BoxCharts When a Gantt Chart just wont do

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BoxCharts When a Gantt Chart just wont do

• Richard Jebb
• Technical Director
• PCF Limited
• October 2007

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Agenda

• Company Overview
• Primavera Gantt charts
• BoxCharts Overview
• Using BoxCharts with Primavera
• Case Studies
• Questions

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PCF Ltd - Company Overview

• Privately held UK company, founded in 1982 to
  develop graphical add-ons for Artemis.
• Specialists in project management visualisation
  tools.
• Primavera Technology Partner since 2005, with
  growing reseller network
• Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia
• Gulf Region, Turkey
• Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia
• Currently negotiating USA / Canada

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Target Markets

• We typically sell to large corporates in the
  following sectors
• Engineering Construction
• Transportation
• Aerospace Defense
• Utilities
• Solutions are often interfaced to ERP and asset
  management systems in addition to Primavera
• Our products are also used in many other
  industries, and by government departments and
  agencies.

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PCFs Solution Portfolio

• QEI Exec Turning Plans into Pictures
• LinearPlus Interactive Time Chainage Charts

Interactive Management Graphics
BoxCharts
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Gantt Charts

• Not fundamentally changed since 1910
• Easy to create and understand
• But - hard to display large volumes of data on
  screen
• Scrolling from side to side timebase rescaling
• Scrolling up and down limited by height of grid
  rows
• Hard to read/display logic relations
• Display of resource use against activities is
  also tricky

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Example Primavera Gantt Chart
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Summarised by WBS
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Summarised by Code
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Summarised by Resource Usage
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How can we improve this?

• Data shown against a timescale
• Better use of screen real estate ability to
  pack tasks vertically to maximise use of space
• Control over the activity details to be
  displayed
• Better visualisation of resource usage
• Greater control over ordering

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Microsoft Excel!
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Why is this a bad idea?

• Timescale issues
• Time taken to update chart
• Accuracy of manual process
• Lose the model its now just a picture

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Introducing BoxCharts

• Developed by PCF as an add-on module for QEI
  Exec
• Originally used by BAE Systems on manufacture of
  BAE 146 and JetStream aircraft
• A variant of a Gantt chart which groups
  activities into zones (swim lanes), based on
• Resource
• Resource Category
• Activity Code
• WBS/OBS values
• Activities can be displayed in a variety of
  ways, for example
• By WBS/OBS values
• Sized based on resource consumption

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Simple Example
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Value Proposition - BoxCharts

• The QEI Exec BoxCharts module provides a much
  more versatile means of displaying tasks against
  a timebase than a traditional Gantt chart
• It is a simple add-on to P3 or P3E which rapidly
  generates accurate information structured as you
  want it, with a wizard-based interface that
  eliminates the delays and data errors associated
  with manually transferring data into Excel or
  other tools for reporting purposes
• The system is not just a chart generator the
  data is held in a real project management system
  and can be used to perform interactive what if
  modelling

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Import into QEI Exec

• Select data source type

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Import into QEI Exec

• Select data source type
• Select data source

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Import into QEI Exec

• Select data source type
• Select data source
• Select project(s)

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Import into QEI Exec

• Select data source type
• Select data source
• Select project(s)
• Select target database

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Import into QEI Exec

• Select data source type
• Select data source
• Select project(s)
• Select target database
• Select data to import

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Import into QEI Exec

• Select data source type
• Select data source
• Select project(s)
• Select target database
• Select data to import
• Select codes / UDFs

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The result
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Building a BoxChart
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Building a BoxChart
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Building a BoxChart
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Building a BoxChart
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Building a BoxChart
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Building a BoxChart
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After adjustments
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Zoned by OBDN
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Zoned by OBDN
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Zoned by OBDN
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With resource loads
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BoxCharts - Case Study 1

• Problem Ensure successful delivery of major
  railway upgrade programme
• Pain Identify bottlenecks in the overall
  programme putting schedule at risk
• Solution A BoxChart splitting out work by
  category which instantly revealed a large
  cluster of approval activities immediately prior
  to clients year end

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BoxCharts Case Study 2

• Problem Produce accurate visual representation of
  planned hangar occupancy for aircraft maintenance
  
• Pain Excel-based charts were prone to errors and
  took too much time to recreate whenever the
  schedule was updated
• Solution A BoxChart directly linked to the
  schedule creates accurate charts on demand for
  any point in the future

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BoxCharts Case Study 3

• Problem Generate charts displaying disruption
  caused by gas main renewal programme for review
  by borough engineers
• Pain Charts required data from hundreds of
  separate projects to be consolidated into single
  Excel view
• Solution A BoxChart combines data from all
  required projects, and applies standard rules to
  create zones and colouring

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BoxCharts Case Study 4

• Problem Provide unified view of forecast track
  maintenance operations for UK rail network
• Pain Excel charts drew on data from many projects
  and contained large volumes of information to be
  displayed
• Solution A custom application creates a BoxChart
  which adheres to the original data layouts used
  by the manual report

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BoxCharts Case Study 5
Problem Optimise sequencing of production
operations for helicopter manufacture Pain ERP
system unable to provide any form of
visualisation Solution Generate BoxCharts
directly from ERP data and use what if
facilities within QEI Exec to explore the
consequences of sequence alterations
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• THANK YOU

Find us on the web at www.pcfltd.co.uk