AAOM Handbook

MS.11 Adjust Activity Placement in Schedule

Context

The baseline forecast produced by the Scheduling Model will place Activities within the Schedule based strictly on the scheduling parameters, and Production work to Service work dependencies, that were specified when the Activities were set up in the model. These included a nominal trigger value for each Activity and a range of tolerance (variation) permitted on that trigger value. Within the Scheduling Model it is the nominal trigger value that will determine the placement of an Activity within the Baseline Schedule output. The Baseline Schedule may not align all of the forecast Work Packages to maximise the synergies and minimise the potential conflicts between packages. For example, the Baseline Schedule may show two Service work packages that restrict process output as occurring separately when scheduling tolerances would allow them to be aligned. However, an experienced person reviewing the Baseline Schedule can often readily identify such synergies and conflicts. In this case it is possible to adjust the scheduling of forecast Work Packages, within the range of tolerance allowed by the Production and Service strategies, in order to optimise process output and/or the resourcing for the Schedule. Once a set of decisions have been made on what schedule adjustments can be made to optimise synergies and remove conflicts between Activities these changes must be manually ‘forced’, to temporarily override the normal scheduling of the Activity.

Purpose

To temporarily override the nominal scheduling criteria for specified Activities.

Quantity

One temporary override of the nominal scheduling parameters for each specified Activity.

Quality

Any ‘forced’ override of the scheduling of an Activity must be temporary and shall not alter any of the nominal scheduling parameters.

All activities with a ‘forced’ schedule must be readily identifiable.

Some options available for ‘forcing’ an Activity in the schedule include; • Setting the scheduled time to a specific calendar time, • Setting the Activity to be dependent on the Activity you want it tied to, • Setting the Activity with a dependency on and an offset to another Activity you wish to link with, or avoid.

© McAlear Management Consultants 2006

Operational Planning: Set Operating Master Schedule

Updated: August 2018

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