2020
SCHEDULE
RESOURCE
LOADING
TRAINING MANUAL
Khono Project Control Services
No.22, Corner 2nd St & Voortrekker Ave, Edenvale, Johannesburg
KHONO PROJECT CONTROL SERVICES | No.22, Corner 2nd St & Voortrekker Ave, Edenvale, Johannesburg
Contents
1.
2.
3.
Key Role Players ...................................................................................................................................................... 3
1.1.
Purpose of Resource Loading ........................................................................................................................................4
1.2.
Resource Types ..................................................................................................................................................................5
1.3.
Activity’s Duration .............................................................................................................................................................5
1.4.
Resource, Norms, Quantity and Duration ....................................................................................................................6
1.5.
Resource Capacity and Duration ...................................................................................................................................7
1.6.
Activity’s Steps (Earning Rules) and Duration ........................................................................................................... 9
1.7.
Earning Rules, Duration & Resources ........................................................................................................................11
1.7.1.
Earning Rules, Duration & Resources – Engineering ................................................................................. 11
1.7.2.
Earning Rules, Duration & Resources - Procurement.................................................................................12
1.7.3.
Earning Rules, Duration & Resources - Civil Work......................................................................................13
1.7.4.
Earning Rules, Duration & Resources - Piping ............................................................................................. 13
1.7.5.
Earning Rules, Duration & Resources – Cabling..........................................................................................14
1.8.
Earning Rules Combination........................................................................................................................................... 14
1.9.
Resource, Work and Duration ....................................................................................................................................... 15
Resource Sheet Development ............................................................................................................................ 17
2.1
Activity Type in Primavera .............................................................................................................................................18
2.2
Duration Type in Primavera ........................................................................................................................................... 19
2.3
Resource Sheet................................................................................................................................................................. 22
2.4
Resource Sheet – Add New Resource ........................................................................................................................ 24
2.5
Resource Sheet Development .......................................................................................................................................26
2.6
Resource Sheet Development – Rules........................................................................................................................ 27
2.7
Resource Sheet Development – Incorrect Practices............................................................................................... 30
2.7.1
Incorrect Practices - Combining Resources.................................................................................................. 30
2.7.2
Incorrect Practices - Resource Numbering....................................................................................................33
2.7.3
Incorrect Practices – Unrealistic Max Unit/Time........................................................................................... 34
2.7.4
Incorrect Practices – Default Max Unit/Time .................................................................................................35
2.7.5
Incorrect Practices – Ignoring Shared Resources ....................................................................................... 35
2.7.6
Incorrect Practices – Generic Resource ......................................................................................................... 36
2.7.7
Incorrect Practices – Using Duration...............................................................................................................37
Resource Assignment .......................................................................................................................................... 39
3.1.
Budgeted Units & Unit/Time – EPC ..............................................................................................................................40
3.1.1.
Budgeted Units & Unit/Time – Engineering ...................................................................................................40
3.1.2.
Budgeted Units & Unit/Time – Procurement.................................................................................................. 43
3.1.3.
Budgeted Units & Unit/Time – Construction .................................................................................................44
3.2.
Resource Curve ................................................................................................................................................................46
3.2.1.
Resource Curve – Option a ................................................................................................................................47
3.2.2.
Resource Curve – Option b ................................................................................................................................ 49
3.3.
Resource Loading Generic Process ............................................................................................................................54
3.4.
Resource Loading – Construction Activities ............................................................................................................ 55
3.4.1.
Resource Loading Process ................................................................................................................................ 55
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3.4.2.
Norm Table Development ...................................................................................................................................56
3.4.3.
Working and Productive Hours ......................................................................................................................... 59
3.4.4.
Calculation – Construction Scenario 1 ...........................................................................................................60
3.4.5.
Combining Activities / Earning Rules ............................................................................................................. 62
3.4.6.
Resource Sheet ..................................................................................................................................................... 64
3.4.7.
Resource Loading ................................................................................................................................................ 65
3.4.8.
Distribution ............................................................................................................................................................67
3.4.9.
Calculation – Construction Scenario 2 ...........................................................................................................68
3.4.10.
Resource Loading ................................................................................................................................................ 69
3.4.11.
Using Norm Table for Calculations ..................................................................................................................70
3.4.12.
Steel Structure Erection......................................................................................................................................73
3.5.
4.
3.5.1.
Process ...................................................................................................................................................................74
3.5.2.
Responsibility Matrix Development ................................................................................................................. 75
3.5.3.
Man-Hours Table Preparation............................................................................................................................76
3.5.4.
Resource Sheet Development – Engineering ................................................................................................ 77
3.5.5.
Resource Loading - Engineering ...................................................................................................................... 78
3.5.6.
Resource Loading – Distribution......................................................................................................................79
3.6.
Resource Loading – Procurement ...............................................................................................................................80
3.7.
Loading Indirect Resources ..........................................................................................................................................82
3.8.
Cost Loading .....................................................................................................................................................................83
3.9.
Schedule Level of Detail .................................................................................................................................................85
3.10.
Resource Usage and Levelling .....................................................................................................................................87
3.10.1.
Resource Leveling Process ............................................................................................................................... 87
3.10.2.
Resource Levelling – Project Priority..............................................................................................................89
3.10.3.
Resource Levelling – Activity Priority ............................................................................................................. 90
S-Curve Development ........................................................................................................................................... 91
4.1.
S-Curve Development Using Resource Assignment Sheet Data .........................................................................92
4.2.
Procurement S-Curve ...................................................................................................................................................... 95
4.2.1.
Process ...................................................................................................................................................................95
4.2.2.
Calculation .............................................................................................................................................................95
4.3.
5.
Resource Loading - Engineering Activities ...............................................................................................................74
Identify Number of Resources in Schedule ...............................................................................................................98
Schedule Update .................................................................................................................................................. 100
5.1.
Updating a Resource Loaded Schedule ................................................................................................................... 101
5.2.
Updating a Schedule containing no Resources .....................................................................................................103
5.3.
Using Updated Schedule Data for Progress Reporting ........................................................................................ 103
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1. Key Role Players
Resources are scarce, limited, expensive and not always readily available. Therefore, resource usage
in Projects has to be calculated, planned, analyzed and optimized. Resource management is one of
key responsibility of the project management (PMBOK Knowledge Areas) and Planning, through
Resource Loading of a Schedule, plays a very significant role to achieving it. In-fact, a Project
manager, most likely, fails to undertake this responsibility without a Resource Loaded Schedule.
In this section, the main role players in resource management will be discussed.
1.1. Purpose of Resource Loading
1.2. Resource Types
1.3. Activity’s Duration
1.4. Resource, Norms, Quantity and Duration
1.5. Resource Capacity and Duration
1.6. Activity’s Steps and Duration
1.7. Earning Rules, Duration & Resources
1.8. Earning Rules Combination
1.9. Resource, Work and Duration
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1.1. Purpose of Resource Loading
Resource Loaded Schedule provides an excellent support to the project management team to run
the project efficiently; e.g. calculate the number of required resources, identify resource
constraints, Installation management, etc. A resource loaded schedule is the starting point of
Integrated Project Planning System without which; the Project Planning as well as project
management teams would suffer throughout the project execution phase.
The Resource Loading has to be done for undermentioned reasons:
 Resource Management: A correctly Resource Loaded schedule supports the management in
the following areas:
 Estimate resource requirements for each period
 Identify Resource constraints and allows for the development of strategy to mitigate
 Delay Analysis and Claim preparation
 Installation Management: Quantity / commodity loaded schedule, will make installation
management simple and easy. Some of the advantages are as follows:
 Identify Installation quantity for each period
 Managing Resource’s performance and productivity
 Compare Planned productivity rate against Actual and develop mitigation strategy to recover
 Progress Management: Resource loaded schedule has direct relationship to progress
measurement and management. Some of the inputs to progress management are:
 Develop Planned Progress Curves (Early and Late)
 Calculate Weight values to develop Progress Measurement System
 Compare Planned Progress to Actual Progress
 Cost Management: Cost loaded schedule could provide very accurate data for effective cost
management.
 Develop Cost flow and Cash flow curves
 Estimate / Forecast Project Cost
 Earned Value Management:
In most of the projects, Implementation of EVM without a
resource loaded schedule is impossible. A Resource loaded schedule is required to:
 Assist to Implement EVM by producing Plan / Earned Curves
 Prepare Forecast Curves (early and Late)
 Reporting Project status, overall productivity rate and forecast to complete
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1.2. Resource Types
There are 3 types of resources to perform and complete project’s activities:
1. Labor:
 All Direct Resources that carry out the works
 All In-direct Resources that support the works to be done
2. Non-Labor:
 Machinery, Crane, equipment, etc. required to perform works
3. Material:
 Cable, Racks, Process Equipment, Conveyor equipment, C&I Equipment
 Works Quantity e. g. Welding, Concrete, Earth works, Insulation, Painting, Steel
Structure, etc.
1.3. Activity’s Duration
 What is an activity: In order to complete a project, all related tasks have to be undertaken,
completed and accepted as per specifications. Therefore, an activity is:

Something that is Done as work for a particular purpose” (Merriam-Webster dictionary)

In a Project, Activity refers to Work Completed that acceptable as per the specifications
 Activity’s Duration: Scope of work that an activity covers; determines its duration. Activity’s
Duration has to cover all the processes and step’s duration that are required until the activity
is 100% complete. Activity could cover a single task like; “Excavation” scope of work or could
cover more than one tasks scope of work like; “Construction of Foundation” or “Construction
of Civil Works”. Therefore, Duration of every activity is directly linked to the scope of work
that it covers. In projects Activity’s Duration is defined as:

Amount of time that an Activity consumes to complete its scope of work and it can be
called “Done”. Or

Is amount of time required to Complete the work
 How to Estimate Activity Duration: To estimate the duration of an activity, the following
process should take place:

Identify steps / Earning Rules that have to take place to Compete the work

Estimate time required for each step

Obtain Quantity of the work to be done
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
Estimate/assume production rate / norm

Productive hours per day

Identify / estimate Capacity of Machinery, logistics, equipment, space and etc.
The above steps are a generic process and could differ based on the nature of the work.
1.4. Resource, Norms, Quantity and Duration
To demonstrate the relationship between the activity’s duration and number of resource,
productivity norms and quantity; consider the following example:
Example: Pull 1000 meters of cable
 Scenario 1
 With a production rate of 2m cable per cable puller per hour and 6 hours productive, it will
take 83.3 days to complete with 1 cable puller.
 This work will take 8.3 days with 10 cable puller.
So, by increasing the number of resources, the duration will be shorter
 Scenario 2
 With the production rate of 4m (double the 1st scenario) per cable puller, it will take 41.6 days
with 1 resource and 4.16 days with 10 resources
It means, a higher the production rate, shorter the duration
 Scenario 3
 The 3rd scenario is with 8 productive hours and 2m cable per cable puller per hour, it will take
62.5 days to complete with 1 resource and 6.25 days with 10 resources.
It means, higher productive hours, leads to a shorter duration
So, Duration of activity could change based on the production rate, number of resources,
productive hours. However, it should be noted that resource’s capacity, number of non-labor
resource, Logistics, access, Safety and constructability play significant role as well. It means,
additional man-power, might not reduce activity’s duration.
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1.5. Resource Capacity and Duration
Capacity of Resources, is one of the main driver of an activities’ duration which most of the time
get ignored or assumed they are available unlimited. To demonstrate how the capacity affects
the duration of activities; consider the following example:
Activity: Cast 1000m3 of Concrete in 10 days
a) No limit in capacity: To complete this activity in 10 days, 100m3 per day should be casted.
Without considering the batching plant capacity or assuming that concrete volume will be
supplied as required, the activity will finish in 10 days.
b) With limited capacity: The installed batching plant capacity on site is only 50 m3. It means,
there is 50m3 concrete shortage of supply per day. Therefore, to complete this activity in
10 days, 2nd batching plant with 50m3 capacity is required. Otherwise, with only 50m3
concrete supply per day, the activity will only be complete in 20 days.
So, to estimate / calculate an activity’s duration, the following items and their impacts should be
taken into account:

Capacity
The Capacity of a vendor to supply material for the planned construction rate should be
considered. For example, in a pipeline project, to weld/install specific length of pipe per
day, the pipe supplier capacity should be able to supply the required length of pipe per
day or more. Otherwise the pipe supplier will negatively impact the installation rate and
project will be delayed.
Capacity is the main driver of some pre-commissioning and commissioning activities like
Loop/Function checks. Loop /Function check is done through control system’s monitors
(DCS) at the control room. Therefore, number of loop checks per day depends on the
number of available DCS monitors. Increasing Man-power alone will not reduce Loop
check’s duration.

Process
To erect steel structure, every piece has to be lifted with a crane regardless of weight and
size. Therefore, duration of the steel structure activity will be determined by the number
of available cranes and time (average) that is required to lift and bolt every pieces. It
means Increasing man-power only, without increasing the number of cranes, will not
reduce the duration. Refer to 3.4.10 as well.
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Some of the pre-commissioning and commissioning activities e.g. Steam Blow Through,
rotary equipment shaft alignment, etc. are dependent on the sequence of events and
system interfaces which man-power has limited impact on their duration.

Location and Access
Working on elevation, confined area, temporary platform, etc. reduces the productivity
rate of the resources and affects duration negatively. In this kind of situations, generally,
due to limited space to work; it is not possible to mobilize additional resources. As a result,
duration of activities becomes longer than working on the ground.

Logistic
To complete a pipeline project on time, it was estimated that per day about 4km of pipes
have to be welded and laid in the trench. The chance to finish this project on time was
very low due to associated logistic. Hereunder is the simple calculation and analysis:
-
Length of each pipe is 12m
-
Then, the number of the pipes in 4km (4000m) will be 4000 ÷ 12 = 334
-
Each crane could lift max 2 pipes at the same time. So, about 167 (334 ÷ 2 = 167)
cranes are required.
-
The question is: How many cranes were available in the country?
-
Also, every day all the cranes, other equipment and resources have to travel
4km!
Based on this simple analysis, it is clear that due to logistics constrains, the project was
destined for failure right from the onset.

Congestion
There is limited space available in a Sub-station, control room, compressor house, plant
area, etc. to mobilize resource and reduce activities’ duration. Overcrowding of
resources will reduce the productivity and safety in the working area. Therefore,
additional resources will not reduce duration but will prolong it.

Productive hours
Direct resources perform only during productive hours; not the entire working hours. It
means, duration of activities depends on the number of productive hours per day and it
has to be used to calculated the duration. Refer to section 3.4.3
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1.6. Activity’s Steps (Earning Rules) and Duration
As stated, in order for an Activity to complete its associated scope of work, has to go through steps
and earn each step’s related scope of work. To complete each step; certain resource and time is
required which could be used for:
1- Estimating the Activity’s duration
2- Identification of skills and resources required to undertake the activity
To calculate the duration of activities:

Steps / Earning Rules (ER) have to be identified

Duration of Steps has to be estimated. To estimate step’s duration, Standard Norm table
could be used.

Duration of Activity, will be the Sum of the all steps durations
Notes:
 For Engineering deliverables, there could be more than 1 set of earning rules based on
the deliverable type. For example, Earning Rules for P&ID development is different from
Hazop Study or Commissioning manual preparation.
 Most Likely there will be only one set of Earning rules for procurement
 There will be many Earning Rules for Construction based on the nature of the works,
discipline, scope, work category, etc.
 Earning rules are, in-fact, detail activities that could be added separately as activity in the
schedule.
Some Earning rules examples related to project activities are as follows:
 Construction of Foundation: To construct a foundation (1m3), the following steps with
estimated duration have to be completed:
#
1
2
3
4
5
Earning Rule
Excavation
Re-baring
Form Working
Concrete Pouring
Curing
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Duration
1 day
2 days
1 day
1 day
7 days
9
 Welding a Piping Joint: To weld a piping joint (10ID), at workshop or field, the following
steps have to be completed:
#
1
2
3
4
5
Earning Rule
Cutting
Fit-up
Weld
NDT
PWHT
Duration
2 hours
3 hours
2 hours
16 hours
8 hours
 Pulling Electrical / Control Cable: To pull an electrical cable (10m) and to be referred as
completed, the following steps should be performed:
#
1
2
3
Earning Rule
Pulling
Strapping
Termination
Duration
2 hours
3 hours
2 hours
 Develop Engineering Drawing: To develop an Engineering drawing, review by client team
and issue it for construction, these steps should be completed:
#
Earning Rule
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Calculation and sketch
Drafting
1st Review
Update
2nd Review
Update
Client Review
Update
IFC
Duration
2 days
3 days
1 day
2 days
1 day
1 day
10 days
5 days
1 day
 Procurement of an Equipment: Once the order has been placed, to deliver material/
equipment; the following steps/ activities have to be performed:
#
1
2
3
4
5
6
Earning Rule
Receive and Review Vendor drawing
Update by Vendor and Re-issue
2nd Review
Manufacturing
QC, FAT
Delivery
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Duration
6 weeks
1 week
2 weeks
20 weeks
3 weeks
2 weeks
10
1.7. Earning Rules, Duration & Resources
To complete an activity’s scope of work, different skill set / role gets involved as per the Earning
rules resource requirement. Resource requirement to complete each step could be a Generic or
Specific role. Both of these, could be acceptable based on the purpose of the resource assignment
and level of accuracy that a project requires. It is clear that, using Specific Resource provide better
and more accurate result especially for Cost Loading. For more info on Generic and Specific
Resource refer to 2.7.6
1.7.1. Earning Rules, Duration & Resources – Engineering
According to the Engineering earning rule, example above, Sum of all steps durations is 31 days.
Engineering team estimates the Duration of each step based on the average time that they will be
spending for each drawing. The client review duration (for applicable drawings) is, generally, contractual
or official agreement. So, 31 days is required to complete a drawing.
There are 4 basic principles in Engineering works which should be considered for resource assignment:
1- Engineers spends no time when the drawings are with client to review. Therefore, there will be
no Engineering man-hours/cost associated with the client review step.
2- Engineers do not spend full day on each drawing’s earning rules; instead they work on several
drawings at the same time. Therefore, full time (8 hours/day) allocation of Engineers to
engineering works is incorrect. (There might be exceptions)
3- Generally, reviews are done by multi-disciplinary engineering team
4- Draftsman, most likely, spends full day on each drawing and earning rule.
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1.7.2. Earning Rules, Duration & Resources - Procurement
After the signing of a Purchase order, vendor starts with process / steps to deliver drawings and
equipment/ material. Duration of each step is, generally, part of the contract and vendor has to deliver
as per the durations. In this example, the duration of procurement is 34 weeks. Required resources could
be assigned as Generic or Specific. However, using generic resources for procurement is an incorrect
practice and highly not recommended. Because, at least, two different companies are involved, using
only 1 generic resource will not be able to cover all required resources appropriately.
To assign resources correctly to Procurement activities, the following principles should be taken into
account:
1. During vendor’s activity, only vendor’s resources will be working. Hence, no Engineering / QC
man-hours or cost will be loaded.
2. Most likely, vendor will not provide the detail info e.g. man-hours, number of resources.
Therefore, Vendor’s activities could not be assigned with resources.
3. All steps’ duration including manufacturing should be based on contract or agreement
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1.7.3. Earning Rules, Duration & Resources - Civil Work
Civil work is one of the main Construction activities and could be found almost in every all Construction
projects. Almost all the civil works follow the same steps and requires same skills. However, duration of
civil earning rules depends on a variety of factors which could be found in Standard Productivity Norm
tables.
The chart below illustrates the 5 steps (4 active, 1 passive) that are required for construction of (1m3)
foundation. The sum of the durations is 12 days. Resources requirement and assignment can be done
through Specific and Generic role.
It is important to note that no works is done during Curing (passive activity), therefore, no resources will
be assigned to it.
1.7.4. Earning Rules, Duration & Resources - Piping
To weld a piping joint and accept as per the specs, 5 steps have to be carried out. All piping welding has
to go through these steps regardless of joint size, joint type and material (other than Plastic pipe).
Total duration of these steps is 31 hours and could be used as a norm to calculate the duration of
activities. The duration for each step is based on average time required for base quantity (10ID for
example). To calculate the durations more accurately, several duration ranges as per the size and
material could be established and utilized. Resource assignment can be done by using Generic or Specific
role which Specific role provides much more accurate output.
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1.7.5. Earning Rules, Duration & Resources – Cabling
Cabling (power or control cable) consist of 3 steps, Pulling/Laying, Strapping and Termination. The total
duration to complete the base quantity (10m) is the sum of the steps durations (chart below) or 6 hours.
Required resources to carry out the steps can be assigned using A Generic or Specific role.
1.8. Earning Rules Combination
It should be noted that each Earning Rules could be added as an activity in the Schedule. This may
not be practical in big/complex project; because it will make the project’s schedule very big and
un-manageable. Therefore, through Earning Rules utilization; schedule can be neat, smaller and
manageable.
Sometime during schedule development there might be a requirement to create combination of
earning rules and add as additional activities in the Schedule. For example, piping earning rules
could be grouped in 2 combination or activities, same as the bar-charts below:

Welding activity, includes: Cutting, Fit-up and Welding
 QC Clearance activity, including NTD and PWHT
Duration of each of these activities will be the sum of the Earning Rules’ duration that they have
covered. As a result, the Welding Duration will be 7 hours and QC Clearance 24 hours.
The same applies to any combination of earning rules.
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1.9.
Resource, Work and Duration
Resource assignment is a systematic process which requires information and calculations.
Understanding the nature of the work, work flow and amount of work that has to be done are
critical for correct resource loading. Trusting the software default setting or invalid assumption
will not change the reality of work flows and resource requirement during execution.
Following example, demonstrates the incorrect approach to resource assignment and how to
approach it correctly.
• 3 drawings have to be developed (3 activities):
-
Activity 1: Pump Foundation Drawing
-
Activity 2: Pipe Rack Structure Drawing
-
Activity 3: Site Road Drawing
• Only one Civil engineer is available to work on all these 3 activities
• Duration of each activity is 10 days
• All of these activities are in parallel, as illustrated below.
So, how should resource assignment be done?
There are two incorrect practices:
1- As per the default setting, Software assigns full working day (8 hours for example) to every
activity. Then calculates 80 man-hours (10days × 8hours/day = 80) for each activity. This
assignment means, the Engineer has to work full time every day on each activity.
Acceding to this scenario, either 3 Engineers are required to complete all the 3 activities
in 10 days, or with one Engineer; it will take 30 days to complete them all, as illustrated
below:
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2- Assuming the Engineer will be spending equal time (33%) on each drawing. Therefore,
the man-hours will be 2.67 hours per day (8 hours/day / 3activity = 2.67) or 26.7 hours in 10
days for each activity.
This scenario, is better than 1st one, but still incorrect. Because it assumes; amount of
work for each activity is exactly the same while they are not the same activity.
In order to assign resource to these activities (and any other activity) correctly “Amount of Work
related to each Activity” or “Amount of Work that Activity covers” has to obtained or calculated.
This example, leads to the following 2 basic concepts in Resource Loading:

When a Resource gets assigned to an Activity, it does not mean that Resource will be
working full time throughout the Activity’s Duration.

Budgeted units is an Amount of Work that has to be done during the Duration of the
activity
Therefore, to assign resource to these three activities correctly, amount of work for each of them
has to be obtained or calculated. For example:
 1st activity requires 16 hours and Engineer has to spend it in 10 days
 2nd activity requires 20 hours and Engineer has to spend it in 10 days
 3rd activity requires 32 hours and Engineer has to spend it in 10 days
 Engineer has to spend 68 hours total in 10 days.
As a result, 1 Engineer will be able to complete all the three activities in 10 days with 12 spare
hours!
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2. Resource Sheet Development
Resource Sheet or resource pool is the place which lists all the resources that are required to execute
projects. Administration of the resource pool in Enterprise project companies in which resources
work in more than one project at the same time; is critical to support the company’s projects and
deliver them on time. Resource Sheet development is the prerequisite for assigning the resources
and has to be created/ developed adequately with all relevant fields correctly adapted.
This section covers the following items:
2.1. Activity Type in Primavera
2.2. Duration Type in Primavera
2.3. Resource Sheet Development
2.4. Resource Sheet Development – Rules
2.5. Resource Sheet Development – Incorrect Practices
2.6. Resource Sheet Development – Examples
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2.1
Activity Type in Primavera
There are 5 Activity types in Primavera and a correct and appropriate type has to be selected as
per the activity’s requirement. Incorrect selection will affect the software output and calculation.
 Task Dependent: Most of project’s activities falls under this category because completion
of activities is the highest priority and resources should be available to complete the project
works. Based on this setting:

Activity is scheduled according to the activity's calendar rather than resource’s
calendar. In other words, Resources have to be available to work on the activity as
per the planned Start / Finish Dates.

This is the applicable setting for most of the Activities in projects
 Resource Dependent: In some projects and especially during Engineering and
Commissioning, some activities require special resource(s) who may not be readily available
whenever is required. Therefore, an Activity’s Start / Finish date will be dependent on the
availability of these resource(s). In this case, Resource availability takes priority and dictates
the Start / Finish Dates. When this setting is used:

Activity is scheduled according to the calendars of assigned resources

This is used when there is a special resource to do the work that it is available only at
certain periods/date(s)
 Level of Effort: LOE activities generally used to represent the In-direct resources in a
schedule e.g. Planner, PM, etc. It should be noted that In-direct resources must not be
assigned to the project’s activities.
 Activity has a duration which is determined by its dependent activities
 Resources can be assigned, strongly recommended to load Indirect resources only
 Milestone: Millstones play an important role in planning and scheduling to represent the
project events e.g. contractual dates, major events, interface points, etc.

Milestone is a zero-duration activity with no resources, marking a significant project
event

Resources cannot be loaded
 WBS Summary: It is like schedule’s WBS which represents the activities under it.

Activity has a duration which is determined by a group of activities that share a
common WBS level

Resources can be assigned, strongly recommended not to assign
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2.2
Duration Type in Primavera
The concept of the resource loading is about managing and controlling of 3 variables; Duration,
Budgeted Units and Unit/ Time. As per the software setting each variable changes one of the two.
Therefore, selecting a correct Duration Type in very important.
-
The Duration of an activity might be calculated based on the Quantity, Norm, No, of resource,
could be estimated by project team or could be estimated/ adjusted as per the project
requirement / contract. Therefore, the Duration gets entered manually into the schedule.
-
The labor and non-labor the Budgeted Unit or budgeted man-hours should be CALCULATED
from Norms, Quantity and productive hours. It means, the Budgeted Units has to be
calculated outside the software (in Excel) and gets entered manually per assigned resource.
Also, this implies that, for Construction activities, without having Norms and Quantity
resource loading could not be done correctly.
-
Unit/Time either gets calculated by the software or gets entered manually as per the
Duration Type. The Unit/Time could be used to calculate the No. of resource using the
formula below:
No. of Resources = Unit/Time ÷ Working Hours (per day, week or month)
Note: The Budgeted Units of Material / Commodity is the Quantity that was used for calculation
Primavera has 4 different Duration Types which are applicable when the schedule is resource
loaded. Duration Type provides setting to calculate 3 variables (above) related to an Activity’s
Duration and Resources. These variables are:
1- Duration
2- Budgeted Units or Planned Units
3- Unit / Time
Based on the selected Duration Type, Primavera calculates one or 2 of the above variables.
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 Fixed Duration & Unit: In this setting, both Duration and Unit are fixed then Primavera
recalculates the Unit / Time to keep the Unit or Duration un-changed.
 When Duration is changed P6 re-calculates the Unit/Time to keep the Total Unit fixed
 When Total Unit is changed, P6 re-calculates the Unit/Time but Duration stays fixed
 When Unit/Time is changed, P6 re-calculates the Units but keeps the Duration fixed
 Fixed Duration & Unit/Time: In this setting, Duration and Unit/Time are fixed, therefore
Primavera re-calculates the Units to keep the Duration or Unit/Time un-changed.
 When Duration is changed, P6 re-calculates the Total Unit based on Fixed Unit/Time
 When Unit/Time is changed, P6 re-calculates the Total Unit but Duration will stay fixed
 When Units is changed, P6 re-calculates the Unit/Time but keeps the Duration fixed
 Fixed Units: In this setting, only Total Units are fixed therefore, Primavera re-calculates
Duration or Unit/Time.
 When Duration is changed, Unit/Time gets re-calculated to keep the Total Units fixed
 When Total Unit is changed, Duration will be re-calculated, Unit/Time stays the same
 When Unit/Time is changed, P6 re-calculates the Duration, keeps the Units fixed
 Fixed Unit / Time: In this setting, Primavera keeps the Unit/Time fixed and re-calculates
Duration or Unit.
 When Total Unit is changed, P6 re-calculates the Duration but Unit/Time stays fixed
 When Duration is changed, P6 re-calculates the Total but Unit/Time stays fixed
 When Unit/Time is changed, P6 re-calculates the Duration, keeps the Units fixed
Summary: the table below summarize the Primavera calculation based in selected Duration
Type.
Duration Type
Duration
Unit
Unit / Time
Fixed Duration & Unit
Fixed
Fixed
Recalculate
Fixed Duration& Unit/Time
Fixed
Recalculate
Fixed
Fixed Units
Recalculate
Fixed
Recalculate
Fixed Unit / Time
Recalculate
Recalculate
Fixed
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In most of the projects, the Project control team estimates / calculates budgeted man-hours, costs
and duration then manually captures them into the project schedule and allows the software to
calculate the Unit / Time. Therefore, the best option for Duration Type would be: Fixed Duration
and Unit.
Fixed Unit
This duration type could be used to develop an Acceleration schedule which requires extra
resources to reduce the durations. In this practice, after changing the original durations to
accelerated, P6 re-calculates the Unit/Time. The new re-calculated Unit /Time can be used to
calculate the number of required resources to achieve the accelerated duration. In other words,
this setting can be used to answer this question: How many resources will be required to complete
the Activity/Project in a certain duration / date?
Fixed Unit / Time
Same as Fixed Unit, could be used to develop an Acceleration schedule. In this case, project wants
to know the effect of extra resources on activities completion duration and dates. To perform this
practice, Planner changes the Unit/Time of the activities manually; then P6 re-calculates the
Durations. In other words, this setting provides the answer to this question: what will be the
activity/project’s duration after adding X amount of resources?
As summary,

In Fixed Unit: How many resources will be required to meet certain dates?

In Fixed Unit/Time: What will be the impact of extra resources on Durations?
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2.3
Resource Sheet
All required resources including Labor, Non-Labor and Material have to be added in the
Resource sheet before assigning to the activities.

To open Resource sheet window, click on

Filter function should be used to display: Current project resources, all active resources
or all resources

At the bottom of the window, Resource Detail section is available to add / edit or display
additional information for each resource.

The most important tab in the Resource Detail is “Units & Prices”. In this tab:
icon on P6 left hand sidebar
 Effective Date is the date that a resource becomes available to start working on the
activities / project
 Standard Rate is to add resource’s cost/ time which requires for Cost Loading
 Max Unit/Time is to capture the number of man-hour available per time. Primavera
has two settings to capture the Max Unit/Time:
1. Total number of hours that is available from one resource to work on the project
per time. In this setting, 4h/day means; resource is available to work on the
project 4 hours per day. 8h/day means; resource is available to work 8 hours per
day, 16h/day means; resource is available to work 16 hours per day.
Generally, if a working day is 8 hours; then 8h/d means 1 resource full day, 16h/d
is 2 resources and 4h/d is 1 resource half a day available. So, Max Unit/ Time will
be [Number of Resources from 1 role/skill set] × [Working hours per day]
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on the screenshot above, 64h/d means; 8 “Finish Carpenter” (64h/d ÷ 8working hours
=8) are available to work on the project.
2. In the 2nd setting, availability of resources is calculated and displayed in
Percentage. In this setting, 100% means; 1 resource full time, 200% is 2 resources
full time, 50% is 1 resource half a day available.
On the screenshot above, 800% means; 8 “Finish Carpenters” are available on
the project.
To change the setting: Go to Edit ≫ User Preferences ≫ in Time Unit Tab
select the preferred option
Note: During resource loading it is recommended to use the 1st option
Note: Also tick the boxes of “Unit of Time” and “Duration Format” labels
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2.4
Resource Sheet – Add New Resource

To add new resource(s) to the pool, click on Add icon

Once the icon is clicked, P6 asks to display the all resources. The main reason to display
all resources is to avoid resource duplication and make sure that any of the existing
resources will not be added more than once.
on the right hand sidebar.

Start adding new resource with meaningful ID (as per the Planning procedure),
correct Resource Type and Unit of Measure for Material.

Update the Max Unit/Time (if total number of resources are available at this stage,
otherwise updated it later) and Standard Rate.

Add Effective Date that a resource becomes available to work on the project
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The Effective Date feature should be used to capture the different number of
available resource in the different stages of the project. For example, in the
screenshot above, there will be 2 Mechanical Engineers from 1-Jan-19, 3 from 8-Apr19 and 4 from 8-July-19. As a result, the Resource profile chart will be the same as
the screenshot below which shows the number of resources as per the effective
dates.
Note: This process (developing resource sheet) should be done for New and standalone
Projects where New resources will be mobilized on the project. For more info, refer to
Section 2.6
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2.5
Resource Sheet Development
Properly developed Resource sheet should have all the relevant fields correctly updated /
captured. The required fields are as follows:

Resource ID should have a meaningful ID structure (as per the Planning Procedure)

Resource Name should be specific with correct name or role

Resource Type should be used as appropriate and must not be misused one type for
another

Unit of Measure (UOM) for material must be added correctly. It improves readability of
the schedule. If required add new UOM in Admin ≫ Admin Category ≫ Unit of Measure
Tab

Primary Role should be assigned correctly. This is very important in Enterprise Project
Companies

Max Unit / Time must be updated carefully with the correct number of available
resources

Standard Rate should be updated for Cost Loading purpose
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2.6
Resource Sheet Development – Rules
To develop a Resource Sheet correctly and perform the resource pool administration effectively,
the following rules should be considered:
1. Standalone Project: In these projects, all resources will be working on a single project and
there are no shared resources. For this type of projects:

Create Project specific Resource pool. Only these resources will be assigned to the Project
For example, on the screenshot below, the Planner was responsible to work on could of
projects and all the resources were standalone without having any shared resources.

Max Unit/Time for each skill set will be: [Working hours/day] × [No. of Resources]
2. Enterprise Projects (Shared Resources): This is applicable to the companies that execute
multiple projects simultaneously; using a common resource pool. In this environment,
each resource could be working in several projects and their time / day is shared amongst
all the projects involved. Therefore:

There cannot be a resource pool per project. instead;

There must be Company’s Resource Sheet that covers all existing resources

Capture Resources Roles as name, Department / discipline as Role

All the Projects have to use the same Resource Sheet to assign resources

Max Unit/Time for each role / skill set will be: [No. of resource per role] × [Corporate
working hours/day]
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For example, the company KHPC runs multiple projects using the same resource pool
(shared resources). Then, the resource pool should be similar to the screenshot below.
All the company’s
resources are in
one Resource Pool
It should be noted that, if the company’s starts a new project standalone project that has
no shared resources then new specific resource pool must be added to cover the new
project’s resources.

Do not delete any Resource from the sheet, rather update the name/role

Use the “Effective Date” to manage the availability of No. of resource in different stages
of the project.
The “Effective Date”, and Max Unit / Time could be dynamic and get changed based
on the company’s projects requirement. For example, there are 4 Electrical Engineer
in a company, the Max Unit/Time is 32h/d and effective date is 01-Feb-2016. Then,
one of the Electrical Engineers require to work full time on a specific project from
4-Aug-2019. To manage this situation following process should be done:

Add a new Resource as Electrical Engineer

Set the Max Unit/Time to 8 hours and effective date to 04-Aug-19
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
Then on the old Electrical Engineering; add 4-Aug-19 as a new effective date
and update the Max Unit/Time to 24, as illustrated below:

Once the assignment / project completed, the new added resources has to
be deleted.

Then, the Max Unit/ Time for the main / old Electrical Engineering has to be
changed to 32 with a new Effective Date. The new Effective Date will indicate
that, going forward there will be 4 Electrical Engineer available to work on
all projects.
Note: The above process, should be done through database / resource sheet
administrator.
To administer the resource pool effectively, a database administrator must be the only
person to have access to add / change resources. All the users/planners should work
through the database administrator to make any changes in the resource pool. Once
database administrator verified the New Resource is not a duplication of existing resource,
the it can be added to the resource pool.
Note: Generally, this is applicable mostly for head office team including Engineering, Procurement
teams and support function resources.
3. General: The general rules are applicable to both standalone and Enterprise Project and
compliance is highly recommended:

Identify resource type correctly, Labor, Non Labor, Material

Create appropriate Unit of Measures for Material

Update the Max Unit/Time based on the Number of Resource for each role. Do not
leave it with Default setting.

Do not write un-realistic number in Max Unit/Time to avoid Resource Leveling or Overallocation issues
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2.7
Resource Sheet Development – Incorrect Practices
Ignoring the rules and principles, will lead to incorrect practices. These practices could affect the
project and companies adversely and lead to projects failure. Some of the incorrect practices are
as follows:
#
Practice
Affect
1
Combining resources as Team or Crew and treat • Incorrect Man-hours
them as a Single resource
• Incorrect Weight Value
• Incorrect Progress Report
2
Using Resources Like Engineer1, Egineer2 or • Over-allocation of some resources and
Team1, Team 2
under allocation of others
3
Capture un-realistic number in Max Unit/Time
• Hides over-allocation
• Earlier mitigation will not be possible
4
Not Updating Max Unit/Time and leaving it with • Project will not be able to develop
default number
mitigation plan
• Resource management failure
5
Creating Resource pool for every project without • Calculation
of
exact
resource
considering the Shared Resources
requirement will be impossible
• Resource management failure
6
7
Using Generic Resource instead of specific
• Calculation
of
exact
resource
requirement will be impossible
• Cost Loading will not be possible
Using Duration as Resource or assuming all • Completely incorrect practice
resource will be working every day full day
• No resource management
2.7.1 Incorrect Practices - Combining Resources
In this practice, planner creates team or crew (more than 1 resource in a team) and names them e.g.
Piping crew, Concrete team, etc. Most likely, the Max Unit /Time will not get updated and stays at 8
hours /day which represent only 1 resource is available per day.
In the following example, there are Bricklaying team, Ceiling team, Site Engineer and Foreman. The Max
Unit/Time for all of these resources indicates that each of them considered a single resource!
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The main problem of using this practice is when Budgeted Man-hours are the data source for Weight
Value (W.V) calculation in Progress Measurement System (PMS). Also, it could affect even the Primavera
own calculations, which leads to incorrect progress reports and S-Curves. In this example, Budgeted
units for these 4 resources are as follows:
The weight values based on the budgeted units above will be as follows:
Resource
Ceiling Team
Site Engineer
Foreman
Bricklaying Team
Total
Man -Hours
Weight Value
29 942
4 566
31 954
284 928
351 390
29942÷351390 = 8.5%
4566÷351390 = 1.3%
1954÷351390 = 9.1%
284298÷351390 = 81.0%
Considering the number of resources in each team, the total man-hours will be different than above
table and as a result the Weight Values will change. Let’s assume there are 4 people in the Ceiling team
and 6 in the Bricklaying team. The new man-hours and W. Vs will be as follows:
Resource
Ceiling Team
Site Engineer
Foreman
Bricklaying Team
No. of Resources
Man -Hours
Weight Value
4
1
1
6
4 × 29 942 = 119 768
1 × 4 566 = 4 566
1 × 31 954 =31 954
6 × 284 928 = 1 705 788
1 862 076
6.43%
Total
0.25%
1.72%
91.61%
In this table where man-hours have been normalized based on the number of resources per team. As a
result, the Total man-hours become 6 times more than in table 1 (351 390 vs. 1 862 076). So, it is clear
that combining resources as a team and considering them as a single resource provides incorrect total
Man-hours which results to calculate incorrect W. V and S-Curves.
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Using the abovementioned weight values to calculate overall progress, illustrates how it affects the
progress. To do the calculations, let’s assume that Ceiling progress is 10%, Structure is 80%, Engineering
is 70% and Brickwork is 10%.

Based on the 1st table above, the overall progress will be 16.38%.
Activity
Ceiling
Structure
Engineering
Brick Work
Weight Value
Progress
Weighted Progress
8.5%
1.3%
9.1%
81.0%
10%
80%
70%
10%
0.85%
1.04%
6.38%
8.11%
Total

16.38%
The new overall progress, based on the normalized W.V will be 11.2%, which is 5.18% less.
Activity
Ceiling
Structure
Engineering
Brick Work
Weight Value
Progress
Weighted Progress
6.43%
0.25%
1.72%
91.61%
10%
80%
70%
10%
0.85%
1.04%
6.38%
8.11%
Total
11.20%
The other issue with this practice is that it cannot be used for Cost Loading of a schedule; because hourly
rate of resources in a team, most likely, are not the same. For example, in a Piping team consisting of a
Welder, Fitter, Grinder and helper; hourly rate of each resource is different. Therefore, using the same
rate for all resources in a team will not provide correct Cost Loaded schedule.
Correct Procedure
The correct practice is to add all the resource roles in the Resource sheet and update the Max Unit /time
and Standard Rate for each skill set / role of resource. Then assign resources to the activities as required.
For activities where resources will be working as a team, add all resources that are in the team. By doing
this, the exact number of resources from each role could be extracted from the schedule and cost
loading will provide accurate figures.
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2.7.2 Incorrect Practices - Resource Numbering
Numbering of resource in a resource sheet is another incorrect practice which should be avoided as
much as possible. In this practice, the Planner creates resources i.e. Engineer 1, Engineer 2, Team 1,
Team 2, etc. In the next example which is extracted from a real project’s schedule, the Planner created
five “Site Agent” in the resource sheet and assigned them to the activities.
After assigning these resources to the activities, the budgeted man-hours show significant misalignment
in both total hours and distribution. As the following screenshot illustrates, the total man-hours range
is too wide. For the 1st one is 8787 hours and the last one is 31620 hours!
The distribution of the hours for each of these resources are uneven. The 1st and 3rd resource has no
allocation for several periods at the beginning but the other three have been allocated for earlier
periods.
So, using this practice creates work assignment misalignment where some resources are under allocated
whilst others are over allocated.
Note: This practice should only be used when the Exact activities that each resource has to carry out is
known.
Note: Resource numbering might be applicable for Railway, Pipeline projects that they work in more
than one section separately.
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Correct Procedure
In this example (and other projects), the Planner should have undertaken the following steps to avoid
the misalignment:
•
Create only 1 resource in the resource sheet and name it “Site Agent”
•
Update the Max Unit/Time to 50hrs to indicate 5 Site Agents are available in the project (5
Resources × 10 hrs/day)
•
Then assign this resource to activities with their associated Budgeted unit
Because, Planner will not be able to identify exactly which activities will be carried out by each resource.
He / She has to add only one “Site Agent” in the resource sheet then update the Max Unit /Time to
indicate the number of available resources. During execution, the project team will have flexibility to
assign works to resources and there will be no misalignment or incorrect distribution.
2.7.3 Incorrect Practices – Unrealistic Max Unit/Time
Using this practice; adding Unrealistic number to Max Unit/Time means that resource availability is
almost unlimited. This assumption is incorrect because it hides the resource constraints and makes the
resource levelling meaningless. Any Planner has to demonstrate, through resource loading, resource
constraints that might impact the project execution and completion date. Failing to do so, project team
will not implement any mitigation plan e.g.; additional resources mobilization, change in execution
plan/strategy or even accepting the delay due to a lack of resources.
In the following example, a Planner added 8 million man-hours for some resources. As a result, resource
usage profile does not show any over allocation.
Using this practice makes the resource leveling meaningless and in-fact, the main reason behind this
practice is to tamper with the Resource leveling outcome and give a wrong impression to management
that resource loading is correct and there are no resource constraints!
The correct practice is updating Max Unit/Time based on the number of available resources for each
role/ skill set and report any resource constraint and over-allocation to management.
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2.7.4 Incorrect Practices – Default Max Unit/Time
In this practice, the Planner does not update the Max Unit / Time as per the number of available
resources and leaves it with default value. This practice is the opposite to the 2.7.3, and all resources
will show over-allocation. In this practice, Performing Resource Leveling adds no value to the project.
Instead, it will add unnecessary stress to the project management team.
The next screenshot, shows that the Max Unit/Time of all resources is 10 hours (as per the project
calendar). As a result, the Resource Profile shows all resources are over-allocated.
The correct practice is updating Max Unit/Time based on the number of available resources for each
role/ skill set and report correct over-allocated resources to management.
2.7.5 Incorrect Practices – Ignoring Shared Resources
In this practice, the planner(s) creates resource pool for every project separately without considering
the Shared resources. Some resources might appear in more than one project’s resource pool with full
time availability for each project. It means, the resource has to work at the same time, full day in more
than one project.
The following example shows that one Instrument Engineer has been added to 2 project’s resource pools
with 8 and 10 hours’ availability for each project.
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It means, the Instrument Engineer has to work Full Time in both projects. So, in order to complete the
works on time, either this resource has to work 18 hours per day or one extra resource has to be
mobilised. Otherwise, activities that this resource has been assigned to will slip.
2.7.6 Incorrect Practices – Generic Resource
In this practice, the Planner creates few resources e.g. Engineer, Procurement, Construction Labor in the
resource sheet; then assigns them to the activities. The background for this practice comes from using
Standard Norm Tables which do not provide the required skill sets to complete the works. Instead it
provides only the man-hours. Using this practice means, during project execution; project manager and
team have to figure out how many resources from each skill set is required.
In the screenshot below for example, only 4 resources have been created in the Resource sheet and
assigned to all activities:

SUP: To assign to Procurement Activities

ENG: To assign to Engineering Activities

SIT: To assign to all Construction Activities

COM: To assign to all Commissioning Activities
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After assigning these 4 resources to the activities, “Resource Assignment Sheet” provides the Planned
Units as displayed below.
Assigning Generic resources has several issues:

Cost Loading will not be possible, because only 1 rate can be added to each resource. For
example, it assumes that all the resources that are covered by “Project – Site” has an equal
hourly rate. This is incorrect assumption because there are variety of different skill sets with
different hourly rates on site. Therefore, only 1 hourly rate will not be able to satisfy the Cost
loading requirements. Hence Cost loading will not be possible.

Calculation of a number of required resources per skill set will not be possible. Because there
is only One/few figure for calculation purpose. Hence, Project Manager and the team have to
estimate through trial and error, resources requirements for each skill set.

Installation / commodity Management will not be possible. Same as 2nd point above, there is
only one/few figure available for all commodities and material

Resource Levelling will add no value because it will not be identifiable which skill set is overallocated and driving.
2.7.7 Incorrect Practices – Using Duration
This practice starts with the creation of a Resource, that is usually called “Dummy” resource and gets
assigned to all activities. This practice uses Duration of the Activities to calculate the Planned units /
budgeted Unit. It widely used due to a lack of a skill and knowledge in Resource loading.
This practice is done in a couple of different ways:
1. When a Resource gets assigned to an Activity, P6 calculates the Planned Unit based on the default
setting which is [Duration × Working Hours / Day]. In the screenshot below; P6 has calculated the
Planned units to 80 hours based on 8h/day and 10 days Duration.
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2. Generally, the output of the No.1 appears to be incorrect to accept, then Full Day assignment
changes to less hours / day (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4 … hours/day)
3. No. 3 is the same as No.2 but instead of assigning hours/ day, Percentage of working hours / day
(10%, 30%, 40%, …) gets assigned. In the screenshot below, the Unit/Time has been changed to
20% from 100%. The Planned Units will be calculated using the formula below:
Planned Units = 10days × 8hours/day × 20%Units/Time = 16 hours
In all above practices that Duration of the Activity has been used to calculate the Planned Units; are
incorrect and adds no value to projects and decision making. In these Practices:

There is no upfront calculation to measure the Amount of Work that is required to complete the
activities.

It means value of all activities and every day is the same and Duration of activities is the only factor
that indicates values. In other words, Activities with longer durations have higher values.

Any created S-Curve based on this practice means; Distribution of Cumulative Durations (Y Axis)
throughout Project Duration (X Axis)!
The only use of this practice is to calculate the total number of Activities in project timescale (weekly,
Monthly). For this purpose, Unit/Time has to be 1 hour / day
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3. Resource Assignment
Resource loading is a systematic process which requires a lot of data and calculations. Data
collection and calculation must be done prior to assigning resource to a Schedule. In this section,
all aspects of resource loading as well as the calculations and required data/info from projects will
be presented and discussed. It should be noted that the processes and calculations for Engineering,
procurement and construction phase of projects are not the same. Therefore, the EPC phases will
be presented separately. This section, covers the following items / subjects:
3.1.
Budgeted Units & Unit/Time - EPC
3.2.
Resource Curve
3.3.
Resource Loading Process - Generic
3.4.
Resource Loading - Construction
3.5.
Resource Loading - Engineering
3.6.
Resource Loading – Procurement
3.7.
Resource Loading – Indirect Resources
3.8.
Cost Loading
3.9.
Schedule Level of Details
3.10. Resource Levelling
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3.1.
Budgeted Units & Unit/Time – EPC
The 2nd step in resource assignment (step 1 is Resource Pool Development) is understanding the
Budgeted unit, Unit/ Time and how the software takes them as input and generate output. Due
to the nature of the activities in E, P and C, each phase will be discussed separately. It should be
noted that in all the examples and practices:
 Activity Type is Task Dependent
 Duration Type is Fixed Duration and Unit
 Duration and Man-hours are estimated and then captured in the software. Then the
software calculates the Unit/Time
3.1.1. Budgeted Units & Unit/Time – Engineering
In sections 1.6 and 1.7.1, duration and resource of the Earning Rules has been used to estimate the
activity’s duration and resources requirements to carry each earning rule out. The same concept can be
used to estimate the Amount of work (man-hours) or cost of work required to complete an Engineering
activity. Steps Man-hours should be obtained from the Engineering team. Then the Activity’s budgeted
units will be the Sum of all steps man-hours. Expanding the example in section 1.6. with estimated step’s
man-hours will result the following table.
Earning Rule
Resource
Man-Hours
Duration
(Day)
Specific
Generic
Engineer
Engineer
6
3
Draftsman
Engineer
24
3
1
Calculation
2
Drafting
3
1st Review
Engineer
Engineer
2
1
4
1st Update
Draftsman
Engineer
16
2
5
2nd Review
Engineer
Engineer
2
1
6
2nd Update
Draftsman
Engineer
8
1
7
Client Review
Client Engin.
Engineer
0
10
8
Update
Draftsman
Engineer
10
5
9
Final Review
Client Engin.
Engineer
0
5
IFC
Doc Control
Engineer
2
1
70
31
10
Total
The following bar-chat illustrates the steps sequence, duration and man-hours:
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40
The above chart, displays what has been stated in 1.7.1 where Engineers do not work full time on
every step, instead work on several drawing /document at the same time.
So, to complete an Engineering activity it requires; 31 days and 70 man-hours. It means, 2 (Duration &
Units) of the 3 variables (Duration, Units, Unit/Time) that are required for resource loading has been
calculated. The third variables (Unit/Time) will be calculated by dividing Man-Hours by Duration. For this
activity it will be:
Unit/Time = 70man-hour ÷ 31Day = 2.26 hours/day
This means, 2,26 man-hours will be spent every day throughout the activity’s duration. Software uses
the same formula to calculated the Unit / Time.
In section 1.7.1, it was stated that Generic and Specific resources can be assigned to this activity.
Therefore, there will be two sets for the Unit / Time:

Generic Resource: using the formula above, the Unit/Time will be 2.26. The distribution has
been displayed on the table below:
Resources
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Engineer
2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2 2,2
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41

Specific Resource: distribution of man-hours for each specific resource, using the same formula
is as follows:
Resources
1
Engineer
0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,2
Draftsman
0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8 0,8
Engineer
0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1
Draftsman
0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5 0,5
Engineer
0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1
Draftsman
0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Client Engin. 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0
Draftsman
0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3
Client Engin. 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0
Doc Control 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1
Or as summary:
Resources
Engineer
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3 0,3
Draftsman
1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8 1,8
Doc Controller
0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1 0,1
Client
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Note: If each step, gets added as a separate activity into the schedule then each step will be
assigned with its related resource(s) and Unit/Time will be: Step’s Man-Hours ÷ Step’s Duration
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42
3.1.2. Budgeted Units & Unit/Time – Procurement
Resource loading of procurement activities requires special attention because there is a third party
(vendor) involvement in the process and completion of the activity. As per the procurement Earning
Rules and resource requirement; the amount of work for each step depicted in the next table:
Resource
Earning Rule
1
2
Receive Vendor DWGs
Review Drawings
3
Update by Vendor
4
Review
5
Manufacturing
6
7
QC/FAT
Delivery
Man-Hours
Duration
(week)
Specific
Generic
Vendor
Procurement
0
4
Engineer
Procurement
10
2
Vendor
Procurement
0
1
Engineer
Procurement
10
2
Vendor
Procurement
0
20
Engineer
Procurement
30
3
Vendor
Procurement
0
2
50
34
Total
To complete the table above, man-hours have to be obtained from 3 sources:

Engineering

QC

Vendor
Most likely, the vendor will not provide detail info about amount of work /man-hours that they will be
spending to carry out their activities. So, there will be no man-hours available to assign to vendor’s
steps. Some may attempt to use the duration of Vendor’s steps or activity’s duration to calculate manhours. This is incorrect because duration does not represent amount of work. For more, refer to section
2.7.6.
The resource usage profile as per the earning rules sequence will be as follows:
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43
As a result, to complete this procurement package; 50 Engineering man-hours in 34 weeks is required.
When all these steps get covered with one activity, all the resource will be assigned with their related
man-hours. In this case, the Unit / Time will be calculated using the same formula in section 3.1.1
(Unit/Time = Man-Hours ÷ Duration)
Unit /Time = 50 ÷ 31 = 1.5 hours / week
Notes:
 In-house procurement activity to appoint a supplier can be resources loaded

In small to medium projects the number of procurement packages is low, it would then be
better to add each step as a separate activity in the schedule. Then assign each step’s resources
to the related activity. The Unit/Time for each activity will be calculated using the same
formula.
3.1.3. Budgeted Units & Unit/Time – Construction
There are vast varieties of activities in the Construction but using the Earning rules and Standard Norms
make it easy to estimate duration, calculate man-hours and then load them into the Schedule. As an
example, the Construction of a Civil foundation has been used to explain the calculation of the total
budgeted man-hours and Unit/Time.
To construct 1m3 size foundation, the required man-hours for each step has been estimated and
captured on the table below:
Resource
Earning Rule
1
2
3
4
5
Man-Hours
Duration
Specific
Generic
Excavation
Excavator
Civil Labour
8
1
Re-baring
Bar-Bender
Civil Labour
16
2
Form Working
Form Worker
Civil Labour
8
1
Concrete Pouring
Pouring Res.
Civil Labour
8
1
No work
No Resource
0
7
40
12
Curing
Total
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(Day)
44
Although the Standard Norm tables could be used to estimate the man-hours. However, productivity
level of resources in countries / projects are not the same. Therefore, the norms should be adjusted and
customized as per the project productivity rate. If the Standard Norm table is not available or not easy
to customise, Planner should use the Construction team experiences to develop the project specific
norm table. It is advisable to use the project team experience either way to enhance the relationship
and buy-in the schedule and results.
The estimated duration, man-hours and sequence of the steps are illustrated in the bar-chart below:
The Unit/Time will be calculated using the same formula (U/T = M-H ÷ Duration). The Unit / Time and
distribution of each step and overall activity has been calculated on the following tables.
Distribution for Specific resources:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
0,7
1,3
0,7
0,7
0
Resources
Excavator
Bar-Bender
Form Worker
Concrete Res.
Curing
and for Generic resource:
Resources
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Civil Labor
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,3
The linear calculation means that all resources will be working from activity Start to Finish Date and get
evenly distributed from the beginning.
45
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3.2.
Resource Curve
To calculate Unit / time and distribute the works / man-hours throughout the duration, Primavera
uses the linear formula that assumes; all resources will be working from the activity’s start to end
date. However, in most of the cases, this assumption does not reflect a correct picture. In order to
fix the linear distribution and change / customize the distribution of man-hours from Linear to any
preferred distribution, Recourse Curve can be utilized.
Generally, Resource curve can be used in two options or scenarios:
a. In a level 2, 3 schedule where the duration of activities is too long; it can be used to produce
an S-Curve distribution or any other distribution, instead of a linear.
b. To distribute the man-hours based on Earning Rule’s resource involvement or simulate
Step’s resource involvement through activity’s duration
Specification of Resource Curve:
•
20 + 1 cells (1st cell is for Zero) are available and activity’s duration has to fit in 20 cells
•
Numbers in the cells are in % format and sum of them has to be 100
•
P6 calculates the Cumulative% of the cells value and displays them at the bottom, and
Graph at the top
•
P6 calculates the Unit/Time based on the Curve distribution pattern
In the example below, Bell shape curve has been created to distribute the man-hours / cost.
Cum% Graph
Cum Numbers
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20 Cells
46
Or, the Resource curve below is another example that has been created based on a project needs:
3.2.1. Resource Curve – Option a
In some projects, a detail schedule might not be available due to lack of indo or a Planner has to develop
Level 2, 3 schedule (as management tool) to report the project status. The Duration of activities in Level
2 and 3 are usually long and could be several weeks or months. Therefore, a linear distribution of manhours will not represent the project works correctly and instead on of S-Curves shape, there will be few
straight lines. So, in order to create a better distribution and simulate detail schedule output, Resource
Curve could be used. To utilise the Resource curve, the following steps should be undertaken:

Create Resource Curve(s): There might be a need to create separate curve for each Phase, Area,
Package, Contract and etc.

Change the number in the cells to develop desired curves. MS Excel can be used for calculation.

Assign created Curve to the resources
The following example, illustrates how a Resource curve changes the distribution of man-hours.
 The screenshot below, shows the man-hours have been distributed linearly and Unit/time is equal
for every week (1167 hours).
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47
 Then following Resource Curve has been created and assigned to the activity:
Then, Primavera re-distributed the man-hours from linear to the following:
The S-curve below, has been created from re-distributed hours and as it shows, the shape is the
same as the assigned Resource Curve.
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48
3.2.2. Resource Curve – Option b
The chart below illustrates the resources involvement, in the process of the Engineering drawing
development, as per the sequence of the steps:
Phase
Resource
Engineer
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
w w 0 0 0 w 0 0 w 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Engineering Draftsman
0 0 w w w 0 w w 0 w 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 w w w w w 0 0 0 0 0 0
Doc Control
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 w
As per this chart, which follows the sequence of steps; 1st Engineer works for 2 days, thereafter
Draftsman starts working for 3 days. Then, once the Draftsman works is done, Engineer reviews the
drawing in 1 day and notes his comment to draftsman. The process continues until the drawing gets
ready to be issued for Construction by the Document controller. It means, all the resources are not
working throughout the duration instead they get involved on their relevant step(s).
The same applies to Procurement resources whereby the Engineer works when a drawing is available
from a vendor and participate in the FAT only, same as table below that illustrated the Engineer Work
periods:
Phase
Resource
Procurement Engineer
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
0 0 0 0 w w 0 w w 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 w w w
In the Civil construction activity, resources follow the steps sequence as well. The work starts by
Excavator, then Bar-bender completes the re-enforcement, after that Form Work resource finishes the
Form Work and finally concrete pouring will be done.
Phase
Resource
Excavator
Bar-bender
Construction Form Worker
Pouring Res.
Curing
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 10 11 12
w
0
0
0
0
0
w
0
0
0
0
w
0
0
0
0 0
0
w 0
0 w
0 0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
So, distribution of all resources works / man-hours, throughout the activities’ duration does not
represent the resource utilization and involvement correctly. So, Resource curve could be utilized to
distribute the man-hours based on resource involvement on each step.
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49
To utilize the Resource curve, the following process and calculations should be noted:
•
If Activity’s duration is 20 days, then each cell will represent 1 day
•
If Activity’s duration is 10 days, then every 2 cells will represent 1 day
So, to calculate number of cells for each step and percentage of each step’s cell, following formulas
could be used:
X = 20 ÷ (Activity’s Duration) ⇒ Number of cell(s) for every day of Activity’s duration
Y = X × (Step’s Duration) ⇒ Number of cell(s) for each step’s duration
Cell% = 100 ÷ Y ⇒ Percentage to add in each step’s cell
Note: Above formula should be used for Duration ≤ 20 and for bigger than 20 days; option a should
be utilised.
The above formulas will be used in the Civil Foundation construction activity. To distribute the civils’
man-hours according to the resources involvement in each step, 4 Resource curves have to be created
in Primavera:
1. Excavation Resource Curve
2. Re-baring Resource Curve
3. Form-working Resource Curve
4. Concrete pouring Resource Curve
After creation of the Curves, the formulas will be used to calculate the number of cells and
percentage of the cells for each Step:
X = 20 ÷ Activity’s Duration ⇒ X=20 ÷ 10 = 2
activity’s duration.
1.
It means; every 2 cells will cover 1 day of the
For Excavation:
Y = X × (Step’s Duration) ⇒ Y= 2 × 1 =2, It means; Excavation will take 2 cells from 20
Cell% = 100 ÷ Y ⇒ Cell% = 100 ÷ 2 =50, It means; the percentage for each cell is 50
The Excavation resource curve has been created as per the calculation. In the curve, first 2 cells
will be occupied and the percentage in each cell will be 50, same as screenshot below:
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50
2.
For Re-baring:
Y= 2 × 2 =4
Cell% = 100 ÷ 4 =25
It means, Re-bar will take 4 cells
It means, the percentage for each cell is 25
The Re-baring resource curve has been created according the calculation. In the curve 4 cells,
after Excavation’s cells, are occupied and the percentage in each cell is 25.
3.
For Form Work:
Y= 2 × 1 =2
It means, Form Work will take 2 cells
Cell% = 100 ÷ 2 =50 It means, the percentage for each cell is 50
The Form Work resource curve has been created according the calculation. In the curve 2 cells,
after Re-baring’s cells, are occupied and the percentage in each cell is 50
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51
4.
For Concrete pouring:
Y=2 × 1 =2
Cell%=100 ÷ 2=50
It means, Concrete Pouring will take 2 cells
It means, the percentage for each cell is 50
The Concrete pouring resource curve has been created according the calculation results which
2 cells are occupied and the percentage in each cell is 50
Created Resource curves have been assigned to the Construction of Foundation as displayed below:
Note: In the resource loading:

Specific resources have been assigned

Budgeted man-hours have been captured

Resource Curve of each step have been assigned
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52
As a result, distribution of man-hours will be as follows:

Man-hours have been distributed based on the sequence of the resource involvement

For the Curing period, no man-hours have been distributed.
It should be noted that using the Resource Curve does not provide very accurate result,
especially when the Duration of Activity is not submultiple of the 20. For example, if 12 days
was used as duration of Civil Construction, then every 1,67 (X = 20 ÷ 12) cells, would cover the
1 day. It is clear that, setting up the curve based on 1,67 is not very easy and there will some
inaccuracies.
Also, when the number of deliverables are high, then using the linear distributing could be
accepted as well.
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53
3.3.
Resource Loading Generic Process
After the development of Resource sheet, resource assignment to the activities can be started.
Regardless of the project type (other than software development projects), phase or activity; the
following process is applicable for resource loading:

Estimate Duration and calculate budgeted units

Assign resources

Capture the Budgeted Units for each Resource

Load material and quantities

Create and assign resource curve
The step 1 is the most important and time consuming. It seems simple and easy (Click on Assign
Resource button then select resource(s) from Resource sheet), but using the correct setting,
estimating the duration and Budgeted man-hours; require a lot of data gathering, preparation and
calculation which need input from Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Cost Engineering,
Quantity surveyors, etc.
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54
3.4. Resource Loading – Construction Activities
3.4.1. Resource Loading Process
One of the 1st requirements for Construction resource loading in knowing the definition of Norm. The
definition of the Norm is as follows:
Norm, is the amount of Time that is required from a resource to complete One unit of measure
of a construction work base quantity.
For example:
-
To excavate 1m3 of excavation by hand, 6 hours is required from a labor resource
-
To weld 1ID of piping 1.5 hours is required from a welder
-
To pull 5m of power cable, 6 hours is required from a cable puller
-
To insulate 1m2 of pipe, 3 hours is required from insulator
In this definition, the norms are independent from productive / working hours and allows to use the
same process and calculation for project’s regardless of its the working / productive hours. It should be
noted once the budgeted units get calculated it could be used to calculated the Duration of the activities,
refer to section 3.4.4.
For Loading resources to the construction activities; the steps below should be followed:
1. Develop project scope Norm Table per discipline / work category
In principle, all the project’s activities could be grouped in 10, 20 categories. The categories could
be based on discipline, nature of the work, etc. For example, Foundation construction, piping
welding, cable pulling, termination, rack Installation, loop check, insulation activities and etc. Once
the Norm Table created, all activities will use one or few items for calculation.
To develop a Norm Table, three variables are required for each category:

Base Quantity,

Resource / Skill set to carry out the Base Quantity

Man-Hours to the complete base quantity (Base Man-hours)
2. Obtain / Estimate quantity(s) of each activity
To calculate the total Man-Hours of each activity, Bill of Quantity / commodity has to be obtained
from QS or any department that has the info.
3. Calculate Budgeted hours for each Activity using the No.1 and No.2 above
Once Norm Table prepared and bill of quantity of each Activity obtained, Budgeted man-hours can
be calculated using simple formula below:
Budgeted Man-hours = [(Quantity of Activity] ÷ [Base Quantity]) × [Base Man-Hours]
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55
4. Identify No. of Resources for each Activity, if possible
It could be possible to estimate or obtain the number of resources for each activity; from project
team.
5. Obtain/Estimate total number of available / agreed resources, if possible
Total number of resources for every skill set that project has budgeted for, contracted or estimates
to work on the project have to be sourced.
6. Calculate Durations based on Norm, Resource, QTY and productive hours /day
7. Create Resource curve if necessary
8. Assign Resources to Activities
9. Review the results to check for accuracy
10. Review with team and Perform Resource Leveling, if required
3.4.2. Norm Table Development
The 1st step in the Schedule Resource Loading process is the development of Norm Table for project
scope of work. The Norm Table indicates: To construct One Base Quantity of a material / commodity,
which skill sets are required and how many hours each skill set must spend. To develop this table,
Standard Norm table could be used. To use such tables, the following points should be considered:

Resource efficiency and productivity is not the same in all countries and projects,
therefore, Man-hours should be adjusted and customized according to the Project’s
resources productivity rate. For example, if 20 man-hours required to weld 10ID piping
joint and project’s productivity rate is 65%, then required man-hours will be 30.8 (20 ÷ 65%
= 30.8)

Only, required man-hours to carry out the base quantity can be extracted not all the skill
sets that are needed to complete the base quantity.
To prepare a Norm table accurately, Construction team experience should be used and should receive
their input. The other important factor in Norm Table development is the Base Quantity. The base
quantity is not necessarily 1 and could be different based on the nature of the work or size of the
material used. For example, Primary Cable racks material is generally in 3 or 6 meters long and get
installed as 1 piece. Therefore, project team might decide to use 3m (or 6m) for base quantity instead
of 1m. Following notes should be considered during the Norm Table development:

The Norm Table should be developed per discipline and the material/commodities that
require to be installed, erected, constructed, terminated, etc.

The Material / Commodity is not an Activity, therefore, there must not be statement like;
Installation, Termination, Construction, etc.
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
The material / commodity could be detailed or could be high level. The level of details
would be changed as per the desired accuracy and available BOQ data. For example, for
Piping welding, could be one of the two scenarios:
-
High Level: In this case the Norm will be an average that covers all the different sizes
and material types
Material/ Commodity
Welding
-
Base
Quantity
10
UOM
Resource
Norm (h)
ID
Welder
Fitter
Grinder
helper
6
6
6
6
Detail: In this case, the mateerail could be per piping material type, size (ID) of the
joints, thinkness of the joints, etc.
Material/ Commodity
Base
Quantity
UOM
Welding- Carbon Steel
10
ID
Welding- Stainless Steel
10
ID
Welding- Alloy Steel
10
ID
Resource
Norm (h)
Welder
Fitter
Grinder
helper
Welder
Fitter
Grinder
helper
Welder
Fitter
Grinder
helper
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
5
8
8
8
8

To identify the required skill set and man-hours, Earning Rules could be utilized

Resources will be working only in Productive Hours not entire Working Hours. Therefore,
durations must be calculated as per the Productive hours.

Each Activity has to use one or more of the Norm table items that is relevant to its scope
of work.

Then, the calculations have to be completed based on each Activity’s quantity, No of
Resources, productive hours per day

MS Excel can be used to complete the calculations for all Activities
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This is the Norm table that was created for the sample project. The date in the table indicate that:
-
Control Cable: To pull/lay 20m of Control cable three skill set (a drum controller, a cable
puller and cable strapper) are required and they need to spend 6, 12 and 6 hours respectively.
-
Cable Rack: To install 6m of cable rack two skill set (a rack installer and a helper) are required
and they need to spend 4 and 8 hours respectively.
-
Steel: In order to erect 1ton of steel, 4 skill sets including crane operator (and a crane), a steel
erector, a rigger and a helper are required. These skill sets need to spend 2, 4, 2, 2 hours to
erect one ton.
Material/ Commodity
Base
Quantity
UOM
Resource
Drum controller
Control Cable
20
m
JB Stand
1
no
Control Cable Termination
1
no
JB
1
no
Cable Rack
6
m
Electrical Cable
10
m
Piping Welding
10
ID
Insulation of Surface
6
m2
Insulation of Pipe
1
m2
Steel
1
ton
Copyright © 2020 Ekhonopc company RSA. All rights reserved
Norm (h)
6
Cable Puller
2*6=12
Cable Strapper
JB Installer
Helper
Terminator
Helper
Technician
Helper
Rack Installer
Helper
Drum controller
Cable Puller
Cable Strapper
Welder
Fitter
Grinder
helper
Insulator
Helper
Insulator
Helper
Crane Operator
Steel Erector
Rigger
Helper
6
2
2
0.5
0.5
2
2
4
2*4=8
2*6=12
2*6=12
6
6
6
6
6
6
2*6=12
3
2*3=6
2
2*2=4
2
2
58
3.4.3. Working and Productive Hours
Due to site work process, rules, regulations, lunch time, etc., resources will not be able to produce work
throughout the working hours. For example, in the morning resources should participate in the safety
talk, collect tools and job cards. Then there is a lunch break and in the evening, tools should be returned
back to the store. The process illustrated below:
It means, in 8 working hours, resources are productive 6 hours.
Non-productive hours, although required to produce work, but no work gets done during this time.
Therefore, expecting to have production throughout the day is impractical. This is an incorrect
assumption has a direct negative impact on duration of activities and project. The following example,
demonstrate the impact on the activity’s duration:
To pull 10 000m cable in 10 days, 1000m/day; has to be pulled

Assuming all 8 working hours are productive, then 125m/h ((10 000m ÷ 10days) ÷ 8hours = 125m/h)
should be pulled.

If No. of available resources are to pull 125m/h and they work only 6 hours productive; then in
10 days, 7500m of cable will be pulled (10days × 6productive hours × 125m/h = 7500m).

So, at the end of 10th day, 2500m (10 000 -7 500 = 2500), less cable will be pulled.

Based on 6 hours Productive, to finish the work in 10 days, 167m/h should to be pulled
((10 000m ÷ 10days) ÷ 6productive hours =166.7 m/h)

Therefore, project will have two options to cover the 2500m shortfall:
a) Mobilize additional resources to pull 167m per day.
b) Extend the duration by 3.3 days (2500m ÷ 6productive hour/day) ÷ 125m/h) = 3.3days

It should be noted that each project has its own rules, regulation and working calendar. Hence,
working and productive hours have to be obtained/ calculated. This subject could be used to
analyse the contractor’s resource loaded schedule as well.
So, as summary:
1- Resources produce work only in Productive Hours. As a results, it impacts the Activity’ Duration.
Therefore, Duration has to be calculated based on Productive Hours
2- Employer has to pay for Working hours therefore Schedule has to be loaded with Working Hours
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3.4.4. Calculation – Construction Scenario 1
Once the Norm Table has been prepared and completed; calculations for all activities could be done
based on the associated BOQ to each activity. To do the calculation MS Excel should be utilized. In the
Excel file, generally, the, Norm Table will be in one sheet; and all schedule’s activities in another sheet;
Then calculation could be done by using Excel formulas and Filter Function (refer to section 3.4.11).
Refer to MS Excel file provided for this training.
In the 1st scenario, project schedule is not available and / or in the process of development. Then project
team provides / estimates the number of resources for each activity. After that, formulas will be applied
to calculate the following items per activity:

Productive Man-hours

Durations

Working Man-Hours
For example, to calculate the Productive man-hours to pull 500m control cable, the Control Cable info
on the Norm Table will be used:

Cable drum controller man-hours = (500m ÷ 20base qty) × 6hours norm = 150 hours

Cable puller man-hours = 500m ÷ 20base qty) × 12hours norm = 300 hours

Cable strapper man-hours = 500m ÷ 20base qty) × 6hours norm = 150 hours
So, to pull 500m of control cable; 600 productive man-hours is required.
To calculate the working hours, the non-productive hours have to be added to the productive hours.
This can be done by using the following formula:

Non-productive hours = 8 Working hours – 6 productive hours = 2 Non-productive hours or 33%
(2 ÷ 6 = 0.33)

Working hours drum controller = 150 × 1.33 = 200

Working hours for cable puller = 300 × 1.33 = 400

Working hours for cable strapper = 150 × 1.33 = 200
So, the working hours to pull 500m of control cable will be 800 hours.
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To calculate the Duration, following formula will be used:
Duration = (Productive hours ÷ No. of resource) ÷ Productive hours / day
Control cable duration = (150 ÷ 5) ÷ 6 = 5
The following table shows the calculations that is done based on each activity’s Quantity.
BOQ UOM
Quantity
6
Pull Control
Cable
500
Install JB Stand
10
no
Control Cable
Termination
16
no
Install JB
10
no
Install Cable
Rack
400
m
Pull Electrical
Cable
Norm
m
2*6=12
20
6
2
2
0.5
0.5
2
2
4
2*4=8
1
1
1
6
2*6=12
300
m
2*6=12
10
6
6
Welding of HP
Piping
200
ID
6
6
10
6
Insulation of
Furnace
1200
m2
Insulation of HP
500
Pipes
m2
6
2*6=12
3
2*3=6
6
1
2
Erection of
Steel Structure
50
ton
2*2=4
2
1
2
Productive
M-H
(6 hrs)
150
300
150
20
20
8
8
20
20
267
533
360
360
180
120
120
120
120
1200
2400
1500
3000
100
200
100
100
No. of
Res.
Working
(8hrs)
5
10
5,0
5
1
1
1
1
1
1
6
12
3,3
1,3
3.3
7,4
6
6
10,0
3
2
2
2
10,0
2
10
20
10
20
20,0
25,0
2
4
2
M-H
Duration
8,3
2
Add Non- Productive Hours to calculate Working Hours: (8 – 6)/6 = 0.3334
Activity
Base
200
400
200
27
27
11
11
27
27
356
711
480
480
240
160
160
160
160
1600
3200
2000
4000
133
267
133
133
Calculated working man-hours and Duration will be assigned to the schedule.
Note: To assign working hours: either calculate them in Excel (same as above) then assign to activities
or assign Productive hours then use Global Change to change to working hours using the nonproductive percentage.
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61
3.4.5. Combining Activities / Earning Rules
Applying section 1.7 rule on the norm table, will change the duration of the activities. For example, in
project schedule if:

Cable Pulling and Termination are covered under One activity, then the duration of this activity
will be the sum of Cable Pulling (5 days) and Termination’s (1.3 days) durations. A

Installation of JB stand and JBs covered with One activity, then the duration of the activity will
be 3.3 days (Stands installation duration) plus 3.3 (JB installation duration). B

Installation of Cable rack and Electrical cable pulling are combined, therefore the duration will
be the total of rack Installation and Cable Pulling. C
A
A
A
When activities scope of works is combined in one, their resource has to be assigned to the new activity.
It means, duration and resources of any activity in the schedule must cover the entire scope of work.
In other words, when Activities' scope gets combined in the Schedule:
1- All the resources, including materials and Man-hours have to be loaded
2- Duration should cover scope of work of all combined activities
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The final norm table will be as follows:
In the final table, Cable pulling and termination, JB stand and JB installation, Rack installation and cable
pulling have been combined. Durations and resources of the new activities have covered the sub
activities durations and resources.
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3.4.6. Resource Sheet
To assign resources, Resource Sheet has to be developed correctly, based on the resource in the Norm
Table. The following screenshot illustrates the resource sheet that will be used to assign resources. In
this Resource Sheet:
•
All Resources including material has been added
•
Unit of Measures correctly assigned
•
Max Unit / Time correctly updated
•
There is no Team or Crew
•
There is no Resource 1, Resource 2
•
There is no shared resource, hence separate resource pool has been created
•
“Helper” has been assigned to more than 1 activity. The Max Unit/Time covers all activities
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3.4.7. Resource Loading
Once all the calculations have been done and Resource Sheet developed, Resource Loading is an easy
process and takes few steps. The steps are:
a) Select the Activity in the Activity Window
b) On the Resource Tab, click on the Add Resource button. The “Assign Resource” window will be
opened.
Activity
c) From the “Assign Resource” window, select the relevant resources to the selected activity then
close the window.
d) Once a resource has been assigned, Primavera updates the Planned Unit, Unit/Time as per the
default setting. Generally, as per the default setting:
 Unit/Time is 8 hours or any working hours per day based on Activity’s Calendar
 Planned Unit is equal to Activity’s Duration × 8 hours (working hours per days)
e) After assigning all resources, including Labor, Non-Labor and Material (BOQ), for each activity,
Planner has to Update Duration and Planned Units using calculation made in MS Excel.
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f) Once Planned Units have been updated, Primavera calculates the Unit / Time based on the
Duration Type, (Generally is “Fixed Unit & Duration” as per the section 3.2)
g) Above steps have to be done for all activities that resources have be assigned to.
And Finally, the result will be as follows:
The result shows:
 Duration is based on productive hours as calculated
 For each resource’s working man-hours are assigned
 Unit / Time has been updated by Primavera
 The Planned Cost has been updated based on the resource’s Standard Rate
For Example, the HP piping welding activity shows that all calculated data have been updated
correctly.

Duration is 10 days

Piping Fitter: 160 hours in total and 16 hours/ day (160hours ÷ 10days = 16)

Piping Grinder: 160 hours in total and 16 hours/ day (160hours ÷ 10days = 16)

Piping Helper: 160 hours in total and 16 hours/ day (160hours ÷ 10days = 16)

Piping Welder: 160 hours in total and 16 hours/ day (160hours ÷ 10days = 16)

Welding Quantity: 200ID in total and 20 ID/ Day

Total hours: 640 hour

Total cost: R96 800.00
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3.4.8. Distribution
After completion of Resource loading, the distribution of man-hours can be checked / reviewed on
Resource Assignment Sheet. The same distribution can be extracted for any activity, WBS and Overall.
The screenshot below illustrates the distribution of the man-hors and quantities.
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3.4.9. Calculation – Construction Scenario 2
In this scenario, Project schedule is available or in acceptable level to use. Therefore, Duration of the
activities will be used as is. The difference between the two scenarios is that; in the 1st one; number of
resource were available per activity and Durations were calculated. In 2nd scenario; Duration is available
(from schedule) but number of required resources get calculated by software. In the 2nd scenario,
following items should be noted:
1- The Productive and Working man-hours are same because; amount of works are the same
2- Duration of Activities in the schedule will be used (will not be calculated)
3- Number of required resource will be calculated by the software once resources are assigned. The
calculated Unit / Time by the software will indicate the Number of required resources. Refer to
section 3.3
The table below is the final and ready to for assignment:
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3.4.10. Resource Loading
After completion of calculation, resource loading will be done through the same process as described
in section 3.4.7.
 Resources including labor, non-labor and material will be assigned
 Planned Units are the working hours and updated for each resource
 Primavera calculates the Unit /Time based on activity’s duration and Planned Units.
As stated, the No. of required Resources will be calculated from Planned Units / Time. In this example,
No. of required Fitter per day is: Planned Units/Time ÷ Working Hours or 11 ÷ 8 = 1.4. The same formula
will be used to calculate the overall number of required resources per skill set and entire project.
Note: Comparison between the 1st and 2nd scenario shows that Man-hours and Cost are the same
despite the difference in duration. The Unit / Time are changed because Durations are different.
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69
3.4.11. Using Norm Table for Calculations
On the above examples, the relationship between Norm Table items and Activities is One-to-One. But,
on the real project’s, the relationship is One-to-Many and each item in the Norm Table will be used by
many activities. For example, all the pulling Control Cable activities will use the Same Control Cable
item be used by all the Control Cable activities, as illustrated below.
Activity
∞
Control Cable -System S1
Control Cable -System S2
Control Cable -System S3
1
Material/ Quantity
Base Quantity
Welding
10
∞
1
BOQ
500
1200
2100
Activity
BOQ
Welding - Line P1
Welding - Line P2
Welding - Line P3
200
420
120
To use the Norm Table on a project, the following steps should be followed:

Create the Norm table in an Excel worksheet, same as table below which Resource and man-hours
for base quantities have been captured horizontally.
Material/
Quantity

UOM
Drum
Base
Quantity controller
6
Cable
Puller
12
Cable
JB Installer
Strapper
Helper
Terminator
Rack
Installer
Welder
Fitter
Grinder
6
6
6
Insulator
m
20
JB Stand
Control Cable
Termination
JB
no
1
no
1
no
1
Cable Rack
m
6
Electrical Cable
m
10
Welding
ID
10
6
Insulation of Surface
m2
6
12
6
Insulation of Pipe
m2
1
3
Steel
ton
1
6
2
2
Rigger
2
4
2
2
0,5
2
12
Steel
Erector
6
Control Cable
12
Crane
Operator
2
8
0,5
4
6
The copy all the Activities in another Worksheet, add the BOQ of each activity as well as the
UOM and Activity ID. The worksheet should be similar to the table below:
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70
Activity ID
Activity
Control Cable -System S1
JB Stand - Area A1
Control Cable Termination- System S1
Control Cable -System S2
Control Cable Termination - System S2
JB Stand - Area A2
Control Cable Termination - System S3
JB - Area A1
Cable Rack - Area A1
Control Cable -System S3
Electrical Cable
Welding - Line P1
JB - Area A2
Welding - Line P2
Cable Rack - Area A2
Welding - Line P3
Insulation of Surface - U1
JB Stand - Area A3
Insulation of Surface - U2
Insulation of Pipe - P1
JB - Area A3
Insulation of Pipe - P2
Cable Rack - Area A3
Insulation of Pipe - P3
Steel - Sructure ST1
Steel - Sructure ST2

BOQ
UOM
Base
Quantity
500
10
16
1200
30
15
54
10
400
2100
300
200
15
420
670
120
1200
25
1900
500
25
800
1100
90
50
70
m
no
no
m
no
no
no
no
m
m
m
ID
no
ID
m
ID
m2
no
m2
m2
no
m2
m
m2
ton
ton
20
1
1
20
1
1
1
1
6
20
10
10
1
10
6
10
6
1
6
1
1
1
6
1
1
1
Then, the man-hours for each activity will be calculated based on their BOQ, as illustrated
below:
Activity ID
Activity
Control Cable -System S1
JB Stand - Area A1
Control Cable Termination- System S1
Control Cable -System S2
Control Cable Termination - System S2
JB Stand - Area A2
Control Cable Termination - System S3
JB - Area A1
Cable Rack - Area A1
Control Cable -System S3
Electrical Cable
Welding - Line P1
JB - Area A2
Welding - Line P2
Cable Rack - Area A2
Welding - Line P3
Insulation of Surface - U1
JB Stand - Area A3
Insulation of Surface - U2
Insulation of Pipe - P1
JB - Area A3
Insulation of Pipe - P2
Cable Rack - Area A3
Insulation of Pipe - P3
Steel - Sructure ST1
Steel - Sructure ST2
BOQ
UOM
Base
Quantity
500
10
16
1200
30
15
54
10
400
2100
300
200
15
420
670
120
1200
25
1900
500
25
800
1100
90
50
70
m
no
no
m
no
no
no
no
m
m
m
ID
no
ID
m
ID
m2
no
m2
m2
no
m2
m
m2
ton
ton
20
1
1
20
1
1
1
1
6
20
10
10
1
10
6
10
6
1
6
1
1
1
6
1
1
1
Copyright © 2020 Ekhonopc company RSA. All rights reserved
Drum Controller
150
Cable Cable
Rack
Crane Steel
JB Installer Helper Terminator
Welder Fitter Grinder Insulator
Rigger
Puller Strapper
Installer
Operator Erector
300
150
20
360
720
20
1260
360
8
360
30
630
360
20
8
15
30
27
20
533,33
15
27
266,667
630
180
30
50
50
120
30
252
893,33
72
2400
50
3800
3000
50
4800
1466,7
540
100
140
120
120
120
252
252
252
72
72
72
446,667
1200
1900
1500
2400
733,333
270
100
140
200
280
100
140
71
For example, the man-hours for 3 activities have been calculated below, using the formula
below:
Productive Man-Hours = (BOQ ÷ Base Quantity) × Base M-H
-
Control Cable –System S2:
BOQ = 1200m
Drum Controller M-H = (1200 ÷ 20) × 6 = 360
Cable Puller
M-H = (1200 ÷ 20) × 12 = 720
Cable Strapper M-H = (1200 ÷ 20) × 6 = 360
-
Welding – Line P2:
BOQ = 420ID
Helper M-H = (420 ÷ 10) × 6 = 252
Welder M-H = (420 ÷ 10) × 6 = 252
Fitter
M-H = (420 ÷ 10) × 6 = 252
Grinder M-H = (420 ÷ 10) × 6 = 252
The above calculations have to be done for all the activities, then the results will be loaded into the
schedule. It should be noted, to complete the process and calculation, Excel formulas, Filters and etc.
should be used.
To calculate the working man-hours, following formula should be used:
Working Man-Hours = Productive Man-Hours × (1+ Productive Hours Ratio)
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72
3.4.12. Steel Structure Erection
As stated in section 1.5, Crane is the driving resource of steel structure activity’s duration. Duration of
steel structure activity has to be estimated/calculated based on following factors:

Number of available Cranes

Number of Steel pieces

Weight of each piece

Average time to lift, erect and bolt the pieces. To improve accuracy of calculation, there could
be couple of average time. For example:
 From 10kg to 100kg: ½ hour
 From 101g to 500kg: 1 hour
 From 501kg to 5ton: 2.5 hours
 From 5ton and above 3.5 hours
Once the above data is ready, the duration can be calculated. For Example, to calculate the duration of
Steel Structure activity in the sample Schedule, consider the following assumptions:

The 50tone is 100 pieces

The average time to lift each piece is 1.2 hours

Only 1 crane is available
Then, the Duration, with 1 crane will be 20 days, using the formula below:
Duration = (100piece × 1.2hours) ÷ 6productive hour/day = 20 days
And with 2 cranes (if possible to work together in terms of safety and space), it will be
10 days
Note: The above calculations are based on 6 productive hours / day. With 8 hours productive, the
duration will be 15 days.
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73
3.5. Resource Loading - Engineering Activities
Due to nature of the Engineering activities, a separate process is required for resource loading.
Estimation of man-hours and even duration is different than Construction. The most important
difference is that Engineers do not work full time or full day on each drawing; instead they work
on several drawings / documents at the same time. This makes the process different from the
Construction.
3.5.1. Process
The following steps should take place for resource loading of Engineering activities:
1. Obtain Engineering Deliverable List. All drawings (drawing register), documents, manuals,
datasheet, procurement support, etc. that have to be developed and prepared as part of the
project scope; should be obtained from Engineering team.
2. Develop Responsibility Matrix from RACI Matrix. This matrix demonstrates which deliverable
has to be reviewed by which Engineers and client, if applicable.
3. Estimate / Obtain Man-Hours for each Deliverable as per No.2. As part of the responsibility
matrix development; Engineering team / discipline’s lead should provide estimated man-hours
that they will be spending for each deliverable.
4. To calculate the total man-hours of each Activity, identify Deliverable(s) that each Activity
covers. Generally, every activity in the schedule covers more than one deliverables, especially
in big/mega projects, therefore to calculate the total man-hours for each activity, deliverables
that each activity covers must be identified. To complete this exercise, Engineering team
should work with the Planning.
5. Create Resource Curve if required. To improve the accuracy of man-hours distribution,
recourse curve could be created and assigned. Refer to 3.3.
6. Assign Resources to the Activities. Once, responsibility matrix developed and man-hours has
been estimated for every deliverable and activity, resource loading can be done
7. Review the results to check the accuracy
8. Review with team and Perform Resource Leveling, if required
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3.5.2. Responsibility Matrix Development
Preparation of Responsibility matrix is the starting point for Engineering man-hour estimation and has
to be done with the Engineering team. Responsibility matrix; demonstrates which Engineering’s
disciplines have to participate in the deliverables development process.
For example, to develop a Process Flow Diagram:
 Process Engineering is the main responsible discipline
 Mechanical Engineering should review it to make sure key/main equipment are included
 Draftsman should design / draft it
 And Finally client is required to review it
Or to develop a Switchgear datasheet:
 Electrical Engineering is the main responsible discipline
 Civil Engineering has to review it for Sub-station lay out and sizing
 Draftsman should design / draft it
 And Finally client require to review it
In big / mega projects, it may not be possible to prepare Responsibility Matrix for all deliverables one by
one. Instead, it could be done for a category of deliverables per discipline and apply it for all the
deliverable under same category. For example, all P&IDs could be covered in one matrix line or all MV
switchgear under one line, assuming that the same is applicable for all P&IDs and Switchgears
respectively.
The following table shows a Responsibility matrix that has been developed for the sample project:
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3.5.3. Man-Hours Table Preparation
Responsibility matrix should be used to estimate the man-hours that each discipline will be spending /
require to complete the deliverables. Generally, the main responsible Engineering and Draftsman
require more man-hours than other disciplines because, they only review the deliverables. The following
matrix shows; how many hours have been estimated for one deliverable.
As per the table, for example, to complete a “Process Flow Diagram”; the Process Engineer require to
work /spend 20 hours, the Mechanical Engineer 10 hours and the draftsman 40 hours. This table will use
as reference to calculate the man-hours for multiple deliverable. For example, if there are 4 Process
Flow Diagrams, then the total man-hours for 4 deliverables will be multiplied by 4.
On the table below, total man-hours for multiple deliverables have been calculated.
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Notes:
 on the table above, the calculations are done linearly and assumed that each drawing required
same amount of man-hours. For example, if 70 hours is required for 1 Process flow diagram,
then for two drawings; 2×70 =140 hours will be required and for three drawings; 3×70 =210
hours will be required. However, in the real projects, it might not linear. Therefore, to calculate
the man-hours accurately, Engineering manager / leads must get involved throughout the
process.
 The same logic applies to Duration of the deliverables/ activities.
 There are no Productive Hours for Engineering works and all Hours could be considered as
productive, unless there is specific project rule to have safety talk or lunch break.
 To estimate the man-hours more accurately, Earning Rules should be used
 Earning rules should be utilized to calculate duration of the deliverables development
 When more one deliverables get combined into 1 activity then duration has to be calculated /
estimated with the Engineering team based on a process that will be followed to complete the
deliverables under the activity. It should be noted that the Duration of an Activity cannot be less
than the duration of Earning Rules.
3.5.4. Resource Sheet Development – Engineering
To develop and complete an Engineering resource sheet, number of available resources per discipline
should be obtained from Engineering management / leads. Then all the resources have to be added into
the Resource sheet and the Max Unit / Time has to be calculated and updated. The next table represents
the number of Engineers per discipline on the Test Project:
Process
Engineer
Electrical
Engineer
No. of Resources
2
2
4
2
2
6
Max Unit / Time
16
16
32
16
16
48
Item
Civil
Mechanical
3D
Draftsman
Engineer Engineer Engineer
The Max Unit / Time has been calculated from [Number of Resource] × [Working Hours Per Day].
All the above Resource and Max Unit / Times as well as Standard Rate have been added to and the
Resource Sheets and the result is as follows:
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3.5.5. Resource Loading - Engineering
After preparation of Responsibility matrix, man-hours table and Resource sheet; the resources
assignment can be easily done. The process is as follows:

Select the Engineering activity

Assign Resources as per the Responsibility Matrix

Update the Planned Units for each resources from Man-hour table

Then Primavera will calculate the Unit / Time
The completed Resource loading for the Test Project as follows:
For example, in the man-hour table, it was estimated that; to complete the “Process Flow Diagram”,
following resource and man-hours will be required:

Process Engineer: 80 hours

Mechanical Engineer: 40 hours

Draftsman: 160 hours

Total hours: 280

Duration: 64 days
All these items have been assigned and updated in the Schedule as illustrated on the above
screenshot.
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3.5.6. Resource Loading – Distribution
Distribution of Man-Hours is available in Resource Assignment Sheet. For Example, the distributed
man-hours of the activity “Develop Process Flow Diagram” as follows:

Process Engineer: 80 hours in total and 1.25 hours / day (80hours ÷ 64days = 1.25)

Mechanical Engineer: 40 hours in total and 0.62 hour / day (40hours ÷ 64days = 0.62)

Draftsman: 160 hours in total and 2.5 hours / day (160hours ÷ 64days = 2.5)
Daily distribution:
and Monthly distribution:
The same distributions can be extracted from the Software for each activity, WBS, discipline and
overall Engineering.
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3.6. Resource Loading – Procurement
Resource assignment to Procurement activities has to be done carefully because there is a third
party (vendor / supplier) involved in the process. The following items have to considered before
resources loading of the Procurement activities.
a) To complete a Procurement activity three departments / parties get involved:
1. Engineering / QC: Responsible for developing datasheet, review vendor’s drawings/
documents, participate in FAT and Quality Control.
2. Procurement department: Responsible for preparing tenders documents, collect,
review, adjudicate tenders and sign purchase order
3. Vendor: Reasonable for supplying drawing, manufacturing, QC /FAT, Delivery and etc.
Following chart displays these parties’ activities in the process:
Engineering team is responsible for the activities that are in Red
Activities that Procurement team is responsible are in Amber
Activities that Vendor is responsible are in Green
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b) To complete resource loading, all the three parties have to provide info
1. Engineering activities should be covered with Man-Hour table development as
discussed in section 3.5.
2. Procurement info should be provided by the procurement team
3. In most of the project’s, vendor supplies only dates for submission of drawing,
manufacturing, FAT/QC, delivery, etc. not detailed man-hours that will be spending to
carry out his responsibilities.
c) Finally, to assign resources to the Procurement activities:
1- The Engineering activities, should be part of the Engineering deliverables list and
schedule. Therefore, resource assignment for the Engineering activities will be done
within the Engineering schedule.
2- Comparing Cost of Procurement Activities (pre and post contract award) to overall
Procurement cost, is almost negligible and could be left without assigning any
resources. However, in the big projects, to measure Procurement progress more
accurately and specially to report the pre-contracts award status, is better to assign
resources. The process is same as Engineering resource loading.
3- In the absence of detailed info (man-hour, resources and etc.), vendor’s activities
cannot be assigned with any resource/ Man-hours
So, though the above items, it can be concluded that the procurement activities should not be
resource loaded.
Note: In the absence of the Resource and resource loading, Procurement S-Curve has to developed
from weighted completion date of the Earning rules
For Procurement S-Curve development refer to section 4.2
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3.7. Loading Indirect Resources
Assigning Indirect resources to a schedule is much easier process because; they are the Support
function and do not do any physical work like a direct resource. Therefore, there is no need for
calculation as Direct Resources. Indirect Resources will be mobilized as per the project organization
chart for a specific period. Generally, they work full time throughout the assignment. Typical
Indirect Resources in projects are: Project Management, Project Control, Document Controls, SHE,
Security, Supervisors, HR, Admin, Medical and etc.
Note: Because Indirect Resources are not involved directly to carry the project activities out, they
MUST NOT be assigned to the activities.
Indirect resource assignment should be done through following steps:
 Create all indirect resources in the Resource Sheet
 Create “Admin and Project Support” WBS in the Schedule
 Add New Activities under the created WBS, names should be same as Indirect Resource
 Create separate Calendar, if working hours is different than direct resources and assign
to the newly added activities
 Set the Activities Type to Level of Effort
 Add at least two predecessors to each Activity
 1st Predecessor should be the Activity that indicates the same Start date. The relationship
type has to Start to Start
 2nd Predecessor should be the Activity that indicates the same Finish date. The
relationship type has to be Finish to Finish
 Assign the indirect resource
 Update either Budgeted Unit or Unit/Time according to availability of info
 For full time resource, Unit/Time will be calculated by software
 For part time resources, obtain Total Hours or hours per day/week that was
planned/contracted to spend
Note: To add indirect resources into Recourse sheet, same rules are applicable and Max
Unit / Time has to calculated and updated based on [Number of resource] × [Working hours
/ day]
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3.8. Cost Loading
Cost Loading of a schedule is an easy process, if Resource Loading is correctly done. The most
accurate cost loading results can be developed through Schedule Resource and Cost Loading. For
Cost loading the schedule only one extra step has to be done and that is:

Update Standard Rate for each resource in the Resource Sheet
Once, the Standard Rates have been updated in the Resource Sheet, Primavera calculates the Cost
of Each Resource (Labor, Non-Labor and Material) and Activity based on the Standard Rate and
Planned Unit.
Or Planned Cost get calculated through the following formula:
Planned Cost = Standard Rate × Planned Units.
In the Test Project Resource sheet, Standard rates have been updated.
Note: Expenses that are not part of the Cost Loading or Rates, could be assigned to the activities
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The calculated Planned Cost for each activity and Resources can be viewed on Primavera. For
example, Planned Cost for activity “Develop Process Flow Diagram” is R100 000. The calculations
are as follows:

Draftsman: Planned Units 160, Rate R250 ⇒ Planned Cost = 160 × 250 = R40 000

Mechanical Engin.: Planned Units 40, Rate R500 ⇒ Planned Cost = 40 × 500 = R20 000

Process Engineer: Planned Units 80, Rate R500 ⇒ Planned Cost = 40 × 500 = R20 000

Planned Total Cost = R100 000
The same calculation applies to all resources and activities.
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3.9. Schedule Level of Detail
The most important factor in Resource Loading is the amount of work/effort that each activity
requires to complete its scope of work. It means, regardless of the schedule level of detail, the
amount of work per activity has to be calculated. Resource Loading is a Systematic process that
has to cover overall Project Scope of Work regardless of the number of activities in the schedule.
It should be noted that accuracy of work distribution in a detailed Schedule is higher. Refer to
sections 1.8 and 3.2.
The screenshot below shows the project deliverables in Level 3 (System and Sub-System). The
Project Schedule has been developed in level 3 as well.
Level 3 BL Schedule
During Execution; Project Manager requests more detail to be add into the schedule, to have a
better control over the execution of activities in a Daily basis. There could be 2 scenarios to add
the details:

Resource Loading is done systematically and Level 4 quantities has been used to calculate
the man-hours and assigned to Level 3 activities. Therefore, total man-hours remain the
same and will not change by adding additional activity.

Level 4 quantities were not used to calculate Norm Table and Man-Hours. Then as a result,
adding detail activities; will change total the man-hours.
So, Planning and Resource Loading has to be done systematically and schedule level of detail shall
not change the man-hours. Total man-hours have to change when there is a scope creep.
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The screenshots above illustrate that originally, the schedule has been created up to Sub-system
level (level 3), and resource loading and durations have been calculated as per the Level 4 details.
As a result, adding the sub-system components to the schedule , will not change man-hours and
durations.
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3.10. Resource Usage and Levelling
Resource Loading will be completed after the review and analysis of Resource usage and Leveling.
Resource levelling should be done to identify the Over and Under allocation of resources. It should
be noted that, if an adequate number of resources do not get mobilized to complete the works,
project will be delayed.
Primavera Resource Usage Profile feature
displays graphically; how a resource has been
assigned and where the over allocations are. The screenshot below shows the over-allocated
resources in Red bar. This means, if the project starts with same profile, there will not be enough
resource and the project will be delayed.
Therefore, Resource Leveling has to be done to enhance the chances of the project finishing on
time by demonstrating the constraints and assisting project team to implement mitigation plan(s).
Resource leveling should be done through the following steps:
3.10.1. Resource Leveling Process
1- Perform resource levelling for all resource to identify the latest finish date. This should be carried
out only to identify the possible finish date based on the resource availability (Critical Chain) and if the
resource levelling was not performed.
2- Perform Resource Levelling within Total Float. Primavera moves the activities using Total Float and
redistributes the Planned Units based on the new dates. The following chart, is the Resource Usage
profile after levelling which over-allocation is not resolved yet.
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3- Perform leveling for only over allocated resources one by one. In Resource Usage profile, select the
project’s resources one by one and identify which of them are over-allocated. Then:
-
Perform the resource levelling for each resource within the Total Float. If the over allocation
is disappeared for any resource, it means that the current No. of resource would complete
the activities without impacting the project’s finish date utilizing the Total Float. Therefore,
there is no need for additional resource.
-
Perform the resource levelling for each resource, without constraining of Total Float. Then
check the project finish date and compare it to the date in step No.1. This could indicate
which resource is main driver of the finish date in step No.1.
4- Change the “Activity Leveling Priority” as per the criticality of the activities, then perform resource
levelling. The over-allocated resource might have been assigned to the activities that has positive
floats with “Normal” “Activity Leveling Priority”. The priority of these activities could be changed to
low/lowest and leveling priority of activities on the critical path could be changed to top/highest.
5- If over-allocation is not resolved, present it to the team. Project team should be made aware of
over-allocations and resources constraints in order to make a decision and/or prepare mitigation
plan
6- Review the Execution Plan to change logics (if possible), sequence or durations to resolve the overallocation. Project team may change Execution plan, re-sequencing, mobilize additional equipment,
etc.
7- Review No. of Resources and increase if possible. Mobilizing additional man-power could be one of
the mitigation plan. In the example, adding extra resources has improved over-allocation but still
there are Red bars.
8- If over-allocation is not resolved, project will not finish on time. It means, Resource availability will
be the driver of the dates and the Critical Chain concept applies
9- Perform cost benefit analysis to either accept slippage or mobilize additional resources. Mobilizing
extra resources should be done after Cost benefit analysis. For example, Delay damage penalty might
be cheaper than extra resources, or due to potential risk some activities could be delayed; then
existing resources could be enough, etc.
10- Projects using shared Resources, the Leveling should be based on Project’s Priority.
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3.10.2. Resource Levelling – Project Priority
In Enterprise Projects Companies that projects using shared resources, Resource Leveling should be
done as per the Priority of the projects. The process to perform this leveling is as follows:

In the Project window, add “Project Leveling Priority” column, then set the Priority to each
project from 1 (Highest) to 100 (Lowest).

Open the projects whose resources have to be Levelled. However, P6 has three settings to
level Projects resources. These setting can be found in Edit ⇒User Preferences ⇒Resource
Analysis

In the Resource Leveling Window, select “Project Leveling Priority”, then run the Leveling
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3.10.3. Resource Levelling – Activity Priority
All activities in a project / schedule do not have the same priority level. For example, Critical activity,
contractual milestone, interface/ access milestones, etc. have higher priority to complete. So, Resource
Leveling based on Priority of Activities should be performed to improve the decision making.
To perform this leveling, following steps have to be undertaken:


Add the Activity Leveling Priority column
Set priority level to the activities from 1 (Highest) to 5 (lowest)

In Resource Leveling window, select the Leveling Priority column for Leveling Priority

Run Resource Leveling and review the results
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4. S-Curve Development
As stated in all previous sections, Resources Loading is a calculation of the amount of work
associated with every activity; and based on the S-Curve definition, which is “Cumulative
Distribution of Work in Duration”, Resource Loaded Schedule provides the required data to create
an S-Curve.
Practically, there are two processes to be followed in creating S-Curve:
a) Based on the Distribution of the works throughout the duration. This is applicable to all
Engineering, Construction, commissioning activities.
b) Milestone based activities / project that Start or Finish dates are the most important factors
in status reporting. This is applicable to Procurement and milestone payment contracts.
S-Curve can be created for every activity, WBS / Summary levels, project phases, areas, packages,
etc., based on the requirement. Combining S-Curves to create higher level S-Curve (e.g. Overall
Project S-Curve), will be done by utilization of Weight Values. For example; If an S-Curves has been
created for Engineering, Procurement and construction phases, to create the overall project SCurve; weight value of each phase will be required.
This section covers the following subject / items:
4.1. Creating S-Curve from Resource Assignment Sheet Data
4.2. Creating S-Curve for Procurement Activities
4.3. Identifying Number of Resources
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4.1. S-Curve Development Using Resource Assignment Sheet Data
In most of the cases (especially for option “a” above), an S-Curve creation can be undertaken
through the following steps:

Open Primavera Resource Assignment Sheet

Select Budgeted/Planned Unit or Budgeted Cost field, then change the Timescale to
reporting intervals (week or Month)
In order to choose the required field ⇒ Right click on the middle section and then select one
of the items in Spreadsheet Fields

On the Column section, Click on the Layout button
“Group and Sort By”
, Select
Note: The baseline schedule must be used to develop the Plan Curves (Early & Late).
Note: During Execution, the Remaining Units (Early & Late) will be used as forecast curves.
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
On the “Group By”, select the appropriate criteria. The criteria could be WBS, Resource ID
Name, Resource ID, Activity Codes, etc.)

Customize the Group by selecting
these two options
The reason to select / tick these two options is to display only distributions in summary
levels and hide all activities, for:
I.
Preventing from double counting and mixing of Units (man-hours or cost) in
activity and summary levels.
II.
Making the calculation and process easier and faster

The “Show Summary Only” filters out all the activities / resources and only WBS summary
level will be displayed

The “Show Grand Totals” displays the Grand Total of all Data, selected in Spreadsheet field.
(Man-hours or Cost)

Create filters as required. If the S-Curve is for Engineering, for example, then filter only
Engineering Units/Cost. Or for the Material/ commodity S-Curve, filter only the data related
to the commodity.

To develop an S-Curve per activity, do not select the “Summary Only option”.

Then, select all the data (press Ctrl + A)

Copy all selected items (Ctrl + C) and Paste (Ctrl + V) them in an MS Excel file sheet
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
Remove the “h” or material UOM symbol (Ton, M, M3, etc.) from the numbers. Then write
the formulas to create S-Curve

Create a Chart in the Excel using the copied data and format it as required
Note: To develop an S-Curve for any summary level, material installation, etc. create a filter in Resource
Assignment Sheet and repeat steps above.
Note: This process is not applicable for Vendors Procurement activities
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4.2. Procurement S-Curve
4.2.1. Process
As stated in section 3.6, because vendors do not supply detailed info regarding amount of work they
will be undertaking, Resource Loading cannot be done similarly as Engineering and Construction
activities. Therefore, the required data to create Procurement S-Curve cannot be extracted from the
Schedule.
To create a Procurement S-Curve, Weighted Finish Milestone date of Earning rules for each
Procurement package will be used. The steps are as follows:

Obtain all Procurement packages and their Cost value or cost base Weight Values
List of Procurement packages and their cost value should be obtained from procurement/
commercial team. If Cost value of packages are not available due to confidentiality, then Cost
Base Weight Value for each package should be requested.

Develop and agree packages Earning Rules and its Weight Values
Steps or earning rules and their weight values that procurement packages / vendors will follow;
should be established. If the info is part of the package contract, then they have to be used as
is. If they are not part of the contract, they have to be developed and agreed with the
procurement team and vendors.

Source the Finish Date of Earning Rules for all the packages
If purchase orders have been placed, then contractual dates for each earning rule has to be
used. Otherwise, dates could be based on previous experience, historical data, project
requirements which could enforce to complete each step in specific dates, company policy,
etc.

Complete the Excel Formulas
Once the data is available, then it has to be added in an Excel worksheet and formulas have to
be utilized.

Create an S-Curve from the Data in the Excel worksheet
4.2.2. Calculation
As stated in the process above, once data has been collected, MS Excel worksheet should be used to
complete the calculations. The collected data are the following items:
-
Packages with their Cost Weight values
-
Earning Rules and Weight values
-
Durations to complete each step in weeks
-
Finish Date of each step
-
The Excel worksheet will be similar to the table below
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Procurement Progress
W.V
Structural Steel Material
Structural Steel Material Lot 1
Structural Steel Material Lot 2
Mechanical Equipment
Mechanical Equipment, Pump 1
Mechanical Equipment, Pump 2
Mechanical Equipment, Pump 3
Piping Material
Piping Material , Pipes
Piping Material , Fitting
Piping Material , Values
Electrical Material
Electrical Material, Switchgears
Electrical Material, Cables
Electrical Material, Racks
C&I Material
C&I Material, Instrument Devises
C&I Material, JB
C&I Material, Cables
C&I Material, Panels
12%
6,0%
6,0%
35%
11,7%
11,7%
11,7%
30%
10,0%
10,0%
10,0%
13%
4,3%
4,3%
4,3%
10%
2,5%
2,5%
2,5%
2,5%
Place Vendor
QC
Manufacturing
Delivery
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Order Drawings
Inspection
5%
10%
50%
15% 20%
3
3
7
7
14
15
15
16
16
18
4
4
4
8
8
8
12
13
14
13
14
15
14
15
16
5
5
5
9
9
9
18
21
24
20
23
26
21
24
27
6
6
6
10
10
10
23
14
12
24
15
13
26
17
15
7
7
7
7
11
11
11
11
18
16
16
21
19
17
17
22
21
19
19
26
Calculations for the Structural Steel are as follows:
-
For the Structural Steel Material Lot 1, PO will be signed in 3rd week. Then 5% of the package
progress (equal to Place Order W.V) will be earned in the 3rd week’s cell.
-
Once Structural Steel Vendor Drawings received on the 7th week, 10% progress (equal to
Vendor Drawings W.V) will be earned and will be captured in 7th week’s cell.
-
The same process will be done for Manufacturing, QC and Delivery of all packages. Once
completed, the result will be same as table below. (excluding the blue cells figures)
-
To calculate the progress in blue cells, following formula should be used:
Progress = Lot 1 W.V% × Lot 1 Progress% + Lot 2 W.V% × Lot 2 Progress% + Lot 3 W.V% ×
Lot 3 Progress% + … Lot n W.V% × Lot n Progress%
For example:
STL STR Progress Week 3 = 6% × 5% + 6% × 5% = 0.6%
STL STR Progress Week 7 = 6% × 10% + 6% × 10% = 1.2%
The same formula has to copied into all the steel structure blue cells.
Mechanical Progress Week 13 = 11.7% × 15% + 11.7% × 50% + 11.7% × 0.0% = 7.6%
Mechanical Progress Week 13 = 11.7% × 20% + 11.7% × 15% + 11.7% × 50.0% = 9.9%
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The same formula has to be used to calculate all progress of blue cells of Mechanical
equipment and all other packages.
-
After calculation of progresses of blue cells, overall progress of each period’s progress will be
the Sum of all packages progress that are in the blue line
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0,0% 0,0% 0,6% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 1,2% 0,0%
5%
5%
9
10
11
12
13
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
10%
10%
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
3,0%
3,9%
2,1%
0,0%
1,2%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
5,0%
0,0%
1,5%
7,0%
0,0%
1,5%
7,0%
0,0%
1,5%
2,0%
15%
20%
0,9%
0,0%
50% 15% 20%
50% 15%
0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 1,8% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 3,5%
5%
5%
5%
14
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
10%
10%
10%
0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 1,5% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0%
5%
5%
5%
5,8%
7,6%
9,9%
4,1%
2,3%
20%
0,0%
50% 15% 20%
50% 15% 20%
50% 15% 20%
3,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
10%
10%
10%
0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,7% 0,0% 0,0%
0,0%
5%
5%
5%
0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 0,5% 0,0%
50%
1,3%
0,0%
10%
10%
10%
0,0%
0,0%
2,2%
0,0%
2,8%
0,9%
0,7%
0,9%
0,0%
15% 20%
50%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
15% 20%
50%
0,0%
2,2%
0,7%
0,0%
50% 15%
50%
15% 20%
15% 20%
50%
1,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
5%
10%
5%
10%
5%
10%
5%
10%
Period Progress 0,0% 0,0% 0,6% 1,8% 1,5% 0,7% 1,7% 3,5% 3,0% 1,3% 1,0% 8,0% 7,6% 15,7% 8,9%
Cum. Progress 0,0% 0,0% 0,6% 2,4% 3,9% 4,5% 6,2% 9,7% 12,7% 14,0% 15,0% 23,0% 30,6% 46,3% 55,2%
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20%
2,5%
0,8%
1,3%
1,4%
50% 15%
50% 15%
20%
50% 15%
20%
0,0%
1,8%
0,4%
0,0%
0,0%
0,0%
0,5%
0,0%
20%
50% 15%
20%
7,6% 1,6% 7,5% 1,4% 1,5% 8,8% 0,4% 3,7% 7,7% 0,0% 2,9% 2,0%
62,8% 64,4% 71,8% 73,2% 74,7% 83,4% 83,8% 87,5% 95,1% 95,1% 98,0% 100,0%
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4.3. Identify Number of Resources in Schedule
Once Resources have been loaded into a Schedule, Primavera functions can be used to calculate
the Number of Resources for every Timescale without any calculation being done outside. To
calculate the number of resources, the steps below should be followed:
1. In the Resource Assignments Sheet, select budgeted or Remaining (Early or Late) units
For example, Distribution of budgeted units per day as follows:
2. Change the Timescale to reflect as desired which could be Day, Week, Month, etc.
3. Primavera should show, distribution of Hours in the selected Timescale
4. In the User Preference Manu, select the “Time Unit” tab
5. Change the “Units Format” and “Durations Format” to the selected Timescale in step 2.
To show the Unit and Duration formats; tick the “Show Unit Label” and “Show Duration
Label”
6. Once the menu is closed, P6 will show the numbers of resources per selected Timescale
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98
For example, distributed man-hours for 3D Engineer is 39h/d (screenshot above). When
the setting is changed to Week, Primavera displays the Number of 4.3d Engineer per
week.
Changing the setting (Timescale, Unit and Duration format) to month, P6 will calculate the
number of resources per month.
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99
5. Schedule Update
Schedule is one of the most important document for project management for decision making.
Maintaining and updating the project schedule is a critical activity that the Project Planning team
has to undertake. A Schedule update should be done as accurate as possible using factual data to
provide reliable project status report for management to take effective decision. Using incorrect
setting, data, dates and hiding issues and concerns will definitely lead to a project failure.
In this section the following subjects have been covered:
5.1. Updating Resource Loaded Schedule
5.2. Updating Not Resource Loaded Schedule
5.3. Using Updated Schedule Data for Progress Reporting
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5.1. Updating a Resource Loaded Schedule
To update a Resource Loaded schedule, the following steps have to be undertaken:

Set Progress Type to Physical % Complete
There are 3 settings to capture an Activity’s progress in Primavera:
-
Duration% Complete
Using Duration% Complete, strongly recommended to be avoided due to three
reasons:
i.
To complete a project, physical project’s works have to carried out and spending
time does not mean works have been progressed or completed.
ii. Primavera calculates Remaining Duration based on the Duration Progress. In most
of the projects; activities are not progressing linearly throughout the Duration.
Therefore, linear calculation will not support the project’s requirements
iii. Capturing Physical% progress in Duration% Complete field is completely wrong
-
Unit% Complete
Unit% Complete uses the Actual (man-hours) and “At Completion” units to calculate the
progress. In this setting, changing the progress value, does not change the Remaining
Duration but Changing the Remaining Duration; changes the Progress. So, there is a
relationship between Progress and Remaining Duration. Therefore, it is not most
appropriate setting to use. However, it might be applicable for some project
-
Physical% Complete
Physical% Complete generally applicable to most of the projects which allows to have
flexibility between Remaining Duration and Progress and updated them independently
from each other.

Update calculated Activity’s Progress by PMS in the Progress Field
Activities and project progress should be calculated through a Progress Measurement
System. Once the PMS has been updated, progress of the activities has to be captured as
Physical% Complete.
For example, 23% has been calculated for a “Single Line Diagram” by PMS. This figure
should be captured as Physical% Complete.
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101

Update Remaining Duration manually
For In-Progress activities remaining duration should be provided by the project team based on the
knowledge that they have about activities remaining works. Once provided, they should be
captured in Remaining Duration field.

Update Actual (spent) units in the Actual field, if available
In some projects, the Actual spend man-hours / cost might be available per activity. If so, they
should be captured in the Actual filed

P6 will update the Earned Labour units and Cost based on Progress
Once, progress value captured, Primavera calculates the Earned Values (Labor Units, Non-Labor
Units, Cost, etc.) using EV = PV × Progress

P6 updates the AT Completion field based on EVM setting (under Admin Preferences),
Remaining Duration and Actual
Primavera calculates the “At Completion” using the captured data and setting
Note: Due to the following reasons:
1- Record keeping of Actual man-hours / cost per activity is not easy and for
Construction activities, almost impossible.
2- The most important factor to calculate the “At Completion” is Remaining Duration.
So, when an activity is prolonged; Primavera calculates higher number and when it
accelerates it calculates a lower number than Budgeted. It seems, this logic makes
sense but extension of duration does not necessarily mean extra works will be done
to complete the activity or if activity finishes earlier, less amount of hours has been
spent.
3- Primavera does not provide historical / past (before Data Date) Earned value figures,
therefore, creating EV curve from project start to Data Date will not be possible, if
project had no correct progress reports periodically since inception
It is recommended that:
a) Calculate the Earned Values in PMS, then capture them in Actual field
b) At Completion should be always to Budgeted unit
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102
5.2. Updating a Schedule containing no Resources
Updating Schedules that are not resource loaded is quite simple and only requires few fields to be
updated. The process should be as follows:

Set Progress Type to Physical % Complete

Update Actual Start date for started activities

Update Remaining Duration

Update Progress% field

Update Actual Finish date for Completed activities
5.3. Using Updated Schedule Data for Progress Reporting
On projects, where there is no Progress Measurement System, accuracy of the progress reports is
questionable and to verify how good schedule has been updated, the following techniques can be utilized.
a) Using Man-Hours, 1st Scenario
In this scenario, Earned Value man-hours that Primavera calculates based on Activities progress get
utilized. In this practice:
-
Add Budgeted and EV Labor Units columns
-
The Progress of each activity / summary level is (EV/Budget) %
In the example below, project overall progress is 80.3%.
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103
b) Using Man-Hours, 2nd Scenario
This scenario is based on the recommendation in 5.1 above, earned values are captured in the Actual
field. To calculate progress:
-
Add Budgeted and Actual Labour Units columns
-
The Progress of each activity / summary level is (Actual/Budget) %
Using the same Project’s Schedule in the 1st scenario, indicates that the overall progress is 80.2%
As stated in 5.1 recommendation, to calculate progress based on this scenario, the following
requirements have to be met:
-
Budgeted Units = Actual Units + Remaining Units
-
Budgeted Units = At Completion Units
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