1. Planning the work
2. Estimating resources
3. Organizing the work
4. Acquiring human and material resources
5. Assigning tasks
6. Directing activities
7. Controlling project execution
8. Reporting progress
9. Analyzing the results based on the facts Achieved
To increase an efficiency of a product, nowadays many web development companies are using different project management systems. A company may run a number of projects at a time, and requires input from a number of individuals, or teams for a multilevel development plan, whereby a good project management system is needed. Project management systems represent a rapidly growing technology in IT industry. As the number of users, who utilize project management applications continues to grow, web based project management systems enter a critical role in a multitude of companies.
Thus, a proper project management system plays a distinctive part in ensuring reliable, robust and high quality web applications for customers. Developing a web based project management system and showing how, in turns, it helps users to handle projects. These processes in every day´s working life, is the scope of the thesis. The reliability and robustness of a web based project management system has also been set as the structure of the current thesis. Finally, a web based project management system has been developed, which highly meets the standards and requirements set by the company. The web based project management system uses an already integrated TRAC application that has improved to suite company needs.
Web based project management systems are designed to manage and store project information that are used in web-based applications. By different groups of people such as, seals department, programmers or project managers will be let by project applications a controlled access to information and automated distribution of information.
The objective for collaboration has been: getting thing done faster, cheaper and better by applying their common knowledge, bringing together a selection of resources and attainments in a project. Because valid collaboration with teams improves productivity, speeds up result-making and optimizes of making a right decisions, it also helps to intercept precious intellectual fortune and time. Web-based project management system can surprisingly increase performance, productivity and efficiency within an organization.
Since web-based applications can be accessed through any web browser, no desktop installation or updates are required. Moreover, developers, who write great code while staying out of the way are able to use it along the distance, while they stay in geographically different place and collaboration between team still exists. Please find a short overview of the system as described below. The aim of the Figure is to provide the background of the system conducted. The background of the system includes an introduction to the system area and the motivation behind the development and research.
Web based project management systems are designed to manage and store project information that are used in web-based applications. By different groups of people such as, seals department, programmers or project managers will be let by project applications a controlled access to information and automated distribution of information.
The objective for collaboration has been: getting thing done faster, cheaper and better by applying their common knowledge, bringing together a selection of resources and attainments in a project. Because valid collaboration with teams improves productivity, speeds up result-making and optimizes of making a right decisions, it also helps to intercept precious intellectual fortune and time.
Web-based project management system can surprisingly increase performance, productivity and efficiency within an organization. Since web-based applications can be accessed through any web browser, no desktop installation or updates are required. Moreover, developers, who write great code while staying out of the way are able to use it along the distance, while they stay in geographically different place and collaboration between team still exists
Project Management is the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, materials, energy, space, etc) over the course of a project (a set of activities of finite duration).
Project Management System (PMS) is essential in supporting project tracking and control functions. A PMS provides a platform to organize, store and retrieve the planned and actual performance data of projects in a logical and efficient manner. The PMS queries the stored project data using SQL (structured query language) to generate different management reports for control purposes. It follows that the design of the database should follow a well-defined structure to support the tracking and control of individual tasks at different levels of reporting.
The data structure should also facilitate the linkage of those individual tasks to their respective construction trades. A work package model is commonly used to describe the data structure of a project.
The work package is a general expression that represents a well-defined scope of work that usually terminates in a deliverable product. It includes activities and tasks within those activities as depicted in the work breakdown structure (WBS) as an example shown below.
The WBS is generally configured in accordance with the way the work will be performed and reflects the way in which project costs and data will be summarized and eventually reported.
The application of PMS for project control has been developed using DBMS to support automated cost and schedule control functions. We used the work package model to represent the project data. This system, however, only supports the application of earned value for progress reporting. The earned-value method integrates time and cost to overcome the limitations of traditional control methods, which use the cost as the only indicator for the performance of a task.
The method is widely accepted as an integrated project control tool. However, this method only tracks cost and schedule variances, and neither supports reasoning to explain unacceptable performance nor advises on possible corrective action(s). To overcome those limitations, DBMSs have been used in conjunction with knowledgebased expert systems for project control.
A knowledge-based approach for project control. In this system, a single form is used to store data pertinent to individual work packages. Their control functions focus on individual work packages and proposed a prototype rule-based expert system to improve project control. Two forms of data – one related to activities, the other related to the project – are defined to map the data structure of a project. The developed system can be implemented at project and activity levels.
The developed a web-based system for project control of control objects. An objectbased model is proposed to integrate the project data in support of project control functions. The developed system can be implemented at project, control-object, and resource levels.
This application presents an internet-based database management system designed to support contractors and/or project managers in tracking a project’s progress. The application focuses primarily on the system database, which provides a high degree of flexibility through its data structure to support three-level project control. The application also presents a numerical example to demonstrate the use of the developed system and to illustrate its essential features.
user interfaces;
input/edit;
evaluation;
reasoning;
forecasting; and
reporting
The user interface provides a viewing/input window that allows users to interact with the system through the worldwide web using an internet browser; the input/edit is a data input, update and delete component that is developed to facilitate data entry and edit; the evaluation component assesses the cost and schedule variances using the earnedvalue method; the reasoning component diagnoses possible reasons behind the variances through a set of built-in indicators; the forecasting component predicts the project’s time and cost at completion; the reporting component generates the performance reports on a daily, weekly, monthly, and/or yearly basis.
The reports have a tabular format as well as a graphic format that can be generated in a user-friendly manner. Two relational databases (project and historical) are developed. The project database stores planned and actual cost and schedule data for the project being considered. Upon completion of the project, all information collected in the project database is transferred to the historical database. The historical database has the same structure as the project database.
Data structure is essential to the development of an efficient database. This is particularly important in supporting project control functions. Project control is carried out using a set of control objects. The control object, could represent a phase of a project, a work package, and/or a cost account defined using cost breakdown structure (CBS)
It has the resources necessary to complete the tasks included within that control object. Based on this, all of the project data can be treated as an aggregation of a pre-defined set of control objects. Each control object has its resources of labor, material, equipment, and sub-contractors.
In the PMS system, sub-contractors are treated as a type of resource. Each resource has a budgeted value and an actual consumed value.
Each control object has relation(s) to other control objects as well as its own method of resource allocation. It also has attributes that describe its characteristics, such as sensitivity to weather and site congestion, as well as a set of threshold values that defines unacceptable performance.
Each type of resource in a control object may have single or multiple sub-resources. It should be noted that each control object is an abstract representation of a physical component of a project, as stated earlier. The budgeted resources of a control object serve as a control reference as they are actually consumed over the project duration. Representation of project data
The entities-relationship (ER) methodology is employed in mapping the project data and in formulating it into a project database. The ER diagram consists of entities, relationships, and attributes. Entities are basic objects with an independent physical or conceptual existence. A binary relationship (i.e. only two entities are related at a time) is used in designing the database.
Relationship types involve one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationships. Different types of attributes are used in the development of this database, including composite, single-valued, multi-valued, null-valued, and key attributes.
Composite attributes form a hierarchy that decomposes a unit into smaller components, each with its own independent meaning, as in a project that is decomposed into control objects, and control objects are decomposed into their resources. Single-valued attributes are used to identify the names and codes of projects, control objects, and resources.
Multi-valued attributes are used to define the different resources such as cost, working hours, and material quantities. Key attributes are used to distinguish entities. Each entity has a unique identifier called a primary key, where a key can be a single attribute or a combination of several attributes (a composite key). The ER diagram serves as a reference for the developer to ensure that all the required data are modeled without conflict between entities and relationships.
The above figure represents the ER diagram of the project database. In this figure, the database is modeled conceptually using 15 entities (12 physical and three conceptual) and 20 relations.
The physical entities represent the Company, Employee, User, Project, Control Object, and resources of Craft, Labor, Material, Equipment, Sub Contractor, as well as resource Allocation and control-object Progress. These entities record the internal information of the project being modeled such as names of companies, employees, projects, and corresponding budgeted and actual values of labor, material, equipment, and subcontractors. The Craft entity describes the types of labor. The Labor entity records the personnel labor information.
The Allocation entity defines the method used in the allocation of budgeted data. The Progress entity records installed daily quantities. The conceptual entities are P status, C status, and Predecessor. These entities record the external information of their respective control objects. P status records daily site condition, including congestion and weather. The C status entity records the actual start and finish dates of a control object (assuming that all the resources for a control object have the same start and finish dates).
The Predecessor entity defines the relations to other control objects. A one-to-one relationship exists between Control Object-C status entities and Employee-User entities.
It means that a control-object can only have one start date and one finish date and one employee can only become one user of the system. A one-to-many relationship exists between the entities Company-Employee, Company-Project, User-Project, UserControl Object, Project-Control Object, Project-P status, Control Object-Allocation, Control Object-Predecessor, Control Object-C status, and Control Object-Progress. This acknowledges that a company can have many employees and projects. A user can control many projects and control objects. A project may contain many control objects.
A control object can have many predecessors. Each has its daily status and progress data. A many-to-many relationship exists between the Control Object entity and the resources of Craft, Material, Equipment, and Sub Contractor entities. This means that each control object has its planned and actual resources and these types of resources can be used by other control objects. The relationship between Labor and Craft is designed to record the actual labor cost for that craft.
The ER diagram can also express the existing dependency of one entity type on another. For example, the arrow in the relationship of Project-P status indicates that the existence of the P status entity depends on the Project entity, but the Project entity does not rely on the P status entity.
Therefore, the participation of the Project entity is considered partial participation and the participation of the dependent entities is total or full. P status, Predecessor, C status, and Progress are weak entities because they use the primary key of the Project entity as a part of their individual primary key. It should be noted that the proposed objectbased model is compatible with the Industrial Foundation Classes (IFCs) proposed by the International Alliance for Interoperability.
This facilitates integration with other software applications. The proposed model provides further efficiency in its implementation through the use of the specially designed entities described above.
Implementation A three-tier client-server computer architecture is used to implement the developed system, It involves the presentation tier, the application logic/middle tier, and the data tier. The user interfaces are the components of the presentation tier, which handles the system’s communication with the user. The databases are components of the data tier. The input/edit, evaluation, reasoning, forecasting, and reporting components belong to the application logic/middle tier.
The database as described in the ER diagram is located in the data tier. It is implemented using the SQL database environment. In essence, these tables map the entities and their respective relationships. The data type of the primary key in the entity tables is “auto-number”, which avoids the redefinition of the key. The attributes of the entities and relationships record the budgeted and actual data described below. Data entry
JavaScript functions, Microsoft Visual Script functions, and HTML (hypertext markup language) were used to design a set of web-forms to facilitate data entry. All specially designed input and edit forms have been developed to support the process of populating the database.
Figure above depicts a sample of web-forms for entering the budget data of a control object. These web forms are designed to provide a simple user-friendly interface. They are components of the user interface.
The web forms respond to users’ requests and trigger the input/edit component in the application logic/middle tier. ODBC (open database connectivity) connects the input/edit component with the database to facilitate data entry and retrieval.
The budget input data includes the planned start date of the project, the planned finish date, the total quantity of control objects, the scheduled start date, the planned duration, the lag time, the cost of labor, the cost of materials, the cost of equipment, the cost of sub-contractor(s), the labor man-hours, the equipment working-hours, subcontractor(s) working-hours, material quantities, the planned numbers of labor, as well as the threshold values for time and cost control, the method of resource allocation, and the relationships to other control objects.
For control purposes, the characteristics of a control object such as sensitivity to weather and site congestion are also considered.
The period-by-period input or daily input of site data includes control object actual start date, control object revised quantity, actual quantity installed, actual cost of labor, actual cost of materials, actual cost of equipment, actual cost of sub-contractor(s), actual labor man-hours, actual equipment working hours, actual sub-contractor(s) working hours, materials usage, number of labor, and actual finish date, as well as the weather and other related site conditions. It should be noted that only the direct cost of labor, material, and equipment are taken into consideration.
The issues related to data verification, validation, and the overall performance of the developed database started from the conceptual design of the database through to its final implementation, including the design of the web forms. Design verification ensures that the developed database is in accordance with the ER diagram and that it satisfies its functional requirements.
Data entry verification was carried out independently. Specially designed JavaScript and/or Visual Basic Script functions embedded in the web forms are used to verify data type, length, and format.
Whenever new data is entered, the system automatically checks the data format. In the case of an error in input data or missing data, the system prompts users with appropriate message. The implementation of the developed database was tested and evaluated using a numerical example. The system was used to evaluate project performance at a user-selected reporting date.
The project was broken down into 23 control objects using the work breakdown structure. The budget data of these control objects and the data related to the actual performance of the in-progress control objects were entered using the developed web forms.
The actual data were entered from the construction site on a daily basis. The system was then activated to evaluate the project performance. In this report, the calculated earned-value parameters for the reported period are presented (values in brackets are negative). This includes BCWS (budgeted cost of work scheduled), BCWP (budgeted cost of work performed), ACWP (actual cost of work performed), CV (cost variance), PCs (actual percentage completion), SV (schedule variance), CPI (cost performance index), and SPI (schedule performance index).
The positive and negative cost variances, reported in Figure 6, represent cost saving and overrun, respectively. Similarly, positive and negative schedule variances represent schedule advance and delay, respectively.
An internet-based database management system has been presented for the tracking and control of construction activities. The application has focused primarily on the design and implementation of the system’s relational database. The developed system can generate earned-value based project status reports at user-specified reporting dates.
Fifteen entities and 20 relations exist in the developed database. By taking advantage of the worldwide web, the system provides a real-time data sharing environment and accordingly supports the generation of timely site progress reports. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the capabilities of the developed system.
The earned-value report generated by the developed system was identical to that of when threshold values of time and cost variances were set equal to zero. In addition, the developed system integrates the entire project data using the object model as proposed.
The developed database not only considers the sequence of the tasks performed, but also the relationships among the control objects. It supports projecttracking function of progress reporting, using earned-value method. It can also be applied to support forecasting time and cost at completion as well as reasoning about unacceptable performance.
We help you with our business software as service solutions that can be customizd to feet your needs
© 2022 Nukiesoft - All rights reserved.