At the beginning of spring 2012, I carried out a planning mission on the project “BALARD”, for BOUYGUES Bâtiment in Paris. This new pentagon of the Ministry for Defense is currently the most emblematic project of building in France, only because it costs a few 3.5 billion euros!
At the beginning, I had 6 months to carry out about ten schedules of buildings. It was a question of being limited to 1,200 tasks approximately per building’s schedule, in order to remain reasonable and to have manageable schedules.
I worked with an expert of the discipline of the building and planning, and we applied 3D WBS method to generate the schedules. We used the prototype software VBA EXCEL “WBS Matrix” which I developed, and, finally, we succeeded in finalizing 10 schedules with PRIMAVERA P6 in only one month! The client was satisfied, since the mission lasted 5 months less than envisaged, but on the other hand my employer who invoiced me by days spent was not so happy, because he lost money, but I must say that he understood the technical performance. The most important, even for my employer, was that the client is satisfied.
On this mission, we also tried out the result of the prototype software “WBS matrix” concerning the identification of the interfaces; and, indeed, the expert with which I worked, recognized the interfaces of his projects! And it was completely natural, and reassuring even, taking into account to the fact that the schedules came from his head.
On my side, I filled the “WBS matrix” under his directives, by directing him with a training about the 3D WBS method. All that to say that this concept of identification of the interfaces works well, it is not only some theory and a magic notion!
At the end of the mission, we sit together on my PC during 1 hour, to fill the variations of a building compared to another within “WBS matrix”, and 15 minutes after, the schedule of 1,200 tasks was generated under PRIMAVERA P6! 3D WBS method makes it possible to generate schedules at an extraordinary speed, it is revolutionist indeed.
Of course, there remained still important finitions to finalize schedules completely, but these 20% remainders are a basic work which can take very a long time, sometimes even throughout the project…