Interview questions for planning and billing engineer

 

 

In this topic you will find the most common Questions and the Model Answers that you may expose to in your Interview for a Planning Engineer Position.

 

 

Question No.1:

What is a constraint in primavera?

Constrains in primavera is to fix the early or late start or finish dates of an activity as per following options:

A-Project Must Finish by

B-Mandatory Start / Mandatory Finish 

C-Start / Finish On or After

D-Start /Finish On or Before E-Start / Finish On

F-Expected Finish

 

what is the clause to be refereed in FIDIC when there is entitled for extension of time

Clause 20.1, "If the Contractor considers himself to be entitled to any extension of the Time for Completion and/or any additional payment, under any Clause of these Conditions or otherwise in connection with the Contract, the Contractor shall give notice to the Engineer, describing the event or circumstance giving rise to the claim. The notice shall be given as soon as practicable, and not later than 28 days after the Contractor became aware, or should have become aware, of the event or circumstance".

 

 

 

Question No.3:

What is the reasonable range of float you assume while checking the look ahead work activities?

The float range is varied from a project to another. However, in my opinion 10% of project duration is the maximum reasonable float for any project.

Question No.4:

What is the Critical Path? How you identify it and if any activity having negative slack, how can you adjust the duration?

Critical path is usually the activities on the longest path with zero float. Any delay on these activities will lead to delay in project duration. Usually critical activities are shown in red color or say zero float in columns. For reducing duration you can adjust it by reducing the duration or changing the relationship between activities. However, planning engineer should pay attention to maximum resources (resources constrains) while crashing the critical path.

Negative slack is usually results from constrains in the activities. Planning Engineer should follow up the negative float path and find the wrong relationships or constrains and fix it.

 

What is the difference between Planning & Scheduling Engineer?

Planning Engineer can work along with the project team to develop a complete time schedule including cost of resources. Planning Engineer can lead the team and influence his/her point of view.

Scheduling Engineer can only follow senior planning engineer or project manager instructions to create logic between project activities, but s/he can't develop the time schedule alone.

 

 

 

 

Question No.6:

What is the difference between Retained Logic & Override Logic?

Retained Logic is Invariably that will produce the longest critical path but if activities have been progressed out of sequence, there could be some illogical dependencies remaining, in particular resulting from dependencies with duration.

Progress override invariably produces a shorter critical path and again there could be some illogical lack of dependencies resulting from activities having been progressed out of sequence.

 

 

 

What is the difference between recovery schedule and revised schedule?

Recovery schedule keeps the same finish date with some corrective actions to recover the delay such as add more resources and break down some activities and so on... Revised schedule we have a new finish date because of claims or adding a new scope of work (amendment).

Question No.8:

You are working on a project and somewhere in the middle of the project. The progress variance was -5% and still you are achieving the contractual completion date. How is it possible?

Contractor is working on critical path and delays are on non-critical activities

 

Question No.9:

How can you define the Critical Path in primavera? Simply filter the activities with Zero Total Float.

 

Question No.10:

As a planning Engineer, "Walk me through a project":

This Project is "Project Name" and it has a budget of "Project Budget". The Project started in "Project Start Date" and planned to be finished in "Project planned finish date". According to the last update date on "updated date" this project is (ahead/behind) the schedule where the planned % = X and actual % = Y, therefore the forcast completion date is Z

Question No.11:

How can you differentiate total float and free float?

Total float represents the number of days that can be delayed without affecting the completion of the project, whereas free float determines the number of days that can be delayed without affecting the successor activity.

 

Question No.12:

What is Resource levelling and What is Resource Allocation?

Resource levelling is the best scenario to excute the works with the availabe resources. In order to achieve the best scenario, planning engineer could change the activities durations and/or activities dates without affecting the project overall duration to maintain bes usage of resources. While Resource allocation is assigning resources to activities, determine the amount of labor, equipment and money required for any activity.

 

 

Question No.13:

If we increase 2 days to the duration of any activity on critical path that will increase the duration of project by 2 days?

Yes. It is on the critical path which means it as Zero Total Float and any increasing in its duration will affect the duration of project.

 

Question No.14:

Explain what a good schedule means?

a) Scheduled activities must reflect the project’s contract scope of work)

b) Dates must be in accordance with contract.

c) Meets the contractual requirements /milestones.

d) Activity durations are reasonable: activity duration must be calculated based on quantity of work and resources available to be applied to the work.

 

e) Activity relationships are all defined, as review must be take place all relationships have been included and all are valid and redundancies are eliminated, and no open ended activities exept the first and last activities.

f)  The critical path makes sense

g) It considers procurement and material and equipment deliveries

h) It must be cost and resource loaded

I)  Must be accessible in proper format, complete, clear, and convenient.

j) Specific must tell about what will done, who will do, when will do, and what cost will need

Question No.15:

How will you make a manpower loading for your schedule?

Man Power loading is based in my company productivity rates, we calulate the required man hors for each B.O.Q item by using this formula :

Required Man Hours = QTY / (Productivity Rate)

 

Question No.16:

What are the involvements of Project Planner and vital Role in Project Management?

Since Planning Engineer directly involve in project management activities, project leadership to make decisions concerning the development of plans, and how work process broken down & the control how it be manage. Track, review, forecast & give inputs the status of the Project and product. Further more planning engineer should raise the flage to project team where s/he recognise and potential risks

 

Question No.17:

Float belong to the Owner or the Contractor?

It is a question that you probably will not find a definite answer for. The significance of the argument about who owns the float has two folds, first its ability to directly or indirectly influence the construction methodology and/or sequence once the project execution has started, and secondly, the potential entitlement of extension of time (EOT) and the application of liquidated damages (LDs). There are mainly three views of the matter which are presented hereinafter .

1.  The ‘contractor owns the float’ argument -

This is the traditional view and still has its appeal among many practitioners. This view implies that the contractor is entitled to utilize float for his own risk events and recovery rescheduling.

Not so far ago, a survey in the United Kingdom suggested that 80% of the respondents assumed that the contractor owns the float; not surprisingly, the majority of those respondents were contractors .

2.  The client owns the float argument

This is just the opposite of the view above, the proponents of this view argue that the client has paid for the project and the program is one

of the tools to manage the project and monitor progress, therefore, the client should be able to control the float to reduce costs and control progress, especially when the program is a contractual requirement

in which the contractor has developed it for the client’s benefit .

3.  The ‘project owns the float’ argument

This view basically says float is owned by neither the contractor nor the owner. The project owns the float which means “float is not for the exclusive use of any of the parties and it serves whoever needs it first” as long as it is used in good faith.

 

 

 

Question No.18:

What are the methods of calculating EV (earned value)? 1-Updating actual cost of activities

2-Updating the actual budgeted units of activities

3-Updating the actual resources comparing to budgeted ones

 

Question No.19:

What is the difference between recovery plan and revised plan?

Recovery plan is made with acceleration to remain within contractual completion date but revised plans accounts for change order which may or may not be within contractual dates

 

Question No.20:

If the Project Total Float shows negative, does it always follow that the Performance % Complete is less than Schedule % Complete?

No. Performance % Complete has nothing to do with the network logic or the critical path. It is possible that certain activities with high budgeted value might have been progressed better than plan but other activities that has less value are the ones driving the critical path and delays the project completion date.

 

 

 

Question No.21:

How to calculate budget man-hours?

In order to calculate budget man-hour you must have the budget quantity for each activity, from that and through the standard man-hour, convert the quantity into man-hours based on organization productivity rates, the total of these man-hours will be the budget man-hours.

 

Question No.22:

What do you mean by SDK , & what is its usage in Primavera?

Its stand for " Software Development Kit " it is used in Primavera to export quickly all the resources , cost etc. from Excel to Primavera. It is a powerful tool but it has some limitations with Excel version, i.e should 32 not 64.

 

Question No.23:

How do you start planning without any information on hand?

Gather the necessary Materials, such as the Scope requirements, project start and finish dates and any documents needed to produce project objective

Question No.24:

What is redundant logic?

It means that if successor of A is linked to B and B is linked to C Also Successor of A linked to C then the link between A to C is called redundancy.

 

Question No.25:

Is Quality and Grade are same thing?

No, there is difference, Quality is the performance of the requirements and fitness to use, Grade is a matter of different technical characteristic.

 

Question No.26:

Define the main responsibilities of the planning engineer in each phase of the project's lifecycle. Please state clearly which information/data you would need from the Project Manager/Project management team in order to fulfill your task as a planner.

This question is tricky because it tests your understanding of the whole planning process throughout the project's different phases. Moreover, you should fully understand the specifications and legal documents related to the particular project in question. However, you will not find it difficult to answer this question if you have been involved in the responsibility of only one completed project from inception to hand over.

 

Question No.27:

What are the monitoring skills?

Ability to sort data, Checking authenticity of data, Analyze and Predict data, Generate Reports.

 

Question No.28:

 

Could you chase Project Managers for information's and not just be a keyboard Junkie?

An answer for this question could be that I have developed very good interpersonal and communication skill which accords me the ability to politely yet consistently pull for the needed answers I require to get my own side of the job going and yet maintaining a healthy rapport within My team of busy PM's.

 

Question No.29:

What is the best software for planning?

No software for planning, it is only for scheduling, the planning process only done in brain. However, oracle primavera is the best planning tool that helps to create time schedules.

 

Question No.30:

What would you submit if your consultant / client asks you to submit a matrix report?

It is an incomplete request. I must know which matrix do you need, resource matrix, cost matrix, authorities matrix, engineering/procurement matrix etc. else that would be a wide report containing more than 50 columns of P6.

 

Mention 4 reasons cause -ve float in primavera: o Using project must finish by

o Using Constraints

o Using different calendar in one project

o Using relationships with other project

 

 

 

Question No.32:

What is the difference between Float and Slack?

There is no difference between float and Slack. It is two different words of same meaning.

 

Question No.33:

What is the difference between negative lag & lead?

There is no difference. It is two different words of same meaning.

Question No.34:

How do you explain project delay if earned value is more than planned value?

The contractor has performed better in areas which are not on longest path "The Critical Path". In another words, the contractor excuted the right quantity in the wrong place.

 

Question No.35:

How are early and late dates determined?

Early Dates in a network is determined by Forward Calculations And late dates is determined by backward Calculations.

 

What are three methods of measuring project progress?

Key Performance Indicators "KPI's", Cost Performance Index "CPI", Schedule Performance Index "SPI".

 

Question No.37:

What is the best way to be professional planning engineer?

Understand the project management concepts, tools, and techniques. -Practice doing real projects and get comments/review from expets. -Continous improvement by learning new tools that would help to increase the accuracy of decrease the time required for tasks.

 

Question No.38:

What are SV and CV?

Schedule Variance (SV) & Cost Variance (CV) in Project Cost Management. Schedule Variance and Cost Variance are two important parameters in earned value management which help you analyze the project's progress. Schedule variance (SV)

= Earned value (EV) – Planned value (PV) Cost variance (CV) = Earned value (EV) – Actual cost (AC)

 

Question No.39:

What's the way to resolve the delay in project time?

Fast Track: Reduce activities duration, resequence, reschedule without affecting the project total duration, fast tracking has a problem regarding the quality issues if it is applied in a wrong way.

Crashing: Reduces activities durations, resequence, reschule but with additional cost to achieve better results. this additional costs could be:

-Acceleration Costs to subcontractors.

-Bonus.

-Additional costs result from less productivity due to increasing the manpower in workplace.

 

If Budgeted cost of works is more than actual cost of works, how do you consider the performance of Project? Optimum, Bad or Good?

Good. Since we are spending less money than planned, But we also need to check if we are on schedule or not.

 

Question No.41:

What is Project Management?

Project management is the application of processes, methods, knowledge, skills and experience to achieve the project objectives. General. A project is a unique, transient endeavor, undertaken to achieve planned objectives, which could be defined in terms of outputs, outcomes or benefits.

 

Question No.42:

What does it mean if "SPI" greater, lesser or equal to one?

SPI greater than one means ahead of schedule, less than one means behind the schedule & equal to one means as per schedule.

Question No.43:

Could we have more than one critical path?

Critical path is a dynamic path where it could be changed everytime we update the schedule, change durations, or relationships. However, the critical path of a project is one path that could have too many activities underneath. Therefore, the project has only one criitical path.

 

Question No.44:

Scope is known partially, then how to plan for future?

Through the life of the project as more information is available more work to be planned called agile management. Accordingly, we can use agile management to plan the known part of the project only and keep the scope of work until we have more information about it.

 

What is concurrent delay? Concurrent delays has two meanings:

o When two events of delay on critical path are occurring at the same time, one affecting activities on Contractor's risk and the other affecting activities on Employer's risk.

o OR two or more events of delay on project critical path that belongs to one only of these parties contractor or client .

 

Question No.46:

What is a Baseline?

Baseline is the value or condition against which all future measurements will be compared. The baseline is a point of reference. In project management there are three baselines – schedule baseline, cost baseline and scope baseline.

Question No.47:

What is the Difference between Bar chart & Network Diagram?

Bar charts and network diagrams are used to display visually the complexities and dependencies of project work. Network diagrams display the project work as linkages through the chronological flow of work from start to finish. Gantt charts visually display primarily the work breakdown and the associated durations. Both charts graphically show work breakdowns, enabling managers and workers to easily identify conflicts, co-dependencies and determine the effect of change in the system

 

Question No.48:

What is Thresholds in project Management?

It is the project management technique in which lower and upper values of a parameter are specified against which project data can be evaluated and monitored. It could be applied on WBS level as well as activity level.

 

What is difference between crashing and fast tracking?

There are basically two techniques that can be used to shorten the project duration while maintaining the project scope. These techniques are fast tracking and crashing.

Crashing is the process of adding resources to one’s project so as to be able to finish it faster. It has cost impact.

Fast Tracking, on the other hand, is the process of performing tasks in parallel so as to be able to finish the project sooner. It does not have any cost impact, but increases the risks.

 

Question No.50:

What is the normal productivity of welder for Carbon steel material per day?

This question is to test your knowledge of productivity rates. However you

shouldn't memorize all the answers in your mind, your answer could be "I don’t memorize all productivity rates since it is vary from an organization to another and from worker nationality to another. However, i have some standards that I refer to when the organization productivity rate is not available.

 

Question No.51:

What is the difference between free float and total float?

Total float is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the project completion date. On a critical path, the total float is zero.

Free float is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the Early Start of its successor activity.

Question No.52:

For an activity, if the free float is negative whereas the total float is positive. Is this possible to happen and what's the impact?

It may happen depends on the activity flow, but that doesn't mean this free float will affect the completion of the project since the total float is positive.

 

Define critical path:

A critical path is the sequence of project network activities which add up to the longest overall duration, regardless if that longest duration has float or not. This determines the shortest time possible to complete the project.

 

Question No.54:

Does primavera loads cash in and cash out in same schedule?

Primavera deals with cost of the project only (cash out) but you can work around with making a resource called cash in/out to view cash in/out

 

Question No.55:

How to reduce critical path?

A- Compressing schedule by fast tracking, crashing, Reduce scope, Cut quality.

B- Fast tracking: Results in rework, increase risk, requires more attention and communication.

C- Crashing: increase cost, increase management time

D- Reduce scope: negative impact on customer satisfaction E- Cut quality: increase risk, requires good matrices.

 

Question No.56:

What is the normal total float allowed for a new project?

Total float should be not greater than 10% duration of the total project duration. (This percentage is subjective)

 

Question No.57:

What are the duties of a planner?

Assigned in overall/master schedule, look-ahead targets, and accomplishment reports and monitoring.

 

What is Baseline Program?

An agreed Program that use to compare the actual result to measure performance of project or product against what was planned.

 

Question No.59:

What is SF dependency? Any example. Have you ever used this?

A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has started. Example: The first security guard shift (successor) cannot finish until the second

security guard shift (predecessor) starts.

I don't think I have ever used this, but I have generally thought of a Start - Finish dependency as being used where an agree period of handover is required between two activities.

 

Question No.60:

Are all activities with negative total float drive the project completion date?

Not all negative float activities drive the project completion date. Only the chain of activities driven by their dates and logical relationship drive the completion date and it is called the longest path.

 

Question No.61:

What is meant by recovery schedule?

Recovery schedule is a revision of the Program's Master Schedule updated on a certain data date. The Engineer requested the Contractor the recovery schedule to show on how the contractor he'll be going to recover the incurred delays up-to- date.

 

Question No.62:

What do you mean by "EPC", "TIA" & "EOT"?

EPC stands for "Engineering, Procurement & Construction " TIA = Time Impact analysis

EOT= Extension of Time

Question No.63:

How do you get information to populate and update your schedule?

Organize a planning workshop with all the Subject matter experts in attendance, plan all your questions needed for you to make up a plan and schedule. Extract all information from them, develop a high level initial schedule and populate the WBS and activity lists. Later on planner should develop forms to be filled by project team in weekly basis.

 

Question No.64:

What is the standard deviation of the activity equal?

standard deviation for activity is = (Pessimistic duration - Optimistic duration)/6

Question No.65:

Suppose you have a conflict with the project consultant/ owner representative about a schedule update you have submitted recently. You believe that you have the right to reflect some time delays in the schedule in favor of your company, but the owner wouldn't accept that. The conflict escalated and the consultant hold the monthly payment till you agree on the update according to his perspective. He's also implicitly threatening to kick you out of the project unless you are "cooperative". What's should you do?

Unfortunately, this case is very common in the middle east. The power of consultant is over estimated, and engineers, especially juniors, will find themselves in similar situations in one way or another. My answer would be that you should communicate with your Project Manager immediately. It's not enough to have a casual conversation during the tea break; you should do that in "WRITTEN" format only. You should clearly explain the situation; why you think you have right in your claims; what would be the consequences in case you agree with the requirements of the consultant; and what are your concerns regarding the situation. In most of the cases, if the project manager is strong enough, he will exclude you from direct

 

contact with the consultant till he solve the issue; and it might be necessary to consult the company's lawyer for assistance.

 

Question No.66:

What does it means If my free float is positive?

It means I can delay this activity without delaying the project end date.

 

Question No.67:

What to look for when a contractors sends their tender program to be awarded?

Tender schedule is summarized by natural. However, it should tell the contractor strategy of excuting the project and the project overall planning.

 

Question No.68:

What is an S–Curve?

S-curve is a graph showing cumulative cost or value (measured in terms of money or man-hours) against time.

 

Question No.69:

How De-watering works could affect your schedule?

That based on calculation of building own weight to be equal to or more the uplift force. Dewaterwing is required to reduce the uplift force of underground water.

When this force is less than the weight of building, then dewatering activity could be finished. Planner should check with the project team when it is recommended to stop the dewatering and plan accordinglyy. Normaly dewatering will hold the backfilling and external works around the building.

 

Question No.70:

 

Every project plan has two type of dates, the early start early finish and the late start late finish. Late start always starts after early start but finish with the early finish, Why?

Late start denotes the total float of the activities which allows the activities in the early stage of the project to get as late as possible while in the late time of the project there are mostly critical activities are left which does allow the late dates to pass over.

 

Question No.71:

What is the major difference between Cost variance and Schedule variance?

Schedule variance=Earned value-Planned value. It is related to the time or data date. Cost variance=Earned value-Actual cost.

 

Question No.72:

Why negative lag/lead is not recommended in a good schedule?

Because other relationship types can serve the same purpose. For example, instead of using FS relationship with negative lag, you can use SS relationship with positive lag.

 

What does variance in s curve indicate on both axis?

Variance on Y-axis represents the value of (Money, ManHrs., etc.), while X-axis represents time variance.

 

 

Question No.74:

What is an open end activity?

An open ended activity is an activity that can end at the last day of the project without delaying the overall projects. An open end activity is normally not followed by any other activity and its completion can be delayed (within the project life) in order to focus on more important activities have successors (activities which can start only at the end of the earlier ones).

Question No.75:

If you are loading the cost in Primavera, Which cost will you select either in price in BOQ or your Budget amount or Both?

It depends, if this schedule is for the consultant, then the budget amount (selling price) should be loaded. However this is a case where the contractor would like to monitor the actual cost, in that case actual cost could be loaded. However, cost control is better in excel than primavera.

 

What does trend analysis means?

A trend analysis is an aspect of technical analysis that tries to predict the future movement of a stock based on past data.

Question No.77:

A project shows actual performance is matching the planned performance. The Project is in delay also. What could be the reason?

The reason is, the progress is made on the non critical activities than on the critical activities.

 

Question No.78:

What are the difference between flag and milestone activity in primavera?

Mile stone & flags both are events rather than activities. Some client likes to use flags rather than mile stone due the following differences.

1.  With the use of flags the logic of main event can be easily tracked as these cannot be created without predecessor as standalone allocating the constraint. Whereas mile stone can.

2.  Flags cannot update manually as Primavera automatically update the status whereas milestone can be update manually.

3.Flags cannot be constraint only driven by predecessor whereas milestone can.

 

 

 

 

Question No.79:

How do you estimate activities durations?

By generating meetings & follow ups with contractors and other persons related to construction, this is also related to the contractual milestones. Normal activities can be estimated from experience. Special activities can be estimated by having meetings with project team and experts in this field. However, the project overall duration is the main constrain that might affect all other estimations.

 

What does it mean if "CPI" greater, lesser or equal to one?

CPI greater than one means over budget, less than one means under budget & equal to one means same as per budget.

 

 

 

Question No.81:

What is needed for a successful project plan?

Contract document, drawings, B.O.Q as primary & other planning tools as secondary support. Furthermoe, the involvement of project team in the planning, estimation, and sequence of work would result more accurate project plan.

 

Question No.82:

We hire the team in execution, then who planned for the project?

The planning of the project is made during the project life cycle with different level of details. For example, during the tender stage, the tender team is responsible for the high level of planning. However, when the project is awarded the project team is responsible for the planning and breakdown.

 

Question No.83:

How often you update your Project Baseline ?

It varies from project to project, depending on reporting/progressing periods. However, the working schedule should be updated on a continuous basis, as each activity is started or finished.

 

What are BCWS, BCWP, and ACWP?

These three acronyms are earned value terms that stand for Budgeted Cost for Work Scheduled (planned value, or PV in the PMBOK Guide’s in my opinion ill-

advised neologisms), Budgeted Cost for Work Performed (earned value, or EV), and Actual Cost for Work Performed (actual cost, or AC.)

BCWS is what was budgeted for each work package as scheduled .

BCWP is the sum of the budgets of all completed activities/milestones.

ACWP is the sum of what it actually cost to complete each of the work packages/milestones

 

Question No.85:

What is a constraint?

A limitation that reduces the efficiency with which a project can be accomplished.

Resource availability is a type of constraint that can delay a project’s schedule and efficiency.

In general, constraints should not be input to the schedule until after the schedule has been optimized through critical path analysis.

 

Question No.86:

What is activity & What is WBS ?

Activity is a task or process to be accomplished in a set period of time as part of working toward a larger project goal. An Activity can be assigned to a resource(s) and have an associated cost. Activities are ordered with logic links

Work breakdown structure, a hierarchical format for identifying, displaying,

reporting, and changing project work. Since the WBS is the “skeleton” of work on which the resource, cost, schedule information is draped, it is the principle tool for implementing scope/cost/schedule integration.

 

What is a milestone? What are the types of milestone?

A milestone is an event. Activity-driven milestones are usually entered into PM software as activities with durations of zero. Since milestones have no duration, once they are reached they are immediately in the past. It is therefore good practice to name activities using the past participle of the verb (i.e., “Test component” = activity; “Component tested” = milestone.

 

Question-88: What you normally need to develop a plan?

Answer: I need the Contract documents to understand the scope, the schedule

 drawings to know about areas, Bill of Quantity-BOQ  including cost, scheduling

software access. Yes, I need to meet my project team to know about a little

 productivity rate if I don’t know any specific activity.

 

Question-89: What is the difference between Change order & Variation order Request?

Answer: Technically, there is no such difference. A change order or Variation request is a change in scope from the contract but as per contract. If you are curious about which term should be used, the better refer to your contract documents. I have heard the term Variation Order but have never seen any documentation for it. Everywhere they write a Change Order Request.

 

 What is ACWP, BCWP & BCWS?

Answer: These are old acronyms but still efficient to use. These are the old names of PV, EV, AC, respectively.

• BCWS is Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled
• BCWP is the Budgeted Cost of Work Performed
• ACWP is Actual Cost of Work Performed

 

What do you know about DCMA Scoring?

Answer: DCMA is 14-Point Assessment Metrics to evaluate any baseline schedule. It includes; 1. Logic 2. Leads 3. Lags 4. Relationship Types 5. Hard Constraints 6. High Float 7. Negative Float 8. High Duration 9. Invalid Dates 10. Resources 11. Missed Tasks 12. Critical Path Test 13. Critical Path Length Index (CPLI) 14. Baseline Execution Index (BEI)

 

What do you about Delay Analysis Techniques?

Answer: Normally, it is defined in the Contract documents that how we are going to calculate extension of time, but if not, then there must be a consensus for using any available technique from both of the parties like 1) Impacted as planned 2) Windows Analysis 3) Time Impact or 4) As-Built But-For.

What is the difference between Planner & a Scheduler?

Answer: Both are quite different but linked to each other tightly. Somewhere these are just synonyms to each other.

The planner or Planning Engineer reads the IFC drawings, defines the activities, duration & resources according to site construction conditions. He knows better all the work phases, even during the tender stage and at the construction stage. It should be from an engineering background, necessarily.

On the other hand, the Scheduler takes over the work done already by the planner to make a more detailed one. This job does not require to have an engineering background.

 What is a different % complete type in Primavera P6?

Answer: Physical, Units & Duration.

What is the different duration type in Primavera P6?

Answer: Fixed Units, Fixed Units/time, Fixed Duration & Units, Fixed Duration & Units/Time.

 Differentiate between budgeted Cost and Budgeted Units?

Answer: Budgeted Cost for an activity is the total budgeted costs of all resources on that particular activity, whereas Budgeted units are budgeted units of work for the resource assignment on any specific activity.

Question-44: Differentiate among WBS, Work Package, and Activity?

Answer: WBS: Work Breakdown Structure- WBS is simply a decomposition of all the works to complete any project. A WBS is arranged in a hierarchy having a clear and logical group. A WBS is deliverable-oriented.

Work Package: WP is the lowest level of any work breakdown structure from which we can manage the cost and duration estimation.

Activity: A discrete, planned portion of work to be performed in a project.

Why we call Primavera “P6”?

Answer: From 1983 to 2004, Primavera used the P3 suffix for all kinds of releases like P3 version 1.0, P3 version 3.0, etc., but this suffix changed to P6 to avoid confusion among P3, SureTrak, and the Primavera. Later on, P6 is kept as a suffix permanently.

You can read more about different versions of history here, Primavera P6.

 

Question 56: What is a CPM schedule?

Answer: Critical Path Methodology – CPM, or you can name it as a Critical Path Method, is one of the most popular construction industry techniques. It uses a mathematical algorithm that helps to find out major critical jobs on any project schedule.

uestion-54: How to become a Planning Engineer?

Answer: You must have a relevant degree in Engineering, then you better start your career by analyzing site work to learn the sequence of actual work. After that, get some software training like Primavera P6, MS Project, Asta PowerProjects, Tilos, etc. Prepare plans, practice, and grab the opportunity you find without considering salary or other perks at the start. Get some project management training like PMP, Prinace2, etc.

You can enter this field without an engineering degree, but employers always prefer to have a project planner with a relevant degree. Hence, you may not fit in most of the big organizations easily – Better avoid if you are not an engineer.