How do you indicate the suspension of work on an activity in Primavera P6 Professional?
Sometimes all work on an activity is suspended, and then resumed at a later date. The cause of the suspension may vary. A classic example of a suspended activity is the suspension of pipe laying in a trench that is in the process of excavation.
In this situation the laying of pipe begins a few days after the start of dig trench. The plan is to complete the trench excavation and then shortly thereafter complete the laying of pipe in the trench. This all goes well until the excavation crew encounters a large boulder that will take several days to remove.
In this scenario the scheduler wants to indicate the continuation of trench excavation work and the simultaneous suspension of the lay piping effort. In Primavera P6 Professional schedulers can model both the suspension and resumption of particular activity work while other efforts continue onward.
This article demonstrates how to suspend and resume work on an activity in Primavera P6 Professional.
Some of the basic features of the suspend activity are described in the blog Accounting For Non-Work Intervals In Primavera P6.
Our demonstration project is displayed in Figure 1.
Figure 1
This schedule consists of three main efforts: site preparation, excavation & installation, and backfill & repaving. The pipe excavation and pipe installation activities have a Start-to-Start (SS) relationship, Figure 2.
Figure 2
The pipe installation work is delayed 3-days until the trench excavation effort provides enough space for the pipe installation crew to work and lay the piping.
Before proceeding with the demonstration, let’s review the bar necking settings. In the bars dialog and bar settings tab, necking for activity non-work intervals is toggled, Figure 3.
Figure 3
We set necking for remaining work, critical remaining work, and actual work bars, Figure 3.
Our project proceeds in Figure 4.
Figure 4
Site survey and mobilize complete. The excavation activity logs four days of progress, but encounters a boulder at the end of the fourth day. The pipe installation activity begins on the trenching efforts fourth day and logs one day progress, Figure 5, until the excavation crew hits the boulder.
Figure 5
So the pipe installation five day activity logs one day effort or 20% duration % complete. But is suspended the morning of the 15th, Figure 5. The schedule after 2 weeks effort thus appears similar to Figure 6.
Figure 6
The pipe installation necking indicates the suspension of the pipe install effort.
The project progresses another week in Figure 7.
Figure 7
It takes all week to remove the boulder from the trench. The pipe installation necking indicates the suspension of this effort.
Finally on Friday the boulder is dislodged, so the pipe installation effort may resume on Monday, 25-Nov-2019. Both the excavation and pipe installation activities complete the following week, Figure 8.
Figure 8
After the quality assurance inspection activity is progressed the data date is moved forward one week, Figure 9.
Figure 9
And we have our completed excavation and pipe installation efforts, which indicate the suspension and resumption of the pipe installation work.
Summary
Not everything always goes according to plan. Progress on an activity proceeds at a slower pace than originally anticipated. In other situations all work on an activity must actually halt until a future date.
The suspend and resume activity feature in Primavera P6 Professional handles the suspension of work in a progressing project. The one caveat is that you can only suspend an activity currently in progress, which makes sense.