Workfront Monitoring and Control : Part 2

Sometime back I wrote on WorkFront Monitoring and Control and the necessity of this particular approach in Engineering control. Project management is getting complex that we need more metrics apart from S-Curve that tells where we are and how we stand in term of progress. You only get what you measures.

Here is a little bit of my add on how we can go about WorkFront Monitoring and Control. This is just an idea but you might have some other idea which area better than this.

Steps in Work Front Monitoring.

Quantity Plan at Initial Stage

At initial point the WorkFront quantity are defined and plot in a graph which serve as a baseline. This will be measured against the actual quantity of ISO IFC, piping purchased and the prefabrication.

The graph can be adjusted, for an On-Shore project, the cumulative quantity of steel (tons) of issued IFC Structural drawings. The cumulative dia inch of IFC issued Piping isometrics will show the available piping work front.

In this case I picked up piping as an example. Such progress curves, showing the actual versus planned available workfronts are instrumental to monitor engineering progress, identify shortage and take corrective actions (increase mobilisation).

As a planner it will give us a "feel" how we are doing in term of readiness to meet the milestone date. Let say we should have purchased 70% of the piping dia-inch by end of Sept but in actual fact what we have now in place is only 50%. This will paint a picture immediately that the 20% of lacking can create a huge issue on material availability on the pre-fab or construction stage.. Planner should be able to finalize overall work schedule and resource mobilization plan for Piping work based on work front (drawing and material release) plan in association with project control. The ultimate goal is to achieve the optimized piping work front according to construction priorities, available isometric drawings and available materials.

Take the case of piping scope of work in an oil and project.Timely completion of piping construction is not only depending on timely receiving of IFC/AFC engineering drawings and materials from Owner/EPC Contractor but also timely availability of the material should also be addressed. This is where we refer it as Workfront availability.

Here one sees the necessity to measure the issued Workfront.

The figures given is to serve as an example and doesn't depict actual scenario.

	IFC ISO	Piping Purchasing plan	Piping availability at site	Piping Flanges availability	Piping Prefab curve
1/1/14	50%	0%	0%	0%	0%
1/2/14	50%	35%	30%	30%	25%
1/3/14	55%	40%	30%	30%	30%
1/4/14	65%	45%	40%	40%	35%
1/5/14	75%	50%	45%	50%	40%
1/6/14	85%	55%	50%	60%	45%
1/7/14	95%	60%	55%	80%	50%
1/8/14	100%	65%	60%	90%	55%
1/9/14	100%	80%	75%	95%	70%
1/10/14	100%	90%	80%	98%	75%
1/11/14	100%	95%	90%	100%	85%
1/12/14	100%	100%	95%	100%	90%
1/1/15	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%

  

 

Actual Quantity

This will be the actual quantity of each item measured. From this point the Project Manager and Planner will be able to see how far we deviated in term of baseline Workfront planned. This is a crucial information to measure the efficiency of how we deal with Workfront availability.

In my experience, apart from efficiency this graph helps me the most in studying the trend. Base on trend it will give me a confidence level on whether we can meet the intended Workfront work volume. In return I will just pass the pressing question to the team member how are we going to meet the baseline requirement in order to secure the availability.

The figures given is to serve as an example and doesn't depict actual scenario.

	IFC ISO	Piping Purchasing plan	Piping availability at site	Piping Flanges availability	Piping Prefab curve
1/1/14	30%	0%	0%	0%	0%
1/2/14	35%	20%	15%	30%	15%
1/3/14	45%	30%	25%	30%	20%
1/4/14	50%	40%	35%	40%	25%
1/5/14	60%	45%	40%	50%	30%
1/6/14	75%	55%	50%	60%	35%
1/7/14	85%	60%	55%	80%	40%
1/8/14	90%	65%	60%	90%	45%
1/9/14	95%	70%	65%	95%	55%
1/10/14	100%	85%	80%	98%	60%
1/11/14	100%	90%	90%	100%	70%
1/12/14	100%	100%	95%	100%	80%
1/1/15	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%