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ProTrack integrates various graphs, reports and tables to keep you constantly up-to-date about the progress of the project.
This "Planned Value" curse shows the budgeted cost over time as a results of the baseline schedule. |
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ProTrack is an ideal learning tool for practitioners and academics with or without pre-knowledge
of Earned Value Management and Schedule Risk Analysis. Based on well designed parameters and various
integrated engines, a simulated project tracking, risk analysis of forecasting accuracy study is
only a few clicks away. |
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The structure of a project network is measured and determined by the set of project activities and precedence relations (links) between them.
ProTrack calculates this so-called topological network structure using four indicators between 0 and 100%. |
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In order to provide full flexibility to the user, ProTrack offers the possibility to construct schedules in
between an earliest start schedule (ESS) and a latest start schedule (LSS). A slider allows the user to
automatically shift all activities forwards or backwards within their activity slack (taking into account the
current (buffered) project duration as well as possible activity constraints). This creates the possibility
to automatically generate project schedules in between an ESS and LSS and is a very useful tool to manipulate
your project’s cash flow position over time. Optimizing cash flows in project scheduling often leads to advantages
and creates net present value optimization opportunities. As an example, when cash flows are delayed when shifting
towards an LSS, capital intensive investments can be postponed to the future leading to an overall better
total project net present value. |
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Resource generator: the renewable and consumable resources and there corresponding costs can be generated under a user defined design.
The parameters to link the activities to resources in order to generate activity resource demand and resource availability can be done using
several input parameters. |
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Cumulative resource requirements graphs per resource show the cumulative increase of the
resource‘s use, in monetary terms, along the time line of the project. |
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A graph with overallocations shows where the bottleneck resources are. |
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The standard simulation engine is introduced to the ProTrack user to start an easy and quick simulation
study without bothering too much about the activity distributions (as required by the advanced simulation
engine) in the project network. The purpose of the nine scenarios is to link them with project performance
measurement using Earned Value Management (EVM). Details are described in the 'Project Control with
ProTrack' tutorial. |
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The advanced simulation engine allows to define risk classes and profiles for each individual project activity,
and has been developed to fully support the Schedule Risk Analysis of the Sensitivity Scan.
However, the advanced simulation engine can also be used in the Time Shuttle option described in the
'Project Control with ProTrack' tutorial. |
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In the advanced simulation engine, you can define individual activity distributions for each project
activity by using the distribution drawer in ProTrack. This allows you to manually draw distributions
and save them for reuse for other activities or other projects. It shows that Schedule Risk Analysis is
a simple act of expressing time estimates as ranges, rather than as point estimates. These ranges better
reflect the activity uncertainty (best case, worst case, average case, etc.) and the estimated probability
of each potential activity duration within the range. |
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The values for the sensitivity measures are available upon completion of the simulation runs. They can be
accessed by means of the sensitivity report. The sensitivity report summarizes all
sensitivity measures for the project activities, as shown. |
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The expected project duration as a result of a simulation study |
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This Gantt chart refines the black-and-white view of the critical path. Indeed,
rather than showing whether an activity is risky (on the critical path) or not (not on the critical path), it shows
a degree of risk or sensitivity between the risk/no risk range reported by the critical path |
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ProTrack's project tracking can be done by creating a new tracking period for each review period. These
tracking periods appear as tabs above the tracking Gantt chart. Each tab is linked to a unique
status date and baseline schedule, and multiple tabs allow the user to get back in time and review previous
tracking periods. It is therefore wise and necessary to create a new tab each time a new tracking update is
done by the user. |
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Each project tracking period tab contains data about the progress of the project which will be used to update
the tracking Gantt chart prediction and to measure project performance and predict future project
behavior using Earned Value Management (see section 3). Correct earned value based calculations depend
on the quality and accuracy of the input parameters. |
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The Earned Schedule (ES) gantt chart; Translation of the EV of a given status date into time units by determining
when this EV should have been earned in the baseline schedule. |
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Earned Value Management (EVM) systems have been set up to deal with the complex task of controlling and
adjusting the baseline project schedule during execution, taking into account project scope, timed delivery
and total project budget. It is a well-known and generally accepted management system that integrates cost,
schedule and technical performance and allows the calculation of cost and schedule variances and
performance indices and forecasts of project cost and schedule duration. The earned value method provides
early indications of project performance to highlight the need for eventual corrective actions. |
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EVM uses the current project performance, measured by the SPI and SPI(t) metrics for time and the CPI for
cost, to predict the final duration and cost of a project. |
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Measuring Time
