(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.
Mr Vladimir,
I've worked for a drilling rig fabricator. My company has along time used P6 for planning manner so far. Next week, I want to convince my boss to replace with Spider Project. Can you please give me some material, key points.
Thanks,
Tuan
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Mr Vladimir,
Please send me your materials at tuantc@live.com
Thank you so many,
Mr Rafael,
I've had just a little time for using SP but also especially like the features related to resource management, all are familiar with real construction works.
For a start you can introduce the following table and filter it for unavailable functionalities in P6
http://www.spiderproject.ru/library/eng/compare_e.xls
I would mention that Spider Project provides a Free Viewer that you can distribute among all, so there is no need for extra licenses to give full access to users that will not be allowed to edit the schedule but that must have access to it and that same as full version it is so easy to install it usually takes 2 minutes and a couple of mouse clicks, no help needed from IT people to deploy the database. Another advantage is that the developer is very accessible for support, either at their site or at Planning Planet where I believe the added bonus is that others might join the discussions and provide their experience.
Then I would go into the specifics of what you need that P6 does not provides or is very deficient at it that justifies the need for a change to more functional software, perhaps most notably:
a) Shift work on the same activity, especially when productivity on second shift is lower.
b) Consumable resource consumption and production, called Material Resource in Spider Project. A functionality not only useful to make sure materials are scheduled to be delivered on time but also useful to model Spatial Resources, a complex modeling need that I suspect might be a real need on shipyard works.
c) Variable resource quantity and workloads.
d) Any other resource allocation issue relevant to your work that you might find P6 is not good at but available under Spider Project expanded modeling capabilities, a real need but lacking on most other software.
Better than externals you know your company so your presentation will have more impact if you concentrate on your company needs and not what some developer say you need.
Yes Tuan,
a lot of materials can be found at www.spiderproject.ru and I can send some materials by E-mail.
Key features that distinguish Spider from other tools include:
- Quantity based scheduling (based on physical amounts of work to be done and assigned resource productivity)
- Best resource management (resource constrained schedule optimization, advanced resource assignments like variable resource assignments, multi-resources, skills, shifts)
- Best material management (material consumption may be defined for activities and resources as fixed, per hour, per work volume unit, simulation of material supply or production and material constrained scheduling, variable costs of project materials)
- Best cost management (any number of cost components and cost centers, multi-currency, parallel costs of the same objects for comparing and reporting, simulation of income and funding constrained scheduling, cost discounting)
- Possibility to create and to use in all projects reference-books containing different norms (material requirements per volume unit on typical activities, resource productivity on typical assignments, unit costs, etc.)
- Possibility to create and to use typical fragments with automatic adjustments of volumes and durations when fragments are inserted
- Included Risk analysis tools (three scenarios and Monte Carlo) that unlike other tools provide correct probability distributions for schedules with limited resources
- Included portfolio management capabilities that include portfolio scheduling with resource, funding and supply constraints
- Storing project archives (the whole history of project execution and any what if scenario may be stored and used)
- Advanced reporting like Resource and Material Gantt Charts, Time-Location Chart, Banana Curves, Trends of any parameter, Probability distributions, etc.
I just mentioned some of Spider Project unique features not supported by other tools including P6. There are many others but just listing all of them takes a lot of time and space.
Regards,
Vladimir
Email: PPadmin@planningplanet.com
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