update.

Best regards,
Rafael

Vladimir

Let’s see if I got it. I can assign to each activity, to be performed within a limited area, a "space" material resource for this area, for other areas a different "space" material resource and in this way I can perform my multiple constraining for all "space" material resources and other resource types.

Quite ahead of what we are using!!! Our software has very limited capabilities with regard to multiple constraining. Some of these are performed independently of each other so you do not get the simultaneous constraining for all constraint sets with all the implications this mean. About financial constraints none is considered.

My son has a phone that can receive e-mails with a touch screen that rotates the image as needed, to me still a toy, a gizmo, we embrace this futile technology but for serious work we are still thinking in CPM of the 60’s.

Best regards,
Rafael

Mike

If you are referring to bed wards then after a few rooms you would get to the top of the learning curve and be able to adapt your schedule, on the other hand if work was to be done at areas with multiple room uses, each with different available work space, different trades requirements this would have been quite a challenge, no time for learning curve, you had to make it at first try on every room, a scheduling job only for very experienced planners.

In my sample question you had the whole wing available but trade coordination and limit of space still a challenge.

Best regards,
Rafael

Mike,

1) Are you talking about too many tradesmen working in the same workface? – Yes, several crews working at the same time on the same limited space.
2) You do not need fancy algorithms to work out how the two resources can be planned to work in conjunction. – Yes, it is an advanced operations research question that is solved using fancy algorithms or by modeling all possible outcomes.
3) It would seem that the rebar fixers are the driving resource and the conduit fixers are on standby to come in when the opportunity arises. – is not as simple as that, it is a multiple constraints issue where resources are analyzed in conjunction of other constraint sets, space is a constraint set (type) different to resources that cannot be analyzed in conjunction using our old software, our scheduling tools and techniques are fragmented and designed to deal with a limited set of construction constraints.
4) The issue cannot be solved by considering available space as a resource, but as a different set of constraints.

Assume you are to retrofit a floor in a hospital, there are 60 rooms of different sizes and different activities to be performed on each room with many trades working at the same time; assume you have somewhat limited resources and at the same time a space constraint that varies from room to room. How to model this into a CPM to obtain the best on near to best plan would be a common question.

Many of us use resource leveling, a few true resource smoothing (not available in P3) without knowing the workings of the sophisticated algorithms, we don’t have to; all we need are the tools.

Best regards,
Rafael

Hi Mike,

You said you only use hours as your "resource". And you are modeling it based on costs? (i’m not sure, maybe i’m refering to the other thread).

Since this thread is a challenge to you, I hope you won’t mind if I’m trying to dig-up the consistency of your statements (regardless of the threads).

You also said you can use several calendars provided the relationship is nailed to finish-to-start (FS). This I intend to agree.

Now the questions:

1.What do you think is the driving calendar, is it the task calendar or the resource calendar(s) (if you got day shift and night shift)?

2. Or do you need to assign a task calendar for a task that need several shifts? Or you are going to use only resource calendars?

if you just don’t mind answering

cheers!

Mike

“A clear advantage of using GA over other methods is potential to locate global optimum or near global optimum solution without a necessity to search for all solution spaces.
Moreover, the processing time only increased as the square of the project size and not exponentially.”

Exponential functions look somewhat similar to polinomial functions you have seen before, in that they involve exponents, but there is a big difference, in that the variable is now the power, rather than the base. Previously, you have dealt with such functions as f(x) = x², where the variable x was the base and the number 2 was the power. In the case of exponentials, however, you will be dealing with functions such as g(x) = 2^x, where the base is the fixed number, and the power is the variable.

This is not a “Brute Force Method” that looks for all possible combinations and then picks up the solution but an algorithm that converges to the solution or near optimal solution substantially faster.

Our software are not keeping up with the available knowledge, our software developers are incapable of handling these solutions to solve real life problems. The issue on limitation on space is quite common, but how can you model this using available resource constraining functionality within our software? We got to stop thinking like if 50 years ago.

Spider Project is ahead, I want to see by how much.

Best regards,
Rafael

Mike

Easy, the principles of “survival of the fittest”, just give me the tools, whatever as long as it is close to the optimum, the same goes with Resource Critical Path.

The author most probably figure it out from observation on the required iterations as project size increased (I understand relevant activities count).

I just want to see with what does Vladimir is going to throw at us, if he says and can prove Spider Project can handle this then we should ban him for 30 years until our software developers can catch up.

Best regards,
Rafael

Vladimir

Can Spider Project handle multi-constraint scheduling?

I have particular interest in the modeling of time-space conflict problem.

With increasing pressure for shorter delivery schedules, general contractors must increase the amount of work done per time unit by increasing the resources utilized by activities and by scheduling more activities concurrently. Since space is limited at many construction sites, an increase in space occupation per unit time can result in time-space conflict in which one activity’s space requirements interfere with those of another activity or with work-in-place.

The following is a reference to the above issue.

Everyone piles in to get something done

Best regards,
Rafael

… at some point Spider Project will be under check mate. LOL

Vladimir

Because of poor software capabilities.

You were correct when you inferred I do not level resources. I resource load the schedule to make sure our soft relationships “solved” the issue. This prevent us from unlevel the schedule, as a consequence we are missing schedule compression options.

Most of our Contractors favor the use of "soft relationships" because our software after resource leveling does not show resource critical path nor resource float, with the lack of this functionality float is meaningless under limited resources. You lose track of what is driving your activities.

Traditional resource leveling reports are kind of cumbersome and even hidden, some P3 and P6 users do not even know about these reports. SureTrak do not provide me with such a report.

Proper Implementation of Resource Leveling

The Contractor wants to see which activity was delayed by predecessor or by resource; resource critical path provides the answer visually on the spot, on every screen.

From the next link:

Resource Critical Path Approach to Project Schedule Management

“True critical path should take into consideration all schedule constraints including resource and financial limitations.”

Nothing, new, we know that, our software developers do not know how to get the resource leveling algorithm to tell what it did. Our software developers are going backwards, re-inventing the wheel, hundreds of definitions for date fields and a database with thousands of irrelevant fields but not much up-to-date functionality. They are a bunch of database managers incapable of any scientific thinking.

Best regards,
Rafael

Mike

You got the right sequencing of trades. I was referring to the very common sequence you have when you strip your flying forms, one by one with a tower crane, it might be 2 decks per bay, 8 bays per day. You have 16 decks working in sequence, at 3 activities per deck this would yield 48 activities per day only for your elevated slabs, then for your walls you would get about twice, and so on, for a single days work and only for what is happening on the top floor, it is too much, your approach is not practical. Just imagine the printout for a single day’s work at your typical condo, something the contractor has been doing for many years.

Not all of my laddering are progressive feed but most of them, for progressive feed your best option is to use this functionality if available in your software, if not a progressive feed then your option would be SS and FF relationships.

“Your updating software is just a spreadsheet application that works with P3 or SureTrak where you can’t otherwise copy - paste the data.” - Copy and paste is so error prone that none of the serious scheduling software should have it as the mean for updating the whole thing, a more advanced technique is a better way to do it. Copying and pasting thousands of spreadsheet lines just to update a few cells is not an efficient way of doing things.

“I have listed the reasons for avoiding FF SS lags many times on PP before now and you and I and Vladimir have discussed them all. “ - For the moment I have not seen any valid reason on your part, on the other hand there are a couple very specific exceptions on the references I gave you before.

Your approach to resource leveling I find it to be practical. I use the concept of crews where a crew might be composed of various related trades, at times you do not know exactly your final ratio of masons to helpers and unskilled or labors but you know what size crew it will be. The crew will be working under the same supervisor for many weeks and the personnel are not to be moved from crew to crew on a daily basis. This is how construction works are managed, different to the matrix organization a design firm will use to manage their design teams where a designer might work for different jobs, for different PMs and a design trade supervisor. Here each person would be a single resource, each with a particular set of skills.

Best regards,
Rafael

Vladimir

It seems like Micro Planner have something similar, they call it "progressive feed", and yes this approach must be more practical and safer than using lag times. Use of lags will not be enough, SS and FF won’t prevent successor from slipping away. Progressive feed or Volume Lag is more than just a safe substitute for SS and FF, has a lot to do with resources and also with float even in the absence of resources. I know you know it but it is important everyone else get it, sorry for being redundant once again. I bet in your favor that they do not have the reports you have for linear jobs.

Mike

What about resource leveling, without resources there is no job? We got to admit Spider Project provides full CPM functionality into linear jobs like no other software. Why two software packages if you can do it with one? Especially good when you have a combination in a single job. Other Linear Scheduling software provides a lot of beautiful graphs at a high cost but not much functionality.

At times I have a need to keep several activities in a ladder with SS, FF and zero lag for activities that are incidental with another. As for example I might have an activity for placing of rebar on an elevated slab but at the same time the electrician and plumber got to be working in the same area. I need to separate them from the main activity for reporting and coordination with the trades. These activities must start and finish at the same time.

For updating our jobs we use Primavera Post Office, a mini application that can run stand alone. We filter the activities to be updated, a 3 month look ahead and e-mail the filtered Primavera Post Office file. This avoid sending the whole count and looking through a large number of activities, no need to send those previously finished or not in the horizon. When I receive back the file in my e-mail box I update the activities at a click of the mouse without need to make sure all activities are sorted out exactly as per my spreadsheet. Activity fields and resources can be updated as you can customize the table with ease. Sorry using a spreadsheet to update a CPM seems like archaic, no matter what gadget you are using.

Please help me with a list of lag traps so I can make a list for my use as to avoid them. For my laddering I will continue using SS and FF lag without the full functionality you can get with progressive feed, volume lags or ladder type activities, I have no other option with my software.

Use of lag other than laddering represent a mere 1% of my activity count but I am still concerned about this 1% (Total activity count x 10% activities with lag x 10% not ladders = 1% of total activity count).

Best regards,
Rafael

To all:

Managing the Overlap: Where inserting an additional task is not appropriate, the nature of the gap needs to be clearly understood: Why is this lag needed?

Links, Lags and Ladders


Mike

Mike using percentage instead of remaining duration to update your job is usually erroneous; the software computation for remaining duration will usually come out wrong, in disagreement with true remaining duration. In order to get it right when using percentage duration, got to know actual duration and remaining duration; when linked, %complete = 100x (Actual Duration)/ (Actual Duration +Remaining Duration)

In addition you should consider the following;

PITFALL #1: Linking of Percent Complete and Remaining Duration

I find your approach as another way to model the same thing as if you divide a 30 days activity into two 15 days activities in tandem. Construction jobs at this side of the pond are required to have a scale with maximum construction activity duration of 20 days, waiver to this are accepted if justified and non construction activities such as a delivery are exempted. Our good practice protocols are based on this scale, lag is one of the issues our protocols pay particular attention. It can be that applying this protocol to linear jobs might spell disaster.

I was hoping for you to tell me why my model is wrong, the following link is from a book which its first edition was written over 40 years ago, still on the market but I wonder if up to date to 15 years ago after SureTrak update or service pack C. I believe most of the issues about lag in the US have their origin here, when this book was written and O’Brien was one of the pioneers. He was one of the proponents of constraining contractual milestones and project duration, allowing for negative lag and the cause of many headaches.

Lag Algorithm


In the link you will see an example of the traps in the use of lags, but I could not even re-create the trap in my model using my version of SureTrak following good updating practice. You are welcome to use it as a reference in your quest to invalidate the use of lags in my model. You are also welcome to show us other situations where the use of lag tricks the CPM computations, now we understand your model, let’s move to the next stage.

The idea is if there are traps (we know there are) in the use of lags, let’s go to the bottom of it. I am sure we can get a set of rules that will avoid most of the traps without banning all lags.

Vladimir,

With traditional SS and FF links you cannot fix the distance between two activities so related that if the second is delayed the first must slow down and is also delayed, resource allocation will follow. Probably your software can do that without resort to cumbersome relationships, I am sort of becoming lazy. The idea of having a definition for a SS and FF to create a fixed steps, equal rungs ladder is a functionality I would like to have. I don’t remember if Micro Planner ladder activities behaved in this way but believe it does.

Best regards,
Rafael

Mike,
we repeat the same arguments.
With your approach 1000 km pipeline model will have close to 1 mln activities and you did not try any project of that size with PowerProject. I don’t think that it will be easy to work with this model. And multiple activities on the same line do not add much to the way people work with the data. Besides your approach means that you replace continious work with discreet elements that creates unnecessary delays.

If you have objective (physical measure of the work performed then long durations do not create problems. If you know the direction of pipeline construction and know that 5km were done you know the exact point where the crew is at the moment. In this case activities may be longer.

So you will agree with Rafael if he will suggest 14 days example instead of 30 days example?

Best Regards,
Vladimir

Mike,
I did not find in Rafael post anything about long activity durations. More than that we recommend to restrict activity durations not by 14 but by 7 days and we still use SS and FF links.
The distance between construction crews at pipelinbe construction is usually 500 meters and the speed of construction is close to 500m/day. And it is easy to estimate where each crew is knowing the volume of work that have been done measured in physical units.

You did not answer Rafael’s question, you discussed other topic.

Mike

By subdividing CMU Partitions into 6 stages then you are opening the door for six out-of-sequence occurrences between CMU Partitions and Cement Plaster after it happens at the first stage there is no reason why it cannot happens during the next stages, most probably it will. Similarly with Cement Plaster and Paint Walls, is kind of complicating things. I accept naming the stages got to be fun.

From four activities now we got into 19, there’s got to be some justification for it otherwise is nonsense.

I never had problems with my updating except when out-of-sequence occurs, why increase the chance? We use the correct methodology in our updating, I don’t see any valid reason to increase the number of activities by a factor of 19/4=~5 and in addition increase the chance for out-of-sequence occurrences from 2 to 12 this yields a factor of 12/2=6 is kind of insane. In this regard I find the first model superior.

Can you be more specific about the progress updating issues your software has? It cannot be something you got out of an old book or someone told you. I want to make sure my software does not show this kind of behavior using our method of updating and calculation options. I would appreciate if you use my model so I can easily follow you; anyway you say it is wrong, just 4 activities instead of 19, is a bargain.

If I got a SS1 (one day lag) relationship how many stages will I get, what if SS0? If it cannot be 0, then Lim (lag --> 0) ?

Best regards,
Rafael

Mike

Let’s make it a model for CMU Installation, Cement Plaster and Painting something many must be familiar with.

Activity-Duration-Successors
A1 CMU Partitions -30d-A2SS5, A2FF5
A2 Cement Plaster-30d-A3SS10, A3FF10
A3 Paint Walls-30d-A4
A4 Misc. Surface Repairs-5d     

Show us how you will model the network using only FS0 relationships and at the same time all work on the activities kept continuous during any update, maybe at a variable rate, and of course all relationships maintained.

You got to consider activities no A2 and no A3 have other successors and that subdividing the activities in many small duration activities would never show true relationships as you always can further divide the activities as if you were solving a calculus problem. This would be nuts.

Finally tell us why the use of lags makes invalid the above model. Please be reminded that many of the traps with lags are related to updating, these can be avoided with the proper use of your scheduling options. As for example, do not link remaining duration and percent complete, this creates problems with lag on some old software versions, this is a lazy scheduler option as well as any other option that automates updating, the problem is in the options not in the use of lag. Keep as a reference your outdated CPM books but don’t take for granted all you read on them.

Best regards,
Rafael

Hi All,

Allow me to refer to Mike’s post no. 16:

1. "Are you saying that you arrange your work so that rebar fixers - electricians and plumbers are all working in the same place at the same time? I don’t think so".

2. "The rebar fixers will complete the bottom section and move on - the conduit fixers will follow and then the rebar fixers will return for the top layer."

For No. 1 (If I’m allowed to answer), I’d say yes! This always happens before concrete placement and you are running after the inspectors to sign your pouring request!

For No. 2 - Ideal but not always the case, because conduit fixers tie their conduits on top layer bars sometimes (Mike, I thought you are a Builder???).

cheers!