Work program is an important element in any Construction project. It is
a document where it will become a guide for those involve in the project on when to start and complete a particular
project component or task. In actual fact work program is contractor plan on
when to start the project and how we plan to complete the hole project. A project
without work program, in other words, is a project without target and is about
to fail. As the successful person always say “ FAILURE TO PLAN IS A PLAN TO
FAIL”.
There is numbers of software that can be utilized to create a work
program. Among them are Microsoft Projects, Primavera and Agile project planning. However in this
article, we will show how to create a work program by using MICROSOFT PROJECT.
We are using MICROSOFT PROJECT 2010 VERSION (Trial Version Copy)
.
Microsoft project can be purchase on-line through Microsoft website.
How to create the work program using Microsoft Project? Below is basic step to step.
Step 1:
Open your Microsoft project software. Below is how the Microsoft
project look like.
Under Default display you will find there is eight (8) columns available.
The column named as indicator, task, duration, start, finish, predecessor,
resources and add new column.
Set up the working time for your calendar. This can be done by clicking
on the FILE tab.
A display like this will appear on your screen. Next, click the “OPTION”
button on the display page. A “Project
option” will appear as below.
At this “Project Option” page, click the “schedule” button. It will
bring you to the display as below.
On this page, you can start customized your working days, working hours
and many more to suite your requirement. One you done with the option you can
save your file under a name.
Start inserting all of the scope of works that necessary to complete
the whole project. To do this. Click on the “TASK” tab. The window is as below.
Inside the “Task Name” column, you can start type in ever task that is
needed to complete the whole Project. Below is how the completed task looks
like.
After finish key-in all the task. Now you can arrange the task into
level.
Step 4:
Select the task that you want it to be a sub-task to the earlier task ,
then click the indent task icon to make it a sub-task.
Below is how the partially complete Work Program look like after the
task being arrange into different level.
Step 5:
Insert the Duration for each of the task in the Duration column. Below
how it look like after you insert the duration.
Step 6:
Insert your start date for the first task that you plan to become the
first activity for the whole project. This first task should be a task that must
start in order for the project to start.
The start date must be inserted in the Start column. Your finish date
for the task will be automatically calculated by Microsoft project software.
Your next subsequence task start and finish date will be calculated
automatically after you insert the Predecessor for each of the Task.
Below is how your partially completed work program looks like.
Step 7:
For each task in your work program, insert the predecessor task number
in the predecessor column.. Predecessor is a task that starts before this task.
By doing this it will link the task to another task. Below is how the work
program appears on your screen after you completed this step.
Now after this step 7, your already complete the whole scheduling works.
This is already a complete work program. In actual on screen display you will
see it like the picture below.
From the display, you can see on your right, there is bar chart for
each of the task and it is link to another task. This chart show how each of
the task link to another or in another word sequence of each task. The arrow
from one bar to another bar is showing the sequence of the task which
automatically generated when you key-in each of the predecessor for each of the
task. This chart is called Gantt chart.
In real construction project there is lot of task involve in order for
contractor to complete the whole project. In this situation we need to identify
which is the longest sequence of task that will be critical in the project. In other
words, if one of the task is delayed it will delayed the whole project. How to
Identify it by using Microsoft Project Software. Read the step 8 below.
Step 8:
To identify the longest critical sequence of task in a project click
the “FORMAT TAB”.
Under the “Format” word (as picture above), you can see the word “Critical
task”, “Slack” and “Late Task”. Click the box next to the” Critical Task”. It will automatically generate which sequence
of work is Critical. This method is called “Critical Path Method”.
Once you are done with this action, it should display a series of red
bar which these are the critical task that MUST
NOT BE DELAYED IT START AND FINISHED DATE. Contractor needs to Start this
these critical task as planned in the work program or you will not be able to
complete the whole project as planned.
