Schedules: Activities
Activity durations are dependent on the speed at which resources can execute activities. This is applicable for a wide variety of activities, like installation of equipment, performing consulting work, hauling material with earth moving vehicles and painting of structures. This speed at which an activity is executed is called the production rate.
PRODUCTIVITY FACTOR
To cater for real world situations, a third element is sometimes added to the problem – productivity factor. A productivity factor will be necessary if factors like workforce morale, workforce competency or any other non labour factor is taken into account. The productivity factor is determined from past project data and from personal experience of project management staff, and it will have a value of between one (1) and zero (0). A value of one is optimum productivity, while with values lower than one, activities get less productive. In practice, very low productivity factors indicate a possible breakdown in work supervision and/or workforce motivation, and duration estimates will be inaccurate due to the instability of the work factors. The formula below can be used to calculate durations when a productivity factor is specified. If it is not specified, it can be assumed to have a value of one (1).
{..}
INCLUDED IN THIS CHAPTER: Activities, Requirements for activity descriptions, Activities in software packages, Activities durations, Production rates, Generic duration estimation methods, Using extrapolation or interpolation to estimate durations, Tabulated duration estimates, The effect of unforeseen events on activity durations, Activity duration accuracy, Activity relationships & Activity weighting.