(1) Explain your problem, don't simply post "This isn't working". What were you doing when you faced the problem? What have you tried to resolve - did you look for a solution using "Search" ? Has it happened just once or several times?
(2) It's also good to get feedback when a solution is found, return to the original post to explain how it was resolved so that more people can also use the results.
Hi
I find it very difficult to plan the SIMOPS into the schedule. Say you have a limited work area and you have hi-pressure activities such as leak tests in that area. When you do the leak tests, all other activities must stop.
What I have done is to mark the hi-pressure activities in a special code and try to push away or bring forward the non-hi pressure activities such that they don't coincide with the hi pressure activities.
Doing this by using predecessors is very time-consuming. But more importantly, because of weather dependency the schedule is very dynamic and every week the sequence may change, in which case all the simops will have to be looked at again. It's a nightmare.
I am using P6 and I wish it had an option of something like "SIMOPS Levelling". For example, it could schedule the activities with its current logic, but make sure they don't coincide with some specially marked activities such as leak tests.
Has anyone come across a similar situation? How do you plan your SIMOPS?
Thanks
Ulkutan
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Worked out how to do POB. Created a material resource called POB and assigned it to each resourced activity
each POB remaining value unit is based on the activity remaining hours. In our case 8 hours = 1 bed.
Updated using activity export and resource assignment import. That was the easy bit.
Now I have a SIMOPs issue. I have a couple of overlapping activities that can be SIMOPs, but cannot be SIMOP with other types of activity.
The issue is that I am using a levelled loosely. My concern was how to level. Well the Eureka moment came during this message. Assign a smaller SIMOPsresource to the conops activities (1/day) and a higher simops resource (4/day) to the the other type of activity (Leak testing). Levelling will allow 3 per day, but 5 per day will not be allowed.
Assign a higher priority to SIMOPs priority to the applicable activities
The overall limit is established by the number of beds, model beds as a resource with a limit of 100 and assign to each activity the number of beds the other resources will require.
This can create some excessive resource interchange because of your limit on beds. You can control this by making some resources available on intermittent periods, periods that shall span the duration of your activities unless your software can split the activities because of resource availability and if this is a feasible option at the activity level.
Managing limited resources is a need that is not always easy to tame. There are many ways, some are better than others, the key is finding a reasonable plan, as good as you can figure it out with the computer assistance that meets all your needs.
Hello again
While we are at levelling, I have got another question. Not sure how it is in Spider but I couldn't find a way in P6 to level to an overall limit, i.e. a limit which is valid for all disciplines and overrides the individual limit if necessary.
Here's what I mean: Say we have a vessel with 100 beds. That's our maximum limit for all resources. And I want to define limits for each resource, say, 10 structural, 20 piping, 35 instrument etc. The sum of individual limits may be over 100, because they will not always have to work at the same time.
P6 allows me to level each resource to its limit, but I am missing my overall limit of 100. Any ideas?
(Defining validity periods for each resource limits is impractical, as it's a dynamic schedule, there are interdisciplinary logic links)
Hi Gary
It is only one of many reasons - but if you can now at last change the colour of any task bar and perhaps the font and colour in the coloumn then maybe P6 is at last advancing into being usable software.
My main problem with it is that having purchased it some 4 years back I still can't open it.
Best regards
Mike Testro
Ulkutan,
P6 leveling is not perfect but I suggest to try different priorities for better result. Never use P6 default activity leveling priority, try Total Float, Late Start and other priorities in the list and select one that creates the best schedule. It takes time but is worth it. Though these schedules may be not optimal but still much better than default in most cases and this process is much easier than manual leveling.
In Spider Project everything is much easier - just select Optimization Plus and you will get the best schedule that is very hard to find manually.
Some activities can be interrupted. You shall use this option in your search for optimum.
Vladimir / Rafael
I also realised after I wrote, that levelling won't prioritise the SIMOPS activities. I have tested resource levelling. I assigned a SIMOPS resource to all activities, but to SIMOPS activities 10 units per day and to non-SIMOPS activities 1 unit per day. I gave a daily limit of 10 units per day. After levelling, it nicely scheduled such that there were no overlap between SIMOPS and non-SIMOPS. (However, on a separate note, because it delayed the completion so much that, given the fact that some of our simops dates are wild guesses on weather prediction, we didn't want to use it. Instead I did it manually as you saw in the picture in my previous post. I intentionally allowed some small overlaps on a case by case basis using some human intelligence/judgement, which P6 lacks :). That's why bar 2 and bar 3 slightly overlap in the picture.)
Gary
To change the colour of the bars, you need to right-click on bar chart area to open the window called Bars. Then add a new line there (I gave the name Simops). Modify the filter so that your selected activities will have the colour defined in the Bar Style box below. And you need to tick the Display button.
Ulkutan,
Your picture of the schedule tells a lot about your logic needs, definitively it is not as simple as assigning fixed workdays, you must go with Vladimir suggestion a procedure I know well but wonder about the modeling of splitable by P6 as implemented in Spider Project.
Maybe your logic does not require to interrupt/split activities but for those Non-SIMOPS to be scheduled in between specific nodes and no need for implementation of splitting.
You got an interesting issue, thanks for sharing it.
By the way your second and third bars are overlapping, Spider/Vladimir solution would not allow it if bar no 2 is in the same area as bar no 3 and you consider the limitation to be per area in your model.
Best regards,
Rafael
Ulkutan,
A quite unrelated topic, but if you are using P6, please share with us how you have changed the colours of the bars.
-This is of particular interest to Mike T, who feels not being able to do this is a major reason why P6 is rubbish ;o)
Cheers!
G
Ulkutan,
leveling does not prioritise SIMOPS activities. If they have no manually defined priorities then they will not interrupt other activities but everything else is the same as suggested. Create dummy resource, etc...
It shall work in P6 as in any other leveling software. The quality of schedule may be poor but I expect feasible schedules.
Thank you for your replies.
Vladimir, yes it's more or less like you have pictured. Other activities should not happen at the same time with the simops activities. But in my case, activities are usually short, so no need for interruption. Besides, I'm not sure if P6 allows this.
Mike, I thought of the resource levelling as well. Sounds like that's the best solution. But a small problem is that simops activities (i.e. high pressure activities) are not necessarily the priority activities. You may want a normal task ahead of simops activity. Levelling will try to prioritise the simops tasks.
Rafael, calendars is a good idea too, but as Vladimir said simops activities do not have fixed dates and some of them are very weather dependent.
I will have to test the resource levelling method. But in the mean time, I'm following a quite basic approach. I have marked my simops activities in a different colour and I'm going through a set of activities in date order and moving the activities by linking manually such that they do not coincide. I have also opened up resource usage spreadsheet at the bottom, becasue I need to watch the POB levels too.
If SIMOPS stands for Simultaneous Operation I would label Leak Tests as NSIMOPS for Non-Simultaneous Operations.
Note hammocks define the range time in which leak tests are performed on each area, it can be more than a single hammock per area. Remember Hammocks can have lag, at least in Spider Project, in this way you can make sure leak tests do not start after some time or some volume of work is performed on first SIMOP(S), on the first activities that can be performed simultaneously.
Of course this is if you can say leak tests on area A will be performed on Wednesdays while on Area B will be on Fridays. This can give some order to your planning unless other logic is what you need.
I did not receive an answer to my question.
Mike suggested right approach but it needs certain improvement.
Create dummy resource A with the total quantity 1000 units.
Assign all of them to SIMOPS activities.
Define that all activities are interruptable except SIMOPS activities and require 1 unit of resource A.
Assign high priority to SIMOPS activities.
Run resource leveling.
I hope that Primavera and Asta can do this.
Another approach is specific to Spider Project.
Assign variable quantities of resource A to activities other than SIMOPS (from 0 to 1),
The rest is the same.
In this case resource A will be moved to SIMOPS activities and then return. Activities that need A will wait until SIMOPS activities are finished.
Calendar exceptions suggested by Rafael is another way but may become more complicated if the time of SIMOPS activities is not known.
Hi Garry
Then set the minimum depoyment to as many leak test gangs you have - but set the Priority on the leak test tasks.
Best regards
Mike Testro
Try using calendars, assign your Leak Tests for each area a calendar with work days/hours as per your needs. Assign the activities calendars that do not include the Leak Tests work hours.
Hope the weather gets better, here it is great, it calls for a hammock and a Piña Colada.
Regards,
Rafael
Mike,
The only downside to your approach is that the levelling would not let you perform more than one leak tests at the same time. This may or may not be an issue.
I can't think of a better solution, though.
Hi Ulkatan
This is one situation where resource levelling may help.
Vladimir and I have had a lot of discussions on this topic and my position is that I would not let the software make my decisions but in this case it may be usefull.
You can set up a resource called SIMOPS and add one to each of your hi pressure tasks and give that priority.
Add the same resource to each other task where a clash may occur.
Set the max deployment as 1 and then the resource levelling should set your tasks in postion without you changing any logic.
I know this works with asta PowerProject and Spider but I have never tried it in P6.
Best regards
Mike T.
Do you mean that other activities shall be temporarily interrupted like in the screenshot below?
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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