Time-to-market, increased productivity, lower costs – today’s businesses are competing aggressively on time, cost and quality. Products need to meet the current needs of customers with the best quality, while being produced at the right cost and in the fastest possible time. Whether it is a manufacturing organisation or a service organisation, companies seek to achieve competitive advantage through different kinds of management philosophies such as Just In Time (JIT) Manufacturing, Total Quality Management (TQM) and Theory of Constraints (TOC) ¹ to name some.

In a typical project meeting, questions like "Why is this not done? It is already two weeks behind schedule!" or "I am expecting this task to be completed yesterday." are often asked. Project meetings like these are common because they are based on a typical task-oriented scheduling and planning.

Defining the Project Constraints
Why not manage your projects via constraints? A constraint is "anything that limits a system from achieving higher performance versus its goal" ² . By identifying constraints or bottlenecks, and then either exploiting or eliminating them, the throughput of the system can be increased. By working on the constraints, commitments to project schedule are determined at project level with realistic estimates and expectations being communicated. By focusing on the constraints rather than just the start time of an activity, the project duration can be met, if not reduced.

How does one get hold of such a tool? The Integrated Project Scheduler (iPS) is a tool that enables projects to be delivered on time, minimise uncertainties, manage resources and protect profits. iPS was developed under the Collaborative Engineering Programme (CEP) ³ initiated by the Infocomm Development Authority in collaboration with the National University of Singapore, STE Info-Software and Sun Microsystems.

Using the Integrated Project Scheduler
At the moment, feedback from companies in the engineering construction industry has been positive. Companies employing these techniques have their Percent-Plan Completion (PPC) of projects increased, raising productivity by as much as 30%.

Figure 1. A screenshot of iPS (Courtesy of STE Info-Software Systems)

The iPS is an innovative tool to manage projects with a differing mindset and has a forward looking plan to ensure activities can be accomplished through the removal of constraints. iPS uses the concept of a six-week look-ahead planning cycle and buffers, where the constraints affecting tasks are scrutinised in a screening buffer and only tasks that are really doable are moved eventually to a working buffer.

For more information on the Integrated Project Scheduler, visit www.collabplan.com.

Figure 2. Look-Ahead Planning Using Buffers (Courtesy of STE Info-Software Systems)

Collaboration in planning and scheduling involves multi-parties. Beyond a standalone version, the future of iPS lies in using the Internet and P2P technologies to provide multi-party collaboration in a single project environment and as well as multi-project environments.

References:

• ¹ Theory of Constraints
• ² Goldratt, E.M. (1988), "Computerized shop floor scheduling", International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 443-55.
• ³ Collaborative Engineering Programme

Contributed by Mr Ronnie Lee, Senior Executive Manager, Technology and Planning Group, IDA.