CONS0009 Construction Planning and Control

Computer Lab Tutorial

MS Project Lab 2

In this lab session, students will do the following tasks:

1. Free slack (free float) and total slack (total float) for project tasks.
2. Change working hours and dates.
3. Constraint type for project tasks.
4. Adjust resource allocation.
5. Use various Resource Views.
6. Basic cost functions.

After you complete all the lab tasks, ask your tutor to check your work and award you the
mark out of 5. Make sure you always keep a copy of your own work.

Load and open your project file from lab 1.

1. Slack Time

The Slack Time represents the time, which the particular tasks can overrun without affecting the
remaining tasks. Free slack is the amount of time a task can be delayed before its successor task
is delayed. Total slack is the amount of time a task can be delayed before the project finish date
is delayed. A task with 0 free and total slack is considered a critical task.

 Using the previous session’s project file insert two columns (Free Slack and Total Slack).
 View/Table/Schedule to view Free Slack and Total Slack

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Now you can clearly see which task can be delayed without affect other tasks.

2. Working Time

9am-5pm, Mon-Fri. is not exactly common in the construction industry; therefore, changing the
working times is of major importance for a construction project.

For arguments sake let us make the standard hours from 7am -3pm (leaving time for overtime).
Also working on the Saturday is not uncommon, so let us set the working hour for Sat. 9am-
1pm.

(Note your project finish date ________, before you do any changes, therefore, you can
check later to see the effect of changing working time and days).

Tool bar/Project, in Properties group / Change Working Time

 Highlight the calendar from the start of the project to the end plus two weeks
 Click on work weeks, for Monday – Friday, change the working hours to 7 am– 11am
and 11:30am –3pm.
 Highlight the calendar from the start of the project to the end plus two weeks

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  Click on work weeks, for Saturday, change the working hours to 9am-1pm.

Now the project finishes at a different date:______________

3. Public and Work Holidays

It is unavoidable that a long-term project is likely to contain a public holiday or even several.
Check for public holidays over the length of your project.

Just in case there are none we can set a Work Picnic Day which is to be set down for a Monday
two weeks after the start of the Project. (You can write down this date here______ .)

Tool bar/Project in Properties group / Change Working Time

 Click on Exceptions, in names column type “Work Picnic Day”, Click on Details, Make
the date/dates Non-Working.

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Now the project finishes at a different date:______________
After adjusting the working time and days, you should see these calendar dates are shaded.

4. Fixed Dates

Very important in the construction industry where sub - contracting is a common occurrence.
Let’s take for example the D Interiors Summary Task section of the house. It requires an
electrician, plumber, carpenter and possibly someone trained at installing windows. Whilst at a
very big company may have all the personnel for these tasks, a smaller company may well sub
– contract these tasks out. Sub – contracting brings an additional problem of timetabling:
sometimes the sub – contractors cannot start until certain dates. Entering these fixed dates
are very important.
You are to enter some fixed dates for TASK D.

Task Duration Predecessors

20. D. Interiors (needs roof)
21. Electrical Wiring 2 days 19
22. Pipes and Plumbing 2 days 19
23. Doors 1 day 19
24. Windows Installing 2 days 19
25. Floor Boards 3 days 21
26. Milestone 0 days 22,23,24,25

Record the start dates (find out from the Gantt Chart) of the following activities as “Old Start
Date” in the following space, then work out the new start dates by adding the delayed days given
for each task, then enter the new dates as fixed start dates.

Delayed Days Old Start Date New Start Date

Electrical Wiring 2 Days
Pipes and Plumbing 3 Days
Floor Boards 1 Day

Entering the fixed date:

Task Information/ Advanced/ Set Constraint Type to “Start No Earlier Than”
Now in Start Column enter the New Start Date as calculated above in the table

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Note: (but do NOT actually perform the removal of fixed tasks)

These fixed tasks can be removed by performing the following.

Task Information / Advanced Set Constraint Type to “As Soon As Possible”

5. Resources

The previous exercises have investigated the timetabling of the Project. A very important aspect
will now be looking at the use of Resources. Manpower of course is a form of resource and the
following exercises will look at the allocation of manpower to Task D.

Create a Resource Sheet that required for “D. Interiors Summary Task”.

Before starting there is a feature in Project to level resources automatically, that whilst useful
can cause irritation if not used correctly and is advisable to make sure that is set to manual
before starting.

Tools bar / Resource/in Format view/Level Options/ Levelling calculation = Manual.

If automatic resource levelling is required during the course of the project it can be enforced by:

Tools bar/ Resources/in Format view/Level All

First of all, we should identify the people required for the respective tasks.

Task Resource Name

21. Electrical Wiring Electrician
22. Pipes and Plumbing Plumber
Labourer
23. Doors Carpenter
24. Windows Installing Skilled Labourer
Labourer
25. Floor Boards Carpenter
Labourer
26. Milestone

Create Resources Sheet

Tools bar/ Resource/in View/ Resource sheet/select resource sheet
 Copy the names of the resources in the table below under Resource name column in the
resource sheet
 Copy Standard rate of the resources under Std. Rate column in the resource sheet

Resource Name Std. Rate

Electrician $75.50
Plumber $65.00
Labourer $20.00
Carpenter $42.50
Skilled Labourer $28.90

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Assign Resources to the tasks
 Go back to Gantt Chart view

 To enter this data right mouse click on the Task/ Task Information / Resources/Select
Resources for each task as in the table above (Resources required for “D. Interiors
Summary Task”).

Allocate all the resources to match the above table. (Labourers are a separate resource and
therefore move down one cell to create a new record before entering)

OR
 Insert new column of Resource name as discussed in previous session
 Click on the resource names cell corresponding each task under Sumary task D, select
the required resource from the list

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Check the three Resource Views:

Tools bar/Resource/View / Resource Graph You need the bottom scroll bar at LHS to click
through the five graphs, one for each worker.
Scroll through the various resources until
labourer is shown. The graph should show that
labourer is greater than 100% and therefore being
over used.

Tools bar/Resource/View / Resource Sheet This should show the labourer as being
overloaded (shown as red text)

Tools bar/ Resource/View / Resource Usage

It may well need a second labourer to remove the over loading.

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However, the Labourers time can also be allocated to a finer degree by not using 100% when
entering the resource in Task Information. The labourer for example may be required to perform
tasks for the carpenter and plumber at the same day. It is important that a realistic breakdown
of a particular person’s time is used.

Use the following percentages for the Labourer

22. Pipes and Plumbing Labourer (30%)

24. Windows Installing Labourer (20%)
25. Floor Boards Labourer (50%)

Go back to Gantt Chart view

Select the task in the table above/Information/Resources/ enter the percentages in the above table
for labourer

In the Gantt Chart View a jump in the duration of the Task would be noticed. Windows Installing
for example goes from 2 Days to 10 Days. This is because MS Project is set as “effort driven”
by default (see Task Information/Advanced tab). The labourer spending only 1/5th of their time
on the task causes the jump. When the resources were established, Project sets its data that the
Labourer is required 100% of the time on the Task. The Duration will increase by 5 times with
a change from 100% to 20%.

As this is a correction, change manually the Duration back to 2 Days for window installing (and
2 days for Pipes and Plumbing; 3 days for floor boards). Project will ask you to confirm this by
displaying a little exclamation sign. Click on the little exclamation button and select the “work
required to do this task has decreased, so it will take less time”.

Check the resource views again and it will be seen that the labourer is no longer overloaded.
Indeed, whilst installing the windows they are only being used at 20% therefore maybe they
could be utilised elsewhere.

6. Using the Resource Form View

The Resource Sheet View is perhaps the most effective view you can use for manually entering
basic resource information.
The Resource Sheet enables you to see many resources on the screen at once, and it also shows
you a number of important fields for each resource.

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Another useful feature for managing resources is use Resource Form view. You can see the
Resource Form view for a particular resource by splitting the window.
In Split view group/ Click Details, the Resource Form view is displayed in the bottom pane, and
you see all the fields for the resource that is selected in the top pane.
Double click Labourer, add a note under the Notes panel on the dialogue box:
“This is Scott's first project with us. Introduce him to other project participants.”
Create a MS Word doc. Named “Scott Adams Resume.doc” (also type “Scott Adams Resume”
in the document), then link this document to the note by click the “Insert object” button.
Now Click Window/Remove Split command, return to the normal Resource Sheet view.
You should see a little “note” icon appear in the top pane besides the record line for “Labourer”.
Double click it, a window will appear to show you the detailed information about this resource.
7. Resource costs, Fixed costs, and Total costs

Most of the costs of a project are due to the cost of using resources to complete the project, and
these costs are called resource costs. The cost of each work resource assigned to a task is
generally based on the hours of work or effort associated with the assignment and the hourly
cost of using the resource.
Alternatively, you can also attach a fixed cost directly to a task.

The sum of the resource costs and the fixed costs is called total cost.
You have entered some basic cost information for task D. Interiors summary task.
 To display the cost table, in Task, Gantt Chart view/ View/ Data Group/ Tables/Select
Cost. You can see the total cost for each task in the Summary Task D (Interiors).

Add $20,000 to the fixed cost field of summary task D. Now you can see the total cost of the
summary task increased.

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You can enter fixed cost information in this view for all the tasks. (Due to limited time, you are
not required to do it in the class time.)

This view allows you to view the total cost per task
To view cost per resource (excluding the fixed cost), click Details, then point the mouse to any
field name in the bottom pane (e.g. “ID” or “resource name”, click the right mouse button, then
select the Cost. You will see the cost for each resource.

Select a resource in the D. summary task, as you only defined resource and resource cost for this
summary task.

Finally, to review the total project cost quickly. On the Project menu, click Project
Information, and then click Statistics.

8. Save the plan:

File / Save As: Lab 2_First Name_Last Name.mpp

As your tutor to check your work and award marks.

You are also required to save a copy by yourself (email yourself or save on a USB drive) as
the copy on the lab computer may be removed by the system admin staff.

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