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Challenge, Solution and How to Impact the Bottom Line
How ALICE is Different from Other Tools
Four Ways to Accelerate Project Duration:
- Method #1: How to Accelerate Project Duration (Using Crew Range Functionality)
- Method #2: How to Accelerate Project Duration (Using Production Rate Functionality)
- Method #3: How to Accelerate Project Duration (By Resequencing)
- Method #4: How to Accelerate Project Duration (By Changing Calendars):
Functionalities That You Need to Know in ALICE
Challenge:
When aiming to accelerate a project, pinpointing where to adjust the schedule can be challenging. Should we tweak one or more task durations and observe the impact on the project timeline? Should we focus solely on the critical path? And by how much should we adjust these durations?
What if there is a way to systematically do this in ALICE?
Solution:
There are four methods to explore to accelerate the overall project in ALICE:
- Method #1: Acceleration with Crew Ranges Functionality: Empower ALICE to determine the optimal task durations for selected or all tasks by utilizing the Crew Range functionality. Provide ALICE with the guardrails, or the range to explore, for possible task durations. You will then observe how this impacts the overall schedule. Note: The name of this functionality when applied to this use case is a bit misleading. The result can mean changing the number of labor crew resources that you have allocated. But it can also be an indication of how much you can accelerate an activity (set of activities) to find a more optimal overall schedule.
- Method #2: Acceleration with Production Rates Functionality (or by applying a coefficient factor): Apply a Coefficient Factor to task durations, effectively parameterizing them with a formula, using the Production Rate functionality. Define specific numerical production rate factors for different tasks to see their impact on the overall schedule.
- Method #3: Acceleration with Resequencing: Read more about how to find alternate resequencing opportunities here. Run different scenarios and look for ones with the shortest duration if acceleration is your objective.
- Method #4: Acceleration with Calendars: Change the assigned calendars for the activities to see how it impacts the overall schedule.
The schedules generated by ALICE provide valuable insights into how to accelerate your project timeline. While these insights are broadly accurate, it is up to you to determine how to leverage these insights and apply them to your project based on your specific goals and objectives.
Method #1 Example:
Here is a simple example of Method #1. This schedule has 4 design activities, each with an original duration of 10 days. Designers (labor resource) are assigned to each of the activities, and the Crew Range functionality is used to give each activity a quantity range of 1 to 5. The effective parametric duration formula is now 10 days / num_crews, where num_crews = 1 to 5.
On the Explore page, different resource availability can be defined to cap the maximum Designers that ALICE uses to generate schedule solutions. In the first scenario run below, only 1 designer is available, and the result for the overall schedule duration is 1,336 days.
In the second scenario run, 4 designers are available, and the result for the overall schedule duration is 955 days. Behind the scenes, ALICE is iterating all the permutations for each of the 4 activities: 10 days/1, 10 days/2, 10 days/3, and 10 days/4 for each of the activities. ALICE’s optimization engine then gave us a result that the design activities should use a quantity of 2, 4, 4, and 1, respectively.
In this example optimization, Schematic Design takes 5 days, Design Development takes 2.5 days, 50% CD takes 2.5 days, and 100% CD takes 10 days. Making this change would result in 381 days of overall duration savings. How you decide to accelerate the days for each of those activities is up to the user -- it can be by increasing the number of Designers, reducing the scope, working longer hours, finding more senior designers to increase the production rate, etc. What ALICE is able to provide is a systematic way to determine by how much each task should accelerate or should remain the same to optimize the overall project duration.
Method #2 Example:
Using the same example as above, here is how Method #2 would be applied. All 4 design activities would have a parametric task duration that includes the Coefficient Factor. Please note that we use the “Production Rate” feature in ALICE to generate the Coefficient Factor. Its functionality behaves like a production rate, but in this use case, we are not using it as a production rate.
In the Explore page, different Coefficient Factors are used during each of the scenario runs to see how it impacts the overall schedule.
Parametric Task Duration = Old Duration x Coefficient Factor
Recommended Tip: You can use each of these methods alone, or combine them in different ways for select tasks or all tasks in your schedule. Effectively, you are providing variability to ALICE to look for more optimal ways to accelerate your schedule.
How to Impact the Bottom Line:
Make a data-driven decision about the costs and benefits of accelerating your overall schedule based on changing different task durations. The different task durations can be achieved by increasing resources, increasing production rates, increasing work hours, reducing scope, etc.
How ALICE is Different from Other Tools:
Unlike other legacy tools, ALICE is able to iterate through different permutations of the schedule based on the variables provided by the user. Some variables can be defined as a range, such as the Crew Range functionality, giving ALICE the opportunity to explore a wider range of options to find the most optimal solution.
Furthermore, when applying a duration change in other tools, no sequence adjustments (or activity reshuffling) occurs. Activity durations are simply changed; all logic ties and resource utilization remain the same.
In ALICE, new optimal schedule options are provided based on possible resequencing of activities and reshuffling of project resources with a change to any activity duration (or multiple activity durations).
Example Use Case:
Using Crew Range Functionality:
As an Infrastructure Contractor, I submit numerous bids to expand my portfolio. During the bidding phase, my goal is to create aggressive yet realistic schedules. After building the initial iteration of my schedule, my process involves identifying areas for acceleration to reduce the overall project duration.
Typically, I filter by the critical path and make adjustments one by one to see their impact on the schedule. However, by providing a realistic duration range for activities within the critical path, I am thrilled at the prospect of ALICE pinpointing where and how much to accelerate. I will then review the results and decide what to incorporate into my bid schedule.
How to Accelerate Project Duration (Using Crew Range Functionality):
It is not necessary to start with a schedule that is resource loaded. We recommend resource tagging to level 2, at a minimum. Read more here about the different levels of resource assignments.
Note: The terms “resource assign” and “resource tag” will be used interchangeably.
Step 0: Existing schedule:
Check your existing schedule to see if there are any resources assigned to activities. A quick way to check is to group your schedule by “Crews”.
If your schedule already has resources assigned, skip to Step 2.
If your schedule does not have resources assigned, continue to Step 1.
Step 1: Tag labor resources for selected or all activities in your schedule to level 2, at a minimum.
- Create a new labor resource called “Generic Placeholder” in the resource pool. Fill out the rest of the information as follows:
- Max. Units/ Time: keep blank (to indicate unlimited amounts available)
- Default Units/ Time: 1
- # Prs./Crew: 1
- $/Crew/Hr: 0
- Calendar: Recommend putting in the standard default calendar name here
- Idle Cost: toggle to keep ON
- In the Gantt view, select the highest level WBS.
- Select the “Assign crew, material, or equipment” icon to bulk assign the selected activities to the “Generic Placeholder” resource that was created in #1.
Advanced Tip: Read more here about how to tag labor resources to level 3 if your schedule is not resource loaded to begin with. The benefits of doing this is to be able to selectively filter by different labor resources.
Step 2: Define a Crew Range for the activities in your schedule.
- Select the activities in the Gantt view.
- Select the “Assign crew, material, or equipment” icon to bulk assign a Crew Range to the “Generic Placeholder” labor resource by defining a “Min” and “Max” quantity.
- An automated pop-up will appear called “Apply crew ranges to the following values:”. Check the “Planned duration” option to apply the following formula to the activities:
Planned Duration = Current Amount / num_crews
Step 3:
Hit the “Re-schedule” button on the Plan page to capture all the changes made in Steps 1 and 2.
Step 4:
Go to the Explore page. Run scenarios with a different maximum number of “Generic Placeholder” labor resources to iterate through different what if scenarios.
Step 5:
Analyze the results to determine how the different task durations impact the overall project duration.
How to Accelerate Project Duration (Using Production Rate Functionality):
It is not necessary to start with a schedule that is resource loaded.
Step 1:
Create a new production rate. This will be the Coefficient Factor.
Step 2:
Update the duration of the activity or group of activities to make it parametric. The new formula is:
New Duration = Old Duration x Coefficient Factor
New Duration = Old Duration x (1+(Percent Change/100))
New Duration = Old Duration + (Old Duration x Percent Change / 100)
Step 3:
Go to the Explore page, create a new scenario, and go to the “Rates” tab. Input the Coefficient Factor for the amount of change in duration that you want to evaluate. For example, if -5% is used, then the activity duration that is evaluated for a 10-day original duration task is:
10 days + (10 days x (-5/ 100)) = 9.5 days
Please note that we use the “Production Rate” feature in ALICE to generate the Coefficient Factor. Its functionality behaves like a production rate, but in this use case, we are not using it as a production rate.
Step 4:
Repeat Step 3 and change the Coefficient Factor number based on the amount of change in duration that you want to evaluate.
Step 5:
Analyze the results to determine how the different task durations (different Coefficient Factors) impact the overall project duration.
How to Accelerate Project Duration (By Resequencing):
Read more about how to find alternate resequencing opportunities here. Follow the steps outlined in the article. Look for the solutions with the shortest duration as accelerating the project timeline is your goal.
How to Accelerate Project Duration (By Changing Calendars):
Step 1:
Go to the Explore page, create a new scenario, and go to the “Crew” tab. Change the assigned calendar to a different one that you want to evaluate. You can change the calendar assignment for multiple crew types at a time.
Step 2:
Analyze the results to determine how the calendar changes impact the overall project duration.
Functionalities That You Need to Know in ALICE:
Production Rates and Custom Properties