RepOne Consulting
CPM Scheduling | Construction Expert
CPM Schedule Oversight, Forensics & Analysis
Construction Scheduling with Deltek Acumen Fuse + Oracle Primavera
Acumen Fuse is a construction scheduling metric analysis and visualization tool that assesses quality of schedules, accuracy of cost forecasts, realism of risk models, earned value and project performance. More than just a schedule analyzer, Fuse uses libraries of metrics to provide a unique insight into how to improve project plans and execution strategies. What has typically taken schedulers and project managers days to achieve is now easily and repeatedly done in minutes. You can quickly pinpoint problematic areas and activities within a project, and let Fuse go to work.
Through metric libraries, such as the DCMA14 Point Assessment and Acumen Fuse’s advanced construction scheduling checks, the Acumen Fuse user is able to pinpoint and resolve scheduling flaws, ensuring a more realistic and achievable plan. Acumen Fuse ribbons provide a quick and easy means of visualizing what matters in your project. Analyze by ribbons of your choice making reporting flexible and straightforward. Compare an unlimited number of project snapshots over time to gain a unique insight into performance trending. Quickly determine changes in risk exposure, execution performance, cost overruns and earned value.
Project Lifecycle CPM Scheduling
At some point early in developing a project, a preconstruction schedule is created to inform the project team in a broad sense, as to the expected general timeline of the project. This general information should impart the contract duration, which will be shown in the invitation to bid.
For most projects, a schedule is updated each month. Field data is taken to measure progress of each activity. The schedule is then updated, and compared to the baseline. A narrative is attached to the schedule. The intention of the narrative is to describe conditions in plain language, while at the same time conveying critical analysis of project conditions and Fuse generated reports. RepOne offers CPM baseline schedule preparation and coordination as a collaborative effort with your project team.
Schedules are submitted like any other contract documentation: they must be evaluated. As part of our construction scheduling services, we perform evaluations and analysis of third-party generated schedules using Deltek Acumen Fuse forensic and analytic software.
Typically, the preliminary schedule is extrapolated from the schematic schedule. Preliminary schedules are require on public work within four to six weeks of notice to proceed. The preliminary schedule develops the general intended approach of the larger trades and activities into a critical path. The preliminary schedule will be bench-marked for logic integrity, and success probability, as compared with peer projects.
Impact schedules are used in Time Impact Analysis reporting for an unlimited number of schedule updates and baseline. Forensics and analysis are created in Acumen Fuse, the DCMA standard.
Construction Schedule Development
RepOne offers an extensive selection of Primavera 6 CPM scheduling services prepared in Oracle Primavera, and benchmarked and validated in Deltek Acumen Fuse. I have prepared schedules for projects as complex as the MTA Second Avenue Subway, MTA Fulton Street Transit Center, Brooklyn Battery Tunnel Hurricane Sandy Rehabilitation, and as small as – but no less complicated as, high-end and luxury out of the ground residential projects.
Every owner or contractor has specific needs, which vary, depending on the project size and scheduling requirements. Public work typically has scheduling requirements iterated in the project manual, whereas in the private sector, there are endless permutations. Public work specifications are often too vigorous or comprehensive, whereas private sector work seldom defines comprehensive scheduling requirements.
Before any schedule is created, a full background survey is conducted that will dictate the specific individual criteria for any given project, such that the determined effort can be commensurate with the needs of a project.
Owner input is key to this phase of the project. We coordinate with the project team members, review drawings and specifications, and estimates, and then begin to prepare the project schedule. As the schedule develops, we continue to coordinate with the project team until a final baseline can be generated.
Project Schedule Oversight
Most owners and stakeholders are reliant on general contractors or construction managers to maintain control over project schedules using robust oversight techniques and methods. Historically, ownership is underserved as a consequence of ineptitude and ultimately the inability to deliver reliable information. Although construction managers as agents are responsible for representing ownership’s best interests, not all of them or motivated or able to do so, which is why it makes sense to have implement oversight with a third-party consultant, who can have no conflict of interest.
RepOne oversight includes both technical and practical considerations. Technical, as pertains to resolving any errors or shortcomings noted in critical path methodology, and practical, as pertains to accurate and comprehensive representations of project logic.
The most critical phase of oversight is during baseline development, as most baselines will be revised several times before they are approved – if ever. If a baseline cannot pass muster, than all data which flows from its database will also be invalid for reporting and modeling purposes.
RepOne issues comprehensive oversight reports that guide the operator in making necessary and required changes. Finally, RepOne issues two Acumen Fuse benchmarks, the Fuse Logic Index (FLI), and the Fuse Schedule Index (FLI.) These indices compare a given schedule database with Deltek’s cloud database of user schedules (100’s of thousands) to generate benchmarks.
The FLI value pertains to a composite value of the integrity of all project logic. Acumen Fuse uses over 200 metrics to determine shortcomings, and compares them with peer project, issuing a percentile value and value against the mean.
The dashboard below conveys these values, as well as the metrics driving them. The schedule in question achieves the highest FLI. It was generated by RepOne.
CPM Schedule Benchmarks & Indices
Most owners and stakeholders are reliant on general contractors or construction managers to maintain control over project schedules using robust oversight techniques and methods. Historically, ownership is underserved as a consequence of ineptitude and ultimately the inability to deliver reliable information. Although construction managers as agents are responsible for representing ownership’s best interests, not all of them or motivated or able to do so, which is why it makes sense to have implement oversight with a third-party consultant, who can have no conflict of interest.
RepOne oversight includes both technical and practical considerations. Technical, as pertains to resolving any errors or shortcomings noted in critical path methodology, and practical, as pertains to accurate and comprehensive representations of project logic.
The most critical phase of oversight is during baseline development, as most baselines will be revised several times before they are approved – if ever. If a baseline cannot pass muster, than all data which flows from its database will also be invalid for reporting and modeling purposes.
RepOne issues comprehensive oversight reports that guide the construction scheduling operator in making necessary and required changes. Finally, RepOne issues two Acumen Fuse benchmarks, the Fuse Logic Index (FLI), and the Fuse Schedule Index (FLI.) These indices compare a given schedule database with Deltek’s cloud database of user schedules (100’s of thousands) to generate benchmarks.
The FLI value pertains to a composite value of the integrity of all project logic. Acumen Fuse uses over 200 metrics to determine shortcomings, and compares them with peer project, issuing a percentile value and value against the mean.
The dashboard below conveys these values, as well as the metrics driving them. The schedule in question achieves the highest FLI. It was generated by RepOne.
Acumen Fuse Forensics & Analysis
The FSI dashboard below generates a percentile value, as well as a percentage of likelihood of finishing on time. Fuse is one of the few – if not the only – platform that can perform this function.
The Acumen Fuse dashboard below conveys a basic layout for assessing ribbon analyses for entire project lifecycles, or distinct phases or timeframes. From this data Executive Reports are derived and benchmarks generated.
