Trimble?

Craig,

If your projects are not as complex then TILOS can be your best choice and you are right at your selection.  

You made an informed decision and debated at the highest level.  You must be very successful, doing business with you must be good experience.

Regards,

Rafael

Hi Rafael,

Our projects aren't as complex as yours by the sound of it.

I'm happy engaging more stakeholders because they understand what they are looking at and being able to contribute more to a project than traditional gantt view does.

Cheers,

Craig

If TILOS cannot solve real life resource allocation issues, activities competing for same scarce resources then it looks to me like MacPaint.

• Can TILOS solve simple resource issues such as Seasonal Shifts where different shift work hours are required, where different productivity is the result of different season... solving the resource allocation as the job moves in time is not always easy.
• Can TILOS solve simple resource issues such as determining best crew composition that will change as things move and demand for scarce resources changes?

How do you take into consideration all these resource and productivity issues on your TILOS updates?

Any CPM software shall be able to draw linear diagrams, they are essentially a Bar Chart where each sloped line represent a bar[activity] and the slope represent the production rate.  They are a good approximation in some linear jobs and quasi-linear jobs such as my previous example, they shall never be discarded but never over-valued.  

The good thing I can see is that they bring to the table the centuries old concept of productivity; if your CPM lacks it, this I consider poor choice of CPM software, it is a basic concept needed for good modeling.  They also bring the concept of volume lag as to model the distance between overlapping activities, this is the correct lag type when keeping distance is not a function of time such as in the case of concrete curing but a certain volume of work, the most common case when modeling overlapping activities (e.g. Trench opening needs always to be 100 m ahead of Pipe laying).  By the same token lack of volume lag functionality in most CPM software makes them a poor choice. 

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Just to confirm - all current TILOS distributor agreements remain in place and there are no changes to the teams supporting the product.  For example, Asta Development remains the authorised TILOS partner for the UK.

Ben @ Asta

Hi Rafael,

I have only started using TILOS and find it communicates more to a project team than traditional Gantt schedules.

I have been able to provide vital information on when work was performed on a particular property and defend bogus claims of delay (due to denied access) easily.

I currently work in the Pipeline Industry and believe TILOS best solution for this work.

Kind regards,

Craig Adams

Site work planning in all my projects is never strictly linear.  In my jobs linear planning will yield poor earthwork movement planning.  

Deciding on where to start digging and filling, when to bring borrow material and when to waste otherwise usable material because it is not economical to move it within the job is not as easy.  It is a 3D problem that require consideration on how good is the underground material at different locations, never precise, at best a rough approximation.  Linear scheduling is poor at this as the solution is most of the time nonlinear. 

When you have a site where delivery of buildings is on a strict sequence your most economical earthwork plan does not necessarily be in such strict sequence. 

I am not an expert on pipeline jobs but it is not difficult to imagine a sequence of earthwork not always to follow strict sequence of pipe installation A-B-C-D-E.  Say you can start at A and B with cut to fill from D to A and D to B, then continue with outside borrow to C, finish cut to fill movement from D to E for an earth moving sequence [D to A]-[D to B]-[Outside Borrow to C]-[D to E] but the pipe installation sequence is still A-B-C-D-E.  Of course you can be doing [Outside Borrow to C] and [D to E] in parallel as to keep using your bulldozers. 

Therefore even for what might look to be linear jobs it is better to use traditional CPM with resource leveling and just create the linear diagrams using the CPM software.

Too much linear thinking is not good, it might blur your vision.  That a linear schedule is feasible does not means it is a good schedule.

Hi Vladimir

Thanks for the headup.

Best regards

Mike Testro