Project description:This is oil storage facility project. we have following works in this projects.

1. Earthworks improvement by cutting, excavating, filling, compaction of the filled

area, leveling, testing of the compacted area and disposal/relocation of surplus

material.

2. Soil improvement to achieve a leveled and compacted ground for the construction

of various foundations as per load bearing capacity.

3. Construction of storage tank foundations for:

3.1. 7 X Product tanks of 39.50 m diameter X 25.50 m height

3.2. 1 X Product tank of 33.00 m diameter X 25.50 m height

3.3. 1 X Product tank of 25.00 m diameter X 22.50 m height

3.4. 1 X Fire water tank of 9.00 m diameter and 12 m height

3.5. 2 X Slop tanks of 3.80 m diameter X 9.00 m height.

4. Construction of RCC bund wall for spill containment around groups of product

tanks, and slop tanks.

5. Internal Bund Walls between individual tanks R.C.C.

6. Construction of R.C.C pump house for ship loading and truck loading pumps.

7. Construction of truck loading gantry for 8 trucks with asphalt paving with geo

physical membrane for truck parking.

8. Construction of paved area for access to tanks, truck loading gantry, administration

building, entrance/exit gate, services building and pump house.

9. Construction of Administration building for managers, supervisors and clerical staff

offices, control room, laboratory, toilets, dining facility and locker rooms, including

water supply/drainage and small power & lighting works with Floors & Roof; Thermal

Block Walls; False Ceilings; Floor Tiles; Plaster; Paint; Doors and Hardware. Excluding

exterior composite metal panel cladding, glass curtain walls.

10. Construction of service building to house electric transformers (substation) L.V.

panels, telephone mains and fire pump/controls.

11. Construction of Booster Pump Station outside of the terminal location.

12. Civil works for all piping installation including RCC supports, trenching, pits etc. in the

terminal and en-route to jetty.

13. Bunkering pit at jetty.

14. Various manholes with cover for cables for power and instrumentation control

15. 100 MT capacity Weigh Bridge Foundation.

16. Septic Tank for 30 persons complete with manholes and 30 cm thick RCC Cover as

per drawings.

1. Fabrication and erection of 7 nos. product tanks of size 39.5 m diameter X 25.5 m

height, 1 no. tank of size 33.m diameter X 25.5 m height, 1 no. tank of size 25 m

diameter X 25.5 m height. All the above tanks are for product storage. These

tanks shall be mild steel, vertical, cylindrical with conical bottom and external

floating roof. All necessary nozzle and manholes shall be installed on roof and

shell. Tank bottom shall have sump for water collection and draw off. Each tank

shall have spiral staircase and walkway in level with the top kerb angle of the tank

for level/temp gauge installation.

2. Fabrication and erection of one fire water tank of size 9.0 m diameter X 12 m high.

The tank shall be mild steel vertical, cylindrical, flat bottom, fixed cone roof. All

necessary nozzles shall be installed on roof and shell. There shall be one monkey

ladder and roof handrails.

3. Fabrication and erection of 2 nos. slop tank, mils steel, vertical, cylindrical, slopping

bottom and fixed cone roof with necessary nozzles and manholes. There shall be

one monkey ladder and rood hand rails for each tank.

4. All tanks shall have cathodic protection and earthing system.

5. All tank external surfaces shall be grit blasted to SAE 2 ½ and coaled with 2 pack

epoxy paint system with a total DFT of 300 microns.

6. Product tank shall have bottom and upto 1 m of shell inside grit blasted to SAE 2 ½

painted with compatible 2 pack epoxy system with a total DFT of 300 microns.

7. All implant piping shall be installed from/to tanks from/to pump house and from/to

pump house from/to truck loading gantry.

8. Import export pipe line shall be installed as per the port of Salalah specification.

9. Booster pump shall be installed as per the location selected outside the terminal.

10. Ship loading and truck loading pumps shall be installed in the pumps houses and

connected with tanks and truck loading gantry.

11. All piping system shall have necessary isolating values, non-return values and

fittings.

12. All piping shall be grit blasted to SAE 2 ½ and painted with 2 pack epoxy system to

a total DFT of 300 microns externally only.

13. Pumps for truck loading shall be installed at truck loading/unloading gantry with

required piping, values and fitting.

14. Truck loading/unloading gantry shall have loading arms and flow meter for the

15. All piping shall have earthing and cathodic protection for underground sections.

16. Filtration and closing system shall be installed on piping where required.

1. Supply and installation of transformers, ring main units and switch gears for

substation.

2. Supply and installation of L.V. panels in electric room for power distribution to

SMDB’s, DB’s and SDB’s.

3. Supply and installation of SMDB’s, DB’s and SDB’s. All equipment in hazardous

area shall be explosion proof.

4. Supply and installation of isolators and motor starters for pumps. All equipment

shall be explosion proof.

5. Supply and installation of light poles.

6. Supply and installation of cablings, wires, conduits and trunking for laying and

connection, termination to equipment and buildings.

7. Supply and installation of Lighting Arresters.

8. Supply and installation of communication system.

1. Supply and installation dual power firefighting pump.

2. Supply and install fire water ring main with fire monitors.

3. Supply and install foam system with all piping and fittings.

4. Supply and install tank cooling system.

5. The system shall be:

• Automatic, fixed water foam based system

• Water monitors and hydrants around storage tank yard included extended

range fire monitors for blind areas.

• Deluge control system with wet pilot.

• Foam storage, control and discharge station.

• Fire extinguishers portable and trolley type as per requirements.

• Water cooling system (Sprayers) around tanks shell and roof. Ref. No.: SG-I/MPF/04-13/1-Rev.00

• Fire alarm system, emergency light and relevant equipment for utilities and

control room.

1. Supply and installation of electronic level gauges, temperature gauges, pressure

transmitters on the product storage tanks and link to control room.

2. Supply and installation flow meters on truck loading/unloading lines.

3. Supply and installation flow meters on import/export lines.

1. Site Survey

2. Soil test

3. All compaction tests

4. Concrete, Water content & slum test

5. Concrete strength tests

6. Radiography

7. Ultrasound

8. Die Penetration Test

9. Magnetic Particle Test

10. Vacuum Box test

11. Hydro Test

12. Calibrations and Certifications

13. Earthing Resistance Test

14. Polarity Test

15. Lighting Arrester Test

16. Continuity & Earth Potential Tests

components of the works required for the completion of the intended project.

Construction details and specifications shall be provided in the detailed drawings.

Adjustments during construction to meet site conditions shall constitute

modification and variation.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/17sevg71sqqhutq/wk3.rar

1- Project Name and good description to allow us to understand your project to comment on it.

2- Project XER File

3- Project PDF File

4- Send it to info@planningengineer.net

Negative float is annoying problem in any time schedule, i will tell you how to avoid the negative float in a primavera time schedule by applying these simple steps.

A- Reasons of negative float:

Negative floats mainly occurs as a result of activities constrains. these constrains prevent the activities to move forward as they impacted from another activities or from the project data date. lets assume that the project activity is represented by a spring, this spring has a start point and end point (start date and finish date), if  this spring was free to move from both directions and you pushed one end of it, it will simply move in the direction you pushed it on. In the other hand, if this spring was fixed from one end (start date or finish date), and you pushed this spring, it will not move, and alternatively, it will be compressed. This compression of the spring represents the negative float on an activity which has a constrain (i.e. must start by or must finish by).

B- How to avoid negative float:

We have to commit that dates constrains are fact on the construction projects, however the method of applying these constrains may cause a confusion to the project schedule if we used the imposing tasks to must finish / start by and no later than in primavera. Alternatively, we can use a control milestone which link the activity required to start / finish on certain date to another activity in the project as we will see in the example below.

C- Why we should avoid negative float in the primavera time schedule?

Schedule negative floats gives a misleading forecast dates, For example if you have a negative float in your schedule -10 days, and the schedule is showing a forecast completion date of 1-Jan-2014, unfortunately this forecast completion date is not correct and should be 1-Jan-2014 + 10 days. and in complicated projects with lot of activities with negative floats, it is hard to accurately define the project forecast completion date.

D- Example of avoiding negative float using control milestones:

Scenario 1 : Impose that start date of the task investigate the ground water levels to start on 12-nov-2013, then update the schedule with data date 15-Nov-2013 which represents a 3 days delay to the task start date, you will notice the -3 days negative float (slack).

Scenario 2 : create an intermediate milestone linked to the project start date FS with 6 days lag to control the start date of the task investigate the ground water levels on 12-nov-2013, then update the schedule with data date 15-Nov-2013 which represents a 3 days delay to the task start date, you will notice that no negative float.

Note: Because my example schedule has only one activity, the forecast completion date has not been impacted, however, if the schedule contains many activities you will find a variance in the forecast completion date between scenario 1 and scenario 2.

This method should be applicable to all project management software such as primavera, Microsoft project. Try this method by yourself and tell me your feedback.

We are all using planning tools such as primavera and Microsoft project. However, you should always remember that they are just tools, and the result comes from them need to be verified before considering it correct.

Modern planning tools could be very useful, at the same time very harmful as well. For a positive outcome, we need to check at various stages that it makes sense. One of our professors during college days defined an Engineer as ‘Problem Solver with high Engineering Sense’. Though modern technologies help make life easier, it shall not be allowed to reduce our engineering sense. Out of my experience, I came across a fatal error in the time schedule because of the fact that the fellow Planner did not check the planning tool precisely.

Now the Planning Engineers Preparation Course using Primavera and Excel is totally Free of Charge. Furthermore, you can download it along with supporting files to watch it offline. Know about Planning Engineer Preparation Course: About 2 year ago, I made a free online course in Management of Structure Projects using Primavera P6 and Excel 2010. I believe that the course was [...]

We are expanding our website! Do check out what we are to offer on various Part time jobs Opportunities !!

We need creative people who love project management and project management tools. The main tasks are to answer members questions, create articles, videos, or even conduct courses about something you are really good on it. We pay at standard hourly rate to our team. We share the success, We share the profit.

Our Topics are Primavera, Excel, and project management. Think, be creative, create, and earn. No matter how many years of experience you got or how smart your are, If you are willing to give a try, you can!

If you are interested, please fill out the below form, and i will contact you soon.

How to make global changes in Primavera P6.

Sometimes we want to apply the same rule to all the activties, so it is a laborious work to do the same with all the activties. You can do the same with help of global changes in seconds.

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This video is for Site Engineers, Construction Managers, and Project Managers to read and understand a time schedule made by Oracle Primavera.

What is the time schedule?

The time schedule is a contractual document between the client and the contractor which defines the forecast sequence, progress of work and the contractual start, finish and milestones dates.

How to read and understand Primavera Time Schedule

Primavera Time Schedule Layout usually contains 2 main sections, Bar chart and activity list. to understand the time schedule accurate and fast you should

A-READ THE COLORS FIRST

B-READ THE DATA

Watch the following video

Want more about project management?

Online Primavera Course for Engineers & Construction Managers!

Price: $250.00

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Supercharge planning and scheduling with the mastery of Oracle’s Primavera & Microsoft’s Excel while adding critical skills for your engineering, planning or construction management career!

Hint Help in Primavera P6 provides onscreen help for various items. Click on any pre- defined column to view a definition of that field.

Steps:

1. From the Layout Options bar, choose Hint Help.

2. Place the mouse over a column <Original Duration>.

3. Click the tack to keep the onscreen help in one location.

4. From the Layout Options bar, choose Hint Help to disable the onscreen help dialog box.

Some time when you try to open or schedule in primavera, you get this message:

“You have opened the current project(s) in Shared mode. Other users currently have the project(s) open as well. Performing this process may overwrite the changes made by others. Are you sure that you want to continue?”

You can solve this issue in two steps.

Step No. 1

Click on File, then click open.

Step No. 2 :

Choose the access mode as exclusive

check out our new simulation lessons. You will be able to practice without leaving the learning dashboard. Learn and Do the Steps by your self . Learn Smart, NOT Hard. In this lesson you will learn how to convert a project from P3 to P6.

Click The Play button to start the Lesson:

Q1:What are the difference between free float, total float and what is different between Float and Slack? This is very common question in a primavera interview, Float and slack are the two different words for the same meaning.   Q2:What is a constraint in primavera? Constrains in primavera is to fix the early or late start or finish date of an activity as per […]

Oracle Primavera Hot Keys Shortcut In both the P5/P6 client and web applications, the following function keys work: F1 Context-Sensitive Help F2 Toggles between Edit and Browse modes when the focus is in Description Panes in Details Tabs for Notebooks, Steps, WPs and Docs and the Notes to Resources pane on the Feedback Detail Tab F3 Find Next (works after using ) F5 Refresh (from server) F7 Spell check when in […]

Using a combination of Global Change and “Indicators” you can graphically show the critical activities in the schedule with an indicator. Follow these steps

1. Create a User Defined Field

2. Set up as a column in a Layout

3. Create and Execute a Global Change

4. Global Change populates the column

PARTS OF A REPORT
Page Header Area: The fields inserted in the Page Header area appear on each page of the report.
Report Header Area: The fields inserted in the Report Header area appear at the top of the first page of the report.
Detail Area: The fields inserted in the Detail area are the line items on the report.
Report Footer Area: The fields inserted in the Report Footer area appear at the bottom of the last page of the report.
Page Footer Area: The fields inserted in the Page Footer area appear on each page. If you click an area, a blue box outlines it.

Download Create and edit Primavera p6 reports guide from this link: Report Writer

Simple yet essential Three tricks to make the Oracle Primavera SDK works in Windows 64
One of the famous problems facing Planning Engineers how to make the Primavera SDK works under windows 64. The SDK is very useful Excel sheet able to communicate with primavera database by importing and exporting data. However, if you working under windows 64 you may not be able to connect SDK. The following are three simple tricks you need to consider in order to achieve successful connection.
1- Install or Reinstall MS Office 32 NOT 64.
2- Install the MS Office in your drive ‘C’ directly NOT under program files etc.
3- When you connect the SDK, use the following username and passwords
Username: privuser
Password: privuser
Note: the username and password or this user are set during the oracle primavera setup. It is different from the Primavera password which we usually set as Prima123Vera

Changing PC name will make you unable to Connect to Primavera Database

Problem

If you are a Primavera user and suddenly you had a problem logging into your projects by seeing a message displaying through Primavera contains “Unable to connect to the database“:

1. How could this problem happen?
   

• Changing your Computer name will prevent Primavera from finding its database.
  

1. Can you fix this problem without formatting your device?
   

• Yes, You can. In the next lines we will explain the solution in steps.
  

Our Solutions:

1. When you are logging in with your user name & password through the following box :
   

   
   

2. You will see this message :
   

   
   

3. If you tried to configure your database
   

   
   
   

   Primavera could message you ” Could not locate the database config library: dbconfig.exe” :
   

   
   
   

4. Try to rename your device as it was exactly before changing it :
   

1. After changing the device name and restarting open Primavera from desktop or start menu :
   

1. Then go to your database configuration again :
   

1. You will see this box then click next :
   

1. When you see this box you will type the Public username and password you used when installing your database at the first time. In most cases pubuser works:
   

   
   
   

   Then Press Next
   

   
   
   

2. The Last Configuration message should be that your connection was successful :
   

   
   

   Then Press Finish.
   

3. Now log in with your regular username and password and you are back on track :
   

Assigning Activities to WBS :

• If you are not familiar with WBS definition you should know that WBS refers to ” Work Breakdown Structure ” that is presented with a hierarchal shape which groups activities into easily manageable components.
  

• The Figure above is for a very simple “WBS” with the minimum number of activities just to explain how can we assign activities to WBS in easy steps.

• To assign activities we have two methods :
  

1. Assign Each Activity to its WBS on Primavera
   
2. Assign Activities using EXCEL.
   

• Using Primavera:
  

1. Create your WBS on Primavera
   

   
   

   1. Create Your Activities using Primavera OR Excel
      

      
      

   2. Select every single activity and start assigning its related WBS
      

      
      

• Using EXCEL:
  

1. After creating your WBS and Activities EXPORT your activities to EXCEL as ( .xls ) File
   

1. Make sure that you select (WBS code) is visible in the exported excel file
   

1. Now you will see the WBS Code Column
   

   
   

2. Make sure that the format of this column is text so Primavera can be able to read it
   

   
   

3. Now start Typing or Copying your WBS code for each activity
   

   
   

4. Import the excel file to primavera and this is the result
   

Activity Steps

Activity Steps is one of primavera feature which not used by a lot of primavera users, you can use it as a very important and useful feature.

It is simply subdivide the activity to steps which can help you to see the progress of this activity by each stop weight and every step progress.

Also it can be used to assign a lot of steps within the same activity instead of create a lot of activities.

Example:

Activity: Reinforced Concrete Work for Slab

Steps: 1- Slab Shuttering

    2- Steel Fixing

    3- Pouring

    4- Curing

    5- Slab De-shuttering

Where you can find Steps?

Activities > Steps
                “As Shown in the photo below ”

How to add steps to any activity?

1. Select your activity
   
2. Form Steps tab
   
3. Click add
   
4. You have to fill step information
   

• Step Name
  
• Step % Complete “It is percentage refers to step competence percentage ”
  
• Step Weight ” It refers to the weight of this step reference to the activity ”
  

  You can put this weight by 2 ways
  

1. Sep Weight : it is a number refers to it is weight
   
2. Step Weight Percent : it is percentage refers to it is weight as a percent
   

• Completed ” Check box refers to if this step completed or Not yet ”
  

  As shown in the photo below “we divided Plain Concrete Activity into 4 steps ”
  

Step         Shuttering          Casting          Curing         De-Shuttering

Percentage      50 %         20%     20%             10%

How to make primavera Calculate the progress according to activity steps complete percentage?

Projects > Calculations > Activity Percent Complete based on activity Steps

You a can watch a tutorial video for Primavera

And more than 50 Primavera Tips and Tricks at our website with the following Link

http://www.planningengineer.net/product/oracle-primavera-top-50-tips-and-tricks-50-downloadable-videos/

We hope you enjoy our journey today

Hope to receive your feedback and recommendations

Thank You…  

Importing from Excel to Primavera:

It is very important for any planning engineer to know how to deal with both Excel & Primavera and any exchanging of data between them.

When Importing from Excel to Primavera we may get a message from primavera saying “The User Preferences used to create this Excel file are not the same as your current preferences. Importing this file could corrupt your data. Please refer to help for more information about importing data from Excel. Are you sure that you want to continue?”

Which will appear when you select the file you want to import, the causes of this message is that:

• The file you are trying to import is not recognized
  by the Primavera, as the Primavera deals with excel files with “.XLS” Format NOT with “.XLSX” Format.
  
• Any Modifications in the “User Data” Sheet in your Excel File.
  

Solution:

Wrong extension of the Excel File:

1. Click on File tab, then Click Import:
   

   
   

2. Choose to import “Spread Sheet”:
   

   
   

3. We want to import this file:
   

   
   

4. As it is a “.XLSX” sheet format, Primavera will give this message:
   

   
   

5. The solution for this case is to change the Extension of the Excel file from “.XLSX” to “.XLS“.
   

This should be enough for solving the error in this case.

“User Data” Modifications:

The Second case if there has been and modification in the “User Data” sheet mostly by mistake.

1. You need to export a new “.XLS” file from Primavera :

2. Open the new Exported File, right click on the “user data” sheet and then select “Move or Copy“:

3. Select the sheet where you want to copy the “User Data” Sheet from “To Book” tab and make sure that the other sheet is opened,then select “move to end”, mark “Create a Copy”, then Click OK.

4. Now Re-import the old file to Primavera, this should work.

One the most common problems planning engineer expose to when importing a Primavera file with “XER Format” are “POBS”.

“POBS” could cause errors while importing or slowdown the importing process. In this topic we will figure out a way that can reduce the importing time to the minimum with keeping all our data safe.

Steps to remove “POBS” from your “XER Format File”:

1. After you export your project to a “XER Format” File, right click on the file and choose to open with “WordPad”.
   

2. Press “Ctrl + F” and look for the line which starts with “%T”, where you will see the word “POBS” next to.
   

3. Select (Highlight) the text starting from this row till you find the next “%T” in the document.
   

4. Delete this content “Press Delete from you Keyboard”, and be careful, DELETE ONLY THESE LINES, any other deleted rows will damage your file and it will not be able to open, you can make a copy as a trial.
   

5. When you close the document a message will appear if you want to save changes you did, Click on “Save”.
   

6. Here you will see the difference in the file size as it changed from A to B.
   

7. Now you can import your file with the minimum time required.