I'm a construction planner of offshore facilities such as fixed platform, FPSO, SPAR for oli&gas industries.
WE've divided FPSO into small structural block (200~400 EA) and prepare consruction schedule for each small structural block.
And then small blocks are assembled and become FPSO.
The current schdule is definitely area (structural block) basis but client want to change it into system (function) basis like oil, gas, water, diesel,electricity,etc (about 40 system)
because mechanical completion (MC) should be completed per system.
The problem is the each structural block contain various kinds of system (function) so it is to difficult make relationship between contruction schedule to MC schedule.
( link Area basis schedule to system(function) basis schedule)
I would like to have advices
For those interested on the modeling of spatial resources the following might be of interest.
http://essay.utwente.nl/56927/1/Scriptie_L_Kok.pdf
Hi Kim
Further to the wise advice from Vladimir and Rafael I suggest a more practical approach.
You already have the system based tasks within your area based programme.
Linking system tasks within each area is the correct method to develop the critical path and I would not change that.
I assume that you are using P6 software which has limitations on displaying information.
I would suggest therefore that you set up 40 codes for each system and apply the code to each task within the location programme. (You may be able to make it easier by filtering on the contents of the task name.)
Also set up 40 completion miestones for each code.
Now filter on Code 1 and link the last task to Milestone 1.
When finished you can filter on any of the codes and show the current status.
I would not recommend linking the coded tasks between the areas because P6 cannot handle soft logic.
Hope that helps
Best regards
Mike Testro
Irrespective of how you organize the schedule, either by activity codes or WBS codes, you might need to look further. It seems to me you need to consider spatial resources, something that cannot be adequately modeled using regular resource types.
Depending on your software, if incapable of modeling spatial resources then you will have to use some artificial/preferential logic but this will not be good for resource constraining, you might get feasible but in frequent occasions poor schedule. It is not just about feasibility but about good feasible schedules.
http://www.pmknowledgecenter.com/node/104
In Spider Project you would create additional WBS.
In P6 you may create activity codes and then group activities by codes.