Hi every body,
i want to ask a question plz, i have 10 stories building, i want to plan for the finishes, i did the items for each floor , lets say
: block work, plaster, partitions , falce ceiling, paint, water proofing, tiling, installing FF& E etc...
now i want the the block team to finish a whole floor and go to the next, so i linked block for each floor with the next with FS relationship , and this is for all activiites,
my question is when should i start the first painting activity ? when all block work finish or what? i don't think its logical to try link it and see if it finishes on time and if doesnt link it to another floor?
what about cladding works and tiling and intalling ff&e
i linked the activities in each floor but the question is how to link different activities in different floors?
its not logical to finish all the basement finishes and i'm still in plaster for the 8th floor
ANy ideas ?????
Woow
Thanks Rafeal :))
Rola,
Ideally you should avoid the so-called “soft links” to solve issues on resource availability and issues on “I whish for this sequence”, links shall be based on true logic dependencies.
On a concrete building concreting activities among floor are linked in sequential order due to logic dependencies but finishes are not necessarily dependent upon the same trade or crew finishing lower floor, this should be solved using resource constaining and appropriate use of priorities as to keep some order. In case some finishing activities start running behind by adequate increease or resource loading you can schedule some to happen in parallel if there is no logical dependencies among the activities other than resource availability.
Say, you finished the 60 concrete floors on a 60 floors concrete building and never started concrete block installation; you can install concrete blocks in all 60 floors at the same time assuming no materials handling limitations. Better work on several floors at the same time with the adequate crews than using shifts or inefficient crew sizes to speed up installation on a single floor.
If you linked concrete block installation in tandem then the model will tell you have to work in sequential order. Of course this is an error in logic, but some other soft dependencies are not so easy to identify. If you insist in forcing the logic at least use software capable of classifying your links by a label or type name. Asta PowerProject and Spider Project provide for this, I do not believe Primavera/ORACLE P6 or MS Project do.
A few years ago I was contracted by a housing developer-contractor to work as PM under contract, at the end he was scared by the sales and offered owners the option to choose their wall and floor tile. The first apartment sold was on the fourth floor so we started tile installation on the fourth floor, we had no need to wait for the installation of tile on the lower floors. It is
common on office buildings where tenants decide on interior work latter.
Throughout the years I have observed many schedulers force their schedules as if bar charting, using artificial dependencies as to mimic resource constraining, even when it is considered bad practice by almost all protocols. I do it frequently under the understanding it is not “good practice”, I do it because some contractors do not understand it and because most do not
even resource load their schedule. With Spider I can create as many user fields I want for links, in this way I can identify in many ways my link types and also I can add as many as I want comment fields to document an explanation on why the link, why the lag and so on.
I do not agree with your statement “it’s not logical to finish all the basement finishes and I’m still in plaster for the 8th floor”. If you can do it then do it, do not delay your activities if you have the resources and the logic allows, keep always the sense of urgency in your jobs. Do not wait for late surprises.
Waterproofing the envelope is usually a driving relationship for finish works, this will be key in the logic of some of your finishes.
Regards,
Rafael