Hello everyone, my name is Dareen Salama and I'm with the STV Group. I'm here to talk about technology applications for scheduling now that you've learned a little bit about the theory of scheduling. And the concepts behind it. We're going to talk about what software is used in the industry to facilitate any function that's related to scheduling. So the objectives of this session are to look in an overview about technology applications regarding several aspects of scheduling. One is schedule development, so how do we develop a schedule using software? How do we analyze a schedule? How do we share and collaborate on schedules that are readily available? And how do we visualize the schedule, and that really ties into building information modeling concepts. Quick overview about STV is that we've got four divisions, three of them are focused on design. Buildings and facilities, transportation and infrastructure and energy services. They're mostly focused on design, but they do have scheduling needs for the design phase of the project. Construction management which mostly deals with the construction phase as it's apparent from its name. And most of the work that is related to scheduling there is either within schedule review or schedule development for construction projects. Now project controls provides services for these four divisions. And within these services of project controls, there's costs, schedule and technology related services. Today I'm really focused on the schedule and technology aspect and how they tie together. There's the traditional scheduling approach and then there's how do you really do it utilizing either existing technology, or developing your own custom tools that would support you in that effort. So when I talk about scheduling, it varies, what do I really mean by saying scheduling? One is scheduled development and updates, that means that we're starting to develop a schedule from scratch. We're creating the baseline of the project. We're creating updates once we have established the baseline. We're creating monthly updates or bi-weekly updates whichever it is that's required on the project. We're creating look aheads. We're cost and resource loading that schedule. Then you get to a point where you say well there's schedules already available on the project. And then you start needing services that are schedule analysis, you start needing to do analytical aspect of the scheduling rather than creating schedules from scratch. Whether you are the construction manager and you're receiving schedules from the contractors or your program manager receiving multiple schedules for multiple projects and putting them together to look at the overall program, or overall portfolio. Within Schedule Analysis, you may want to look more closely on the critical path, on the floats, on the logics that's included. We at STV utilize earned duration analysis and earned value analysis. The capability to link schedules to other functions. That's extremely important. So how do you really link that scheduling database to estimating, to design models? So that relates to the building information models and to anything related to BIM data. And that's that 4D aspect. So we're going to discuss what software is out there on the market right now that covers these three aspects of scheduling. So when we talk about software applications, it's not only about the software that you utilize or the applications that you buy. Or what's commercially out there. But it's really about the tools plus the processes that you implement to be able to utilize these tools and it's also about who is really using the tool. Are they capable of using it? You may have an iPhone and someone else may have the same iPhone. And then you're both using it very differently. So who has experience to really utilize the system to its greatest capability. And who has experience in the art of scheduling in the construction field in the sequencing, and what really makes sense within the city, or state, or location. To be able to utilize the software to the greatest extent possible. Lately it's been the software that's available on the market and processes that are already out there are not enough. But you need custom tools, you need custom tools that would serve as competitive edge of your company or custom tools that would allow you to do much more with the software than you originally were capable of doing, either to make things more efficient or to make things faster or to provide you analytical tools that weren't previously available. So all these put together, these three put together, really create that integrated experience. When we talk about process and experience, you really need to look at how am I selecting that software. You really need to look at what am I using the software for. So what is that overall procedure that I go through? Well at the very beginning of a project, I need to first know what the project is, so there needs to be a certain level of project planning. Once that project plan is put in place, it's a very high level plan. I know about the project, the scope. What am I going to do with the schedule? Who's my client, who am I working for, and what type of work will I be doing? Is it design? Is it construction? Is it both? Is it multiple programs? Is it one whole portfolio? Is it one smaller project? What's the size of my team? All these questions really come into play, whether you're talking about scheduling or any other construction management function. Then you start looking at your work breakdown structure. How am I really breaking down the work? So the work breakdown structure really gets you to the point of okay, is this a large schedule, is this a small schedule? Do I need to manage each piece separately? Will I have different schedulers working on each piece or is it one scheduler working on all of them? Will each contractor be providing me with a separate schedule? And I need to combine them all together. All this gets answered in that work break down structure phase. And then once you have some visibility into that, you start thinking about software selection. You start thinking about what is the software that I need that fulfills my needs. A lot of people would say, okay, I'm picking software very early on. But that's really not recommended because you may end up using a software that's too expensive, that doesn't provide you with much more than what you need. Or you may be selecting a software that doesn't actually provide you with what you need. And in some cases that software is a client requirement and a contractor requirement that you can't really debate. So that way the software selection is already made for you. Once you have established your work breakdown structure and you have an idea about your software, you start thinking about activities. What level of activities do you have, the durations of each activity, the relationships between activity, the start and end dates that are required, any milestones, any contractual milestones. There is much more, but that's really that high level. What is it that I need in order to start a schedule. This is the minimum that you need in order to start developing that schedule. Once you move on, you start developing that schedule in the software applications. So now you have the software, now you have the list of activities, you have everything mapped out. All you need is the software to do that calculation for you and to help you evaluate different scenarios that maybe you were thinking about. You're thinking about three, four options. You want to figure out whether that plan fulfills your need or not. So then you start using that software application to develop your schedule. And then you start updating that schedule on typically a monthly basis, once you've established your baseline. Now during that period, so that period right here between development of the schedule and updating the schedule. There's always review analysis happening, it's really an iterative cycle. You keep going, updating the schedule, reviewing it, going back and developing further items. So you may be adding change orders, you may be adding scope. You may be changing some relationships, you may be changing sequencing depending on the work that you found on site. So it's really an iterative cycle, you update the schedule, you review and analyze. What effect that has on your work, and then you start updating it further and adding more information to that schedule.
