Ce 434 Construction Planning Spring 2008

CE 434 CONSTRUCTION PLANNING SPRING 2008

A SIMPLE INTRODUCTION TO PRIMAVERA PROJECT PLANNER 3.1

PRIMAVERA is a powerful and flexible project management tool that puts the end-user in control of the projects, helps him/her keep everyone informed about the project participants and is compatible with the way the work is done today. Entering a Small Project When you run the program, you will see the entry table made of columns and rows. Activity name, duration, predecessors and resource names are entered the program simply by writing to these columns. Start dates and finish dates are automatically calculated by the program. PRIMAVERA can handle every type of relationship between activities [like start-to-start (SS), finish-to-finish (FF), start-to-finish (SF) and finish-to-start (FS)]. You can also use positive and negative lags within the relations. Usage of such kind of relations is briefly given in the table below.

Relation

Notation
n: activity number, l: lag time (days)

Finish-to-Start

n FS ± l or simply n (lag is not applicable without writing FS)

Finish-to-Finish

n FF ± l

Start-to-Start

n SS ± l

Start-to-Finish

n SF ± l

Example:

#

Activity

1 2 3 4 5

Mobilization Excavation Formwork Reinforcement Concrete

6

Remove Formwork

Duration (days) 7 10 3 4 1 2

Description Starts after the start of the project is given Cannot start before excavation is completed Can start 1 day after the start of formwork Can be poured after formwork and reinforcement are completed Can be removed 2 days after the completion of concrete

Durations are given in days. There exists a SS relation between 1-2, FS relation between 2-3, SS relation between 3-4 with 1 day lag, FS relation between 3-5 and 4-5, and FS relation between 56 with 2 days lag. As the data given above is entered into PRIMAVERA, you will see the data on the screen as seen in the figure below.

One important thing in planning task is description of the activities based on work break down structure (WBS) of the project. The user should develop taxonomy for WBS by taking project requirements, features and requests of clients into the consideration. For example, , in this case the user developed 4 level work breakdown structure which covers project name, building type building number and floor code. The details of the constitution of WBS are shown below.

In PRIMAVERA planning software, activity codes and project codes should be defined by the user manually. Actually, activity codes are the ones that the user wants to monitor during the whole project life cycle. Default activity codes are responsibilities, area, milestone, item and location features. The user can alter the default setting by adding new codes for the activities such as elevation etc. By using Data/activity codes menu, user can define and alter activity codes. The figure below indicates activity codes option of the PRIMVERA.

For resources, the user should define labor and non-labor resources manually. The user should make a list of resources based on clients demand and Bill of Quantities. Then the labor and nonlabor resources are defined by using necessary links as Data/Resources option from standard menu.

Working times and days can also be changed. The default non-working days are assumed as Saturdays and Sundays. However, you may want to change Saturdays as working days, increase or decrease the working hours, or assign the religious holidays as non-working days from the following window which can be reached from Data/Calendar menu.

For example, if you want to make Saturdays as working days and Mondays as non-working days, then you can simply select the corresponding columns and check the Working time and Nonworking time buttons, respectively. Similarly, if you want to make 20th of February as holiday, then you can also select this day, separately. PRIMAVERA also creates the PERT chart in parallel with the data you have entered. To see the PERT chart, you can either use View pull-down menu or the view options available. The critical activities will be shown in red color as below. In our example all activities are turned out to be critical.