In this article, we are going to clarify how we can calculate the Engineering Progress.
To calculate the Engineering Progress in a project, we use the weight to calculate the progress.
First, a weight percentage for the engineering is agreed on with the consultant/client as well as for the procurement, construction, and close-out.
Based on this percentage, the non-labor units are distributed among the different trades.
Let’s take the below screenshot as an example, the Engineering was assigned to be 5% of the project weight which is equivalent to 1,740 non-labor units out of the 34,808 non-labor units of the whole project.
N.B: Non-labor units of a project can be 100 or 1,000 or even 100,000, it does not matter. The distribution of these units is the only thing that matters.
The next step is assigning the weight to every Engineering activity. If we have 100 Shop Drawings, so we have 100 shop drawings submittal activities and 100 shop drawings approval activities. Divide the 1,740 units among the 200 activities, this gives us 8.7 budgeted non-labor units for every activity.
In the Resource Assignment, right-click on any column heading, then choose “Columns”, then “Customize” and make sure that the “Budgeted Units” column is selected.
In the bar chart area, make sure that the displayed units are budgeted units by right-clicking on any point in the display area. From “Spreadsheet Fields”, choose “Budgeted Units”.
Before copying our activities to Excel, we have a last step to take. This step is determining the timescale of the project. This depends on the minimal periodic reports that we want to review, do we want to have daily reports? or weekly?
In this article, we will be working on the weekly report. So, right-click on any point in the display area and choose “Timescale”. In the “Timescale” window, choose “Month/week” option from “Date Interval” dropdown box. In case you are working on a monthly report, you will “Quarter/Month” from “Date Interval”.
Now, choose the WBS levels that you want to show, click on the first WBS row then move down to the last WBS row (Without clicking on it), click “Shift”, then click on the last WBS row then “Ctrl+C”.
In this screenshot, we want to show the overall progress of the following WBS: Preliminaries, Surveys and Mapping, Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Testing and commissioning, and Project Closeout without any further details. So, we collapsed the WBS level to level 2 which includes these WBS. Let’s move on to Excel.
Excel
1. Press “Ctrl+V” to paste the data you copied from Primavera P6.
In the blue box, you can see the WBS of the project as you chose with the corresponding overall budgeted non-labor units of each WBS. On the other hand, the red box includes the distribution of these budgeted non-labor units over the weeks (the time interval that we chose).
Note that row 5 includes the engineering budgeted non-labor units of the project in the blue box and the budgeted non-labor units per week in the red box. This note is essential for the next step.
2. Below the copied data, we will create 2 rows which are: “Weekly Engineering Planned Weight” and “Weekly Engineering Planned %”. The “weekly engineering planned weight” will be equal to the cell in row 5 of the same column, e.g.: the “Weekly Planned Weight” of the week ending on 3-July-22 that lies in column “F” will be equal to F5.
The “Weekly Engineering Planned %” will be equal to the “Weekly Engineering Planned Weight” divided by the overall engineering budgeted non-labor units (Cell D5).
Let’s transform it into an equation, “Weekly Engineering Planned %” = F11/$D$5 as shown below.
3. Now, we have the weekly engineering planned percentage for every week in the project. However, we need to calculate the cumulated weekly engineering planned percentage to obtain the “Schedule % Complete for Engineering” for any date we choose.
Below the “Weekly Engineering Planned Weight” and “Weekly Engineering Planned %”, create another two rows named “Cumm. Engineering Planned Weight” and “Cumm. Engineering Planned%”. As the equations are already set in the “Weekly Engineering Planned Weight” and “Weekly Engineering Planned %”, all we must do is sum up the numbers. For the “Cumm. Engineering Planned Weight”, the result will be equal to the weekly planned weight plus the cumulative planned weight of the previous week.
In the below screenshot, the cumulative planned weight of the week ending on 10-Jul-22 is equal to the weekly planned weight of the week ending on 10-Jul-22 plus the cumulative planned weight of the week ending on 3-Jul-22.
For the “Cumulated Engineering Planned %”, do the same process that we did for “Cumulative Engineering Planned Weight” but using the “Weekly Engineering Planned %” and “Cumm. Engineering Planned %”.
4. Finally, we can use a simple HLOOKUP function to get any data we want based on the data date. The HLOOKUP function works as follows, First, you pick the cell that includes the value that you aim to look for (in our article, it is the data date). Second, choose the range of data that Excel will look within it (For us, the range is from row 10 to row 15). Then, you have to choose the row number that Excel will get its result from when it finds the value you are looking for, as below, we want the “Cumm. Engineering Planned %” which lies in the 5th row in our range. Finally, Excel will ask you if you want an approximate result or not, choose “False” if you want an exact result.
Now, let’s move on to calculating the actual % completed using weight.
Primavera
As we did in the planned %, from “Resource Assignments”, edit “Columns” and switch the “Budgeted Units” column with “Actual Units”.
Now, choose the exact WBS you chose before while copying the planned non-labor units, select the first row, then move down to the last row, press “Shift” and select the last row. Press “Ctrl+C” and now it is time to paste it into Excel.
Excel
In Excel, we create 2 sheets, the first one is named “From P6”. In this sheet, we paste the actual units that we copied above.
The second sheet is called “Actual Data”, This sheet consists of two parts as shown below, red, and blue part.
In the red box, you will find the budgeted units of the project as in the “Planned Data” sheet. In the blue box, you will find the actual units per week. But how can we calculate the actual units per week?
To calculate the actual units per week, we must follow a certain concept. Every week, the actual units increase as the project moves forward. So, if we subtract the total actual units as per last week from the total actual units as per this week, we will get the actual units for this week only.
In the screenshot below, we aim to calculate the actual units for the week of 2 July 2023, we must subtract the summation of actual units in the previous weeks from the actual units we copied from Primavera (in the “From P6” sheet).
Below, you will find that the actual units of the whole project for the week ending on 2 Jul 2023 are equal to the actual units of the whole project (Cell D2 in the sheet named “From P6”) minus the sum of all actual units before this week.
Once done, drag this equation to the end of the WBS to apply this equation to all your WBS levels.
Note: When updating the following week, copy the actual units of the last week and paste it “123” to save the data in the cells, then apply the same equation to get the actual units of the following week.
Now, you are all set to create the “Weekly actual units”, “Weekly actual %”, “Cumulative actual units” and “Cumulative actual %” as we did in the planned non-labor units section.
To know more about how to create the weight resource and how to calculate the progress of a project using weight, you can check the how to calculate planned and actual progress using weight.
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