CPM Final Exam

The purpose of tracking work

1.) Ensure that the project is staying within schedule.

2.) Ensure that the work is being completed withing the budget constraints.

3.) Ensure that the project is meeting the quality criteria standards.

What work should you track?

1.) The completion of work packages as compared to the plan to check if you are on schedule.

2.) The scope of work being performed to prevent scope creep.

3.) The quality of work being performed against the requirements for the project.

4.) The costs and expenditures as compared to the plan to check your budget.

5.) The cohesiveness and cooperation of team members.

Progress measurement of design

1.) Units completed.

2.) Incremental milestones.

3.) Start/Finish percentages.

4.) Ratio

Units completed

Writing specifications.

%work= Number of specifications completed/Total number of specifications to be produced

Incremental milestones

Easily recognized milestones

- Production of drawings

- Procurement activities

Start/finish percentages

Activities that lacks definable intermediate milestones.

Effort and time required is difficult to estimate.

- Planning

- Designing

- Model building

Ratio

Have no particular end product.

- Project management

- Project control

%complete= Hours (cost) spent to date/Estimated hours (cost) at completion

Progress measurement of construction

1.) Units completed

2.) Incremental milestones

3.) Start/finish percentages

4.) Supervisor opinion

5.) Cost ratio

6.) Weighted units

Units completed

Repetitive tasks that require a uniform effort.

Work package level.

Incremental milestones

Task that include subtasks that must be handled in sequence.

Start/finish percentages

Tasks that do not have well-defined intermediate milestones.

Supervisor opinion

Subjective approach.

Minor tasks.

Cost ratio

Administrative tasks.

- Project management

- Quality assurance

- Control administration

- Project control

%Complete=Actual (cost) work-hours to date/ Forecast at completion

Weighted units

- Tasks that involve major efforts of work that occur over a long duration of time.

- A weight is assigned to each subtask to represent the estimated level of effort.

Earned-value system

Earned-value system is used to monitor the progress of work and compare accomplished work with planned work.

Earned value analysis

BCWS - Budgeted cost of work scheduled (Planned)

BCWP - Budgeted cost of work performed (Earned)

ACWP - Actual cost of work performed (Actual)

Variances

CV = BCWP - ACWP (Cost variance = Earned - Actual)

SV = BCWP - BCWS (Schedule variance = Earned - Planned)

Indices

CPI = BCWP/ACWP (Cost performance index = Earned/Planned)

SPI = BCWP/BCWS (Schedule performance index = Earned/Planned)

Forecasting

BAC = Original project estimate (Budget at completion)

ETC = (BAC-BCWP)/CPI (Estimate to complete)

EAC = ACWP + ETC (Estimate at completion)

Causes of Cost/Schedule variance

-Estimating errors

-Technical problems

-Design errors

-Test data problems

-Constructability

-Equipment problems

-Management problems

-Scope control (change orders)

-Personal skill level

-Resource availability

-Economic/inflation

-Delay material delivery

-Delay equipment delivery

-Acts of god (Weather, fire, flood, ... etc.)

-Accidents during construction

PERT

-Probabilistic vs. CPM which is Deterministic

-Useful when difficult to estimate activity durations; May be a range of durations.

-Uses statistics to determine probability of reaching an event earlier/later than expected.

-Uses three estimates of duration:

1.) Optimistic time

2.) Pessimistic time

3.) Most likely time

Central limit theorem

The theory that, as sample size increases, the distribution of sample means of size n, randomly selected, approaches a normal distribution.

Deviation

Accounts for various probabilities of uncertainty.

Major phases of projects

1.) Project conception

2.) Design

3.) Procurement

4.) Construction

5.) Project Close-Out

Smooth closeout essentials

Planning

-Start as soon as the project begins

-Requirements for closeout

1.) Warranties

2.) Documents

Organization

-Documentation organizing system in place

Communication

-What to expect

-Timeline

Poorly planned closeout

Prolonged closeout process.

Delays and headaches.

Wasting resources.

-For owners losing money/profit

-For contractors

1.) losing capacity to work something else

2.) Maybe responsible for liquidated damages

System testing and startup

Heavy industrial plant

-Inspection performed throughout the project.

-system testing- identified by 30% into construction

-coordinated between owners rep., designers, construction contractors, equipment manufacturers.

-Develop an agreement on the tested system and type of tests

-Start-up plan - Completed by 70% into construction.

- specify the "need date" by the owner's operating personnel.

-Substantial completion

- Owner and contractor agree a building is ready for intended use

- There is still remaining work

- Punchlist is generated

- A certificate of substantial completion may be issued.

- Certificate of substantial completion vs certificate of occupancy

- Certificate occupancy is issued by local authority

Steps to a building project closeout

- Completion of punch list items

- Generate from the substantial completion walkthrough

- GC assigned them to subcontractors

- Owners approval is needed when items are addressed

- Submission of closeout documents

- Guarantees and warranties

- Certificates of completion

- O&M manuals

- Spare parts, special tools

- As-Builts

- Final inspection

- A step to obtain a certificate of occupancy

- Check issues from previous inspections being addressed

- Check compliance with local building codes

- done by a licensed inspector from local building authority.

- Owner startup program

- develop an owner startup schedule and assign responsibilities for oversight.

- Test and accept all major project components

- Train O&M personnel

- Accept and log all contractor furnished documents

- Final payments and release of retainage

- Retainage: Withhold 5-10% of contract value until the work is done

- Retainage released at issuance of certificate of substantial completion or occupancy.

-Settle outstanding bill, change orders, etc.

- Acquisition of certificate of occupancy

Contractor closeout

- Decommission field office.

- Inventory equipment and supplies

- Change field office

- Terminate phone, radio and pager accounts

- Terminate rentals and leases

- Demobilize office and take off site

- Reassign field personnel

Post-Project review

- Review the projects objectives and scope

- Assess the projects performance against key metrics (budget, schedule, quality, safety)

- Document lessons learned

- Identify areas for improvement.