Control Level Schedule — Companion Article

What this tool does

The Control Level Schedule is the piping lead’s working plan for activities and people. It takes the approved labour-hour estimate and spreads those hours across the project calendar, against the piping activities and against the project and client milestones.

It is the schedule step in the control sequence. Scope has said what is included. The estimate has said how many hours that work needs. This page says when the work happens, and it keeps room for progress and for change hours so the plan stays current.

When to use it

Use it when two things are in hand: a labour-hour estimate that is complete enough to approve, and the project and client milestones the piping work has to meet. Build it before you start reporting progress. Progress is measured against this plan.

Keep it open through the job. Each week you are looking at planned hours, work still to do, and any change hours that have been approved or are still waiting.

Inputs

Bring:

• The approved piping labour-hour estimate, by activity.
• The project and client milestones the piping work must meet. Typical kinds of milestone are kick-off, P&ID reviews, vendor drawing dates, model reviews, fabrication-shop selection, isometric issue, construction work package dates, tie-ins, and shutdowns. Use the milestones this project actually has.
• The project calendar, including the weeks you will plan across.
• A duration, a line count, and your own historical piping hours per line, if you want a first staffing sketch. Those three inform how many people the curve might need. They do not replace the estimate.
• As the job runs: physical percent complete, approved change hours, and change hours that are not yet approved but may still be required.

How it works

Assemble the schedule in this order.

• Take each activity from the approved estimate, with its hours. Do not invent activities the estimate does not have, and do not drop activities that carry hours.
• Place those hours on the calendar in the weeks the work will actually be done, lined up with the milestones. A model-review milestone should fall where the model hours are planned, not in an empty week.
• Keep approved change hours in their own column, separate from the original planned hours. Hours for a change that was rejected, or not yet approved, but is still required, stay in their own column too.
• Update the forecast of hours still to go from that split. Original work remaining, plus approved change still to do, is the forecast to complete.
• Record physical percent complete against the same activities, so progress and the schedule are talking about the same work.

A staffing sketch, if you use one, starts from how long the job runs, how many lines are in the scope, and how many piping hours per line your own finished jobs actually took. It is a check on whether the weekly hours look staffable. It is not a second estimate.

Understanding the result

Read the schedule as planned hours by week, by activity, against the milestones. You should be able to see what the piping team is supposed to be doing this month, which milestone that work supports, and how much of the approved hours are still ahead.

Approved change hours and unapproved-but-still-required hours sit beside the original plan so a review can tell them apart. The forecast to complete is the forward view after that split. Physical percent complete tells you how far the work itself has got, which is not the same thing as how many hours have been booked.

Engineering considerations

Match the schedule to the scope and the estimate. Every hour on the schedule needs an activity the scope includes and the estimate has priced in hours. A milestone with no work planned against it, or a block of hours with no milestone they serve, is a plan that will be hard to explain.

Calibrate the staffing sketch with your own history. Hours per line from a finished job of a different type will draw the wrong curve.

Do not hide change inside the original weekly hours. The lead’s control of the job depends on seeing original work, approved change, and work that is still only a trend.

The piping lead runs this schedule. It supports the project manager’s dates. It does not replace the client’s master schedule or your company’s planning procedure.

Example

Illustrative example. Figures are not benchmarks.

An approved estimate has 500 piping hours: 100 plot and layout, 200 model, 150 isometrics, 50 material take-off. The job has a kick-off, a model review in week 8, and an isometric issue in week 14.

For this illustration, plot hours sit in weeks 1 to 4, model hours in weeks 3 to 8 so they finish at the model review, and isometric hours in weeks 9 to 14 so they finish at the issue date. The material take-off runs with the isometrics.

A client then approves 80 hours of extra tie-in isometrics. Those 80 hours are added in the isometric weeks as approved change, not by quietly inflating the original 150. The forecast to complete for isometrics becomes the original hours still to go plus the 80. A separate 40-hour model trend that is not approved stays in the unapproved column.

Standards and references

Based on the project-controls methodology of James O. Pennock, Piping Engineering Leadership for Process Plant Projects, and on the control-level schedule practice in that method. It is a practical tool for a piping engineering lead. It is not an ASME or API code, and it is not a substitute for your contract or your company planning procedure.

Limitations and disclaimer

This tool spreads an approved labour-hour estimate across a project calendar. It does not set a universal hours-per-line rate, and it does not replace your company’s approved planning procedure or the client’s master schedule. Dates and hours are for this project, and they need the judgement of the piping lead. The page does not approve a change by itself.

Use the tool

Calculate now: Control Level Schedule

How this calculation works: Control Level Schedule

Related tools

• Scope of Work names the work every scheduled activity has to belong to.
• Piping Man-Hour Estimator supplies the approved hours this schedule places in time.
• Piping Estimate Summary is the consolidated view of those hours.
• Physical Progress Calculator records how complete each scheduled activity is.
• Design Change Notice is the source of the approved and unapproved change hours.
• Historical Data Log holds the finished-project hours per line used in a staffing sketch.