Need someone who's familiar with Microsoft Project

Lab1_MSProject_20191014.pdf

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‘Project’ Lab Manual

For CEE421

‘Project’ is a copyrighted product by Microsoft Corporation. This Lab Manual is prepared only for the use of CEE 421 Construction Engineering Course at the University of Dayton. 1. This Lab assignment is due by Oct 29. This is a group assignment, thus only one

submission is needed for a team 2. The assignment should be submitted through Isidore. 3. All the files that you create during the lab session should be compressed into a zip file.

The submitted filename should include the names of team members.

1. Creating a Project 1.1 Starting a Project Once the Project icon has been selected, this screen will appear.

The menu at the top of the screen may also be used to setup a new project or open an existing project. You can choose “Save As” to name the current project.

This will open a new blank project.

This will show you the list of existing projects.

This will open a list of menu items including “Save As” and “Options.”

This will open the project information box where you can type in start date.

“File tap – Options: Schedule” can be chosen for the following adjustments.

Project tap – Project information icon:

Exercise 1.1 1. Start a project titled “Residential House” and choose Mar 17, 2019 as the start

date. Change the current date as Mar 17, 2019. 2. Change the setting to allow a week to start on Monday. 3. Change the setting to let the forward/backward computation decide the times

of activities.

You can change “Manually Scheduled” into “Auto Scheduled” to let the forward/backward computation decide the times of activities.

You can change “Sunday” into “Monday.” Most projects work a five- day week and begin the week on Monday.

Here you can set up a project start date.

1.2 Entering Activities and Durations Once a new project has been created or an existing project opened, the screen below appears. If you don’t see this screen, click on the “Gantt Chart” icon in the upper left corner.

You can click on the “Gantt Chart” icon to have this view.

Using these columns, you can type in the name of activity (Task Name), duration (Duration), and predecessors (Predecessors). Here, task is the term equivalent to ‘activity.’

You can double click on this line to see the task information

Exercise 1.2 1. Using the work breakdown structure of activities on the next page, enter each

activity description, and original duration. Consider activities with a star only. 2. Assume the relationships of the activities and enter them using the

‘Predecessors’ window. 3. Find out another way of entering relationships using icons or the bar chart.

You can click here to choose a predecessor.

Figure 1. The Work Breakdown Structure (Project start date: May 17, 2019)

1.3 Schedule Reports Now that the activities and their relationships to other activities have all been entered, it’s time to see how long this project will take.

You can click on the “Report:New Report:Blank” icon to generate a report in your own format.

You can click on the “Design:Text Box” and “Design:Table” icons to include a text box and a table. Note that the basic start and finish information is displayed.

If you click on the created table, another ‘Design’ menu is displayed on the top and the ‘Field List’ is shown on the right. You can choose more items to include in your report.

You can include items that interest you, such as Early Start, Early Finish, Late Start, Late Finish, and Total Slack (Float). You can also choose the appropriate level such as All Subtasks. The displayed Information can be sorted by criteria such as Early Start.

If you click on the Network Diagram icon, the CPM network like the one below is displayed.

Exercise 1.3 1. Produce a tabular report that shows early start, early finish, late start, late finish,

and total slack of each activity. Sort the activities by early start. 2. Produce a graphical report that shows the network diagram and identify the

critical path. 3. Use the pdf format, an image format such as JPG, or other formats, to generate the

reports and submit them as part of this lab assignment. 1.4 Work Breakdown Structure

Your network now looks like the one above. Can you tell how the activities are related from this bar chart?

You can go to “Print:Page Setup:Page: Fit to” to put the entire network diagram in one page.

If you click on the ‘Format’ tab, the “Project Summary Task” check box is displayed in the upper right corner. If you click on the check box, then the project name will appear on row 0.

After the “Site Work” item creation, ‘Excavation,’ ‘Drainage,’ and ‘Grading’ can be highlighted to be indented under the “Site Work” using the “Indent Task” icon. In this way, you can develop the work breakdown structure.

If you click on the ‘Task’ tab, you will see a screen like the one shown here.

You can right-click on this line to insert the “Site Work” item.

Your project now looks like the one above. The project can be represented in a more organized way.

You can even add a column to represent the WBS codes like the one above.

Exercise 1.4 1. Produce a tabular report that shows the hierarchy of the activities, including WBS

code, early start, early finish, late start, and late finish of the items. 2. Use the pdf format, an image format such as JPG, or other formats, to generate the

report and submit it as part of this lab assignment.

2. Resources 2.1 Resource Allocation

You can choose the “Resource Sheet” to bring the following interface where you can input resources information.

Here, “Man Hour” is input as a type of resource. The 900% in the ‘Max.’ cell means that up to 9 workers are available at the same time.

If you click on the ‘Task Usage’ icon, detailed information such as work hours is displayed. Double click on a particular task (activity) will pop up the “Task Information” window where you can choose the ‘Resources’ tab to input man hour information. Change on the percentage in the ‘Units’ column will change the man hour amount.

Alternatively, you can switch to different views using the icons in the bottom.

Gantt Chart Task Usage Resource Sheet

If you are looking at a resource profile like the one below, you need to adjust two things: timescale and maximum resource capacity.

If you click on the ‘Other Views’ tab, the “Built-In” menu appears. Then, you can choose the “Resource Graph” to bring about the following screen where you can see a resource profile like the one below.

A right-click here will show you this pop-up window. Selection of the ‘Timescale’ option, will allow you see the next screen.

You can adjust the value for ‘Size’ and possibly other parameters, to see a more detailed resource profile like the one you can see below.

For the adjustment of maximum resource capacity:

This problem can be solved by adjusting the maximum amount of available resources, if you can really have the additional resources. How to adjust the maximum amount of available resources is explained in the next figure.

The red man symbol indicates that the particular activity has overallocated resources.

What do you think of the above resource profile? Do you find this to be a desirable situation? You would probably think that the high level of fluctuation of required resources is not good. We can discuss more as to why a more stable profile of required resources is better in the class. Exercise 2.1 1. Enter the resources (man hour) for all of the activities shown in Figure 1, and

produce a graphical report that shows the resource profile in any format, including the pdf, an image format such as JPG, or other formats

2. Briefly explain why a high level of fluctuation of required resources is not welcomed for effective construction project management.

Here, you can increase the maximum amount of available resources. This maximum value will later impact the result of resource leveling.

If you click on the “Resource Sheet” icon, this screen appears.

3. Submit answers to questions 1 and 2 as part of this lab assignment. For question 2, any text file format (txt, doc, or hwp) can be used.

2.2 Resource Leveling

“Level Resource” icon will allow you to conduct the resource leveling.

Here, you can choose different leveling options, as shown in the next figure.

The above resource profile shows the new resource graph after the leveling. Note that even the project finish date is delayed. By choosing the option of “Level only within available slack,” resource leveling can be done without affecting the original completion date.

In the resource graph view, right click of the mouse will bring you this menu.

You can select “Cumulative Work” to produce S-curve.

“Bar Styles” can be chosen to see the “Bar Styles” windows where you can choose ‘Line’ in “Show as.”

Finally, an S-curve such as the one above can be displayed. Exercise 2.2 1. Conduct the resource leveling for the project after choosing 500% as the

maximum available man hours per day. Allow the original project completion date to be delayed to satisfy the condition.

2. Produce a graphical report that shows the resource profile in two formats (bar chart and s-curve).

3. Use the pdf format, an image format such as JPG, or other formats, to generate the report and submit it as part of this lab assignment.

3. Contract Dates

Double click on the particular activity row will bring you the task information window, which has the ‘Advanced’ tab. In the tab, you can choose different types of constraints. Here, you see the example of “Finish No Later Than.” You can feel that this is the same as the “Not Later Than Date” constraint that we talked about in the class.

Using the accompanying “Constraint date,” you can set up the date for the “Finish No Later Than” constraint.

The impact of the contract date is seen in the above figure. Exercise 3.1 1. To have a tight control of the project schedule, the owner of the project put an

imposed date in the construction contract. According to the condition of contract date, the Roofing activity should be finished by October 3, 2019. Apply the constraint to the schedule.

2. If the contract date caused a scheduling conflict, find a way to resolve it. Probably, adjustment of man hours per day can correct the logical error.

3. Produce a tabular report that shows the constraint date (contract date) information. The report also needs to explain how the scheduling conflict was resolved in a text box.

4. Use the pdf format, an image format such as JPG, or other formats, to generate the report and submit it as part of this lab assignment.

You can choose the continue option to see the impact of the contract date.

The sign indicates that the activity has a “Finish No Later Than” constraint on September 20, 2017.

4. Schedule Update

The baseline is the benchmark with which we will compare the actual performance.

You can click on the “Set Baseline” icon in the ‘Project’ menu to choose “Set Baseline.”

You can choose ‘Baseline’ for the “Set Baseline” option for the “Entire project.”

Right-click on the bar chart section will allow you to see the above menu. You can choose Show/Hide Bar Styles:Baseline:Baseline to see the following figure.

After the baseline setup, the barchart looks different. The bottom portion tells us the baseline and the top portion shows the schedule subject to actual performance.

Baseline

The schedule subject to actual

performance

Click on the ‘View:Tables:Tracking’ option will bring you the following interface where you can type in schedule update information.

Actual start information can be input using this column.

Actual finish information can be input using this column.

Remaining duration information can be input using this column.

“Status Date” means the Data Date that we discussed in the class. Please be reminded that this is the first day of the reamining part of the project. Here, you can choose a certain date as the “Status Date.”

Click on the “Update Project” icon will pop up the “Update Project” window. In the window, selection of “Reschedule uncompleted work to start after” option for “Entire project” will update the project schedule. If you chose a specic date as the Status Date, the date will be used for this opion.

If you happen to see this Planning Wizard message, just push the OK button and remove the constraint imposed on the Roofing activity, in order to see the impact of the schedule update. The way to remove the constraint is shown in the following figure.

Here, you cah change the “Constraint type” into “As Soon As Possible.” This will get rid of the constraint. Of course, you should push the OK button to have the effect.

After removing the constraint, you can repeat the schedule update process. Click on the “Update Project” icon will pop up the “Update Project” window. In the window, selection of “Reschedule uncompleted work to start after” option for “Entire project” will update the project schedule. If you chose a specic date as the Status Date, the date will be used for this opion.

Exercise 4.1 1. Using the information below, update the project schedule. While updating the

schedule, there may be a scheduling conflict. If so, assume that the constraint is broken by allowing the scheduling conflict.

The Data Date for this project is July 2, 2019. The field report shows the following changes: Activity Actual Start Actual Finish Rem. Duration Actual Man Hours Excavation Thu 18-05-17 Fri 18-05-24 96 Drainage Wed 18-06-06 Wed 18-06-13 96 Grading Fri 18-05-25 Tue 18-06-05 96 Foundation Thu 18-06-14 12 144 Slab-on-Grade Thu 18-06-14 18 288 2. Produce a tabular report that shows the comparison between the baseline and

actual performance. The report should include “Baseline Finish,” “Actual Finish,” and “Early Finish.” Explain how the project finish date is changed in a text box.

3. Produce a graphical report that shows the updated network diagram and identify the critical path in the remaining part of the project.

4. Use the pdf format, an image format such as JPG, or other formats, to generate the reports and submit them as part of this lab assignment.

These are man hours for the remaining durations.