GPA - Graphical Progress Analyser

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What is GPA?

GPA is an advanced progress drawing technology to review your project in planning stage and to monitor while progressing. GPA does not require AutoCAD to view the output, it has its own viewing application with many useful features to filter activities.

The interactive time-liner allows you to see the changes simultaneously in graphics and activity bar areas on any desired date.

If anyone of these questions bothers you, GPA can solve your problem.

1 How much resources are spent preparing the progress reports?
2 How much time is spent by the senior most management involved in multiple mega projects to “reconfigure” their minds every time they discuss another project?
3 How deeply you wished if you could just click on an activity in your schedule and a drawing would emerge depicting to your team mates exactly what you want to communicate to them?
4 How much time is wasted describing the same progress issues to different people?
5 How difficult do you find to make sure all the project team-mates know the pace of your project?
6 How many times you had to explain “if we are going at this speed we will be at this stage three months from now”?
7 How many times you wished you could reduce the time to locate the schedule activity associated with that object on the drawing?
8 How you wished if there was a system which gives you historical information of what happened in the past especially in times of a claim?
9 How you wished drawings could be generated automatically which clearly marked the critical activities after every progress update so that there are thoughts about acceleration measures like re-sequencing or reducing the duration of the activities in the critical path?
10 And finally don’t you wish if all the above said facilities could be availed immediately when needed anywhere you are or at anytime instead of waiting for an email or a fax from a junior staff?

Requirements

1. Project requirements : Drawing in AutoCAD format and updated schedule of activities with baselne(Primavera)

2. System requirements: Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP or higher, 1GB RAM and 1GB free disk space

Benefits

When	User	Benefis	Remarks
Project Planning Phase	Planning Engineer (GPA Administrator)	1.Create GPA Project 2.Review planning using GPA
Project Beginning (Mobilization period)	Project Mangers Project Engineers Site Engineers Quantity Surveyors Land Surveyors Draughtsmen	Visualise planning stages using GPA’s weekly or monthly review. More precise understanding using daily method.	Feed back to planning engineer
Control / Execution Phase	Managers and Engineers	Weekly GPA review: 1.To understand the current progress 2. To review the work done in the last week 3. To realise any delay of activities and thus to take precautions 4. To know spatial distribution of upcoming activities	Feedback to planning engineer
Control / Execution Phase	Draughtsman	Generate progress drawings quickly
Project Closing	Planning Engineer Quantity Surveyor	A quick view of project at completion to check any discrepancies
Project Control Phase (Corporate Level)	General Manager Planning Manager Technical Manager Construction Manager Plant Manager Safety Manager Material Manager, etc.,	A quick view of the current progress of the project to help their decision making	Benefit of internet based system allows users to access anywhere from the world

Applications

GPA, the project understanding tool has the following four levels of applications.

1. Target or Baseline (Planning Phase)

Simulates to visualize the project for any specified date; throughout the project duration; to understand how the project is planned. The activities planned to complete, planned to progress are shows in different colours. This can be used in the following situations:

A. Planning Stage:
At the end or in different stages of the planning phase, visualize the planning program to know the accuracy and unexpected mistakes. In case any mistakes observed, you can visualize again after the corrections in the scheduling program.

B. Introduction to the execution team members:
Before the execution or during the beginning period of the project, the weekly review option of the GPA will give the execution team members, a clear picture of the project how it is planned.

C. Review Target
The use of this option will be required in the running phase also, to compare the target and thus to resolve issues or claims.

2. Present Status or progress on latest Data Date (Running Phase)

This is the most important output while executing a project. Thus this option is kept as default in GPA to know the present site condition and comparison with the target. As soon as the updates are attached to GPA with new Data Date, the graphics will be ready within seconds. In addition to the completed and progressing activities, the delayed objects are also displayed in different colour (default delayed colour is red). This option is the quickest method to find the delayed or critical activities on the drawing and then to identify its criticality in days of delay and other related parameters by clicking on the graphical objects on the screen as shown below.
Zoomed view with a delayed activity and its properties

3. Work done or review history (Past Phase)

You can go to any past date between the SD (project Start Date) and the latest Data Date by scrolling the bar under the Date as shown in the picture and thus generate the actual progress drawings on the screen instantly. In other words, GPA stores the entire progress history and it retrieves the progress on any past date as as-built drawings.
This method is useful in
- resolving claims
- to understand how the project is executed so far(e.g.: for a newly joined engineer)
- to present in meetings without any preparation.
(Accessible across the internet)

4. Look ahead (Future Phase)

You can go to any future date between the latest Data Date and the FD (project Finish Date) by scrolling the bar under the Date as shown in the picture and thus to generate the planned progress drawings on the screen instantly. In other words, GPA has the power to simulate look-ahead drawings based on the current updates.
This method is useful in various site issues. For example: If there is major plant movement through the construction area, to find the suitable date of transportation with minimum hindrance to the current works.

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