How do you schedule the crews?

[grumpydasmurf]

This is more a question for Subs than it is for GC's.

How do you guys schedule your crews?

At my last job we used a dry erase board that was marked up like the calendar and used different colors for each crew. We would put the owners name on the board on the days they were expected to be done.

[Rich]

On some of our big jobs where we have 3 or 4 different carpentry crews we'll do the much the same thing that you just described grumpy. Dry erase board with the area and lead man for that area. We would then estimate how long that crew would be there to where we could get them to go to another part. I've also used Microsoft Project and Suretrak to do much the same thing. Where we ran it out for 3 weeks for each crew. Then it would give them some time to look ahead to see what materials they would need to purchase before getting there. With MS Suretrak we setup different WBS (work breakdown structure) for each crew so we could have different line types.

[Rich]

Here's an example - Suretrak is very similar.

[Dragon]

I usually say "Hey you! Go do 'whatever'!"

[Cole]

Rich, Is Suretrak worth $500? I want your opinion on the software, maybe a little write up on it. Thanks.

[Rich]

I personally think it is worth it but we use it for everything.. 3 week schedules, crew scheduling, fragnets for change orders, etc. It has most of the functionality of primavera except for maybe the network stuff. You can do "what-if" scenarios - what-if we start this activity 4 days after that activity instead of when it gets done?
It can interchange information with Primavera or Microsoft Project - good if somebody else uses those programs.
Essentially it's a sixth of the cost of P3 with much of the same functionality.

[Rich]

I should add - for somebody such as yourself who is big big on scheduling - it would be very useful.

[Cole]

Ok, great. Im going to get it.

[Rich]

haha.. research the product first. There is a trial you can download...
let's see here...
http://www.primavera.com/solutions/ec_suretrak.html
about midway down the page.

[Cole]

I saw that earlier but for some reason I can't sign up as a new member. It says I havent put in my email which i have done so I sent a email to the webmaster seeing if he can fix it.

[Cole]

Rich, the webmaster emailed me back and I did a run of the trial version, I love it. So I ordered it and it will be in the mail soon.

[Rich]

Right on.. let me know what you think when you get into it further.