Sample Issue: PRIMAVERA STEPS, THEIR ADVANTAGES, AND UPDATING THE PROJECT
By Gordon H. Aronson
President, Visual Consultants, Inc.
Introduction
Steps is a new feature in Primavera Engineering & Construction and Primavera Contractor that allow the scheduler to break down an activity into a bullet list of items that must be accomplished to complete that activity. Their order of achievement is not specified or controlled by the software. The steps can be weighted, or can be assigned percentages of the activity's work scope. Steps, as they are completed, can automatically status your activity's percent complete.
Steps will not set an activity's Actual Start date nor will they affect your remaining estimate when the Physical % Complete switch is used; nor should they. (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1 - General Tab of Activity Details
What Makes Steps Useful?
Steps allow you to assign standard steps, actions, or scope elements for a schedule activity and agree early what each step weight (value) is. Then, you can stop bantering over my work-in-place calculation vs. yours. If the work item is done, the step is complete; the percentage is automatic and pre-agreed. Even though Primavera allows you to complete partial steps, I recommend not using this feature in construction. It puts right back the subjective analysis/evaluation of work-in-place and acceptable. Each step is either DONE or NOT DONE. The creation of activity steps should be done when the schedule is developed and should become part of the approval process with the owner.
Steps also have the effect of reducing the number of activities in the schedule, making them less complex, easier to read and ultimately more useful to both owners and contractors.
Stepping through Steps
To enable steps to determine activity status, we must do two things, one at the project level and one at the individual activity level. First, at the project level we must turn steps on. Select Project Details, Calculations Tab (Figure 2).
Figure 2 - Project Details; Calculation Tab - to turn steps on.
When you first turn steps on at the project-level, you receive a warning (Figure 3); accept it (Yes).
Figure 3 - Warning Message about Steps
Next you must make sure that any activity where you want to use steps to determine the % complete must be set to Physical in the "% Complete Type" field (Figure 1). Once steps are turned on, you must define them. You will later want to copy and paste activities to create new similar activities so you do not have to re-enter the same steps when forming new activities. Figure 4 is an example of steps to build a concrete foundation wall.
Figure 4 - Steps Tab with Steps Added
When you are ready to status the activity, you will mark the completed steps. Immediately, the Physical % will react to the completed steps and the activity will be partially statused. To finalize the status, enter the actual start date and estimate the remaining duration. This must be done due to using the Calculate Physical % Complete setting.
Figure 5 - Blow-up of Steps Tab to Emphasize Checkmarks
Example step calculation
In our example from Figure 4, the first three steps are Excavate (10%), Verify dimensions (2%) and Set rebar (10%). These total to 17% complete for the activity after the three steps have been checked off. (See Figure 5.) Entering the remaining duration on the Status Tab of Activity Details completes the process. (Figure 6.)
Figure 6 - Status Tab of Activity Details screen
Steps can be extremely useful in construction and ranks as one of the most useful features in the new Primavera scheduling products. Their use is highly recommended.
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