Project Planning & Control

Project Planning & Control 1. Definition of Project Planning Dimyati (in Mahapatni, S. P., 2019, p. 32) Planning is a stage in project management that tries to lay the foundation for goals and objectives, while preparing all technical and administrative programs to be implemented. Planning is a very important activity in project management, because planning is the basis for activities to monitor and control the project. With good planning, the goals of a project will be achieved. According to Santosa (in Mahapatni, S. P., 2019, p. 32), the scope of work during the project planning and control process is divided into. a. Before the project starts. A planning process is prepared to determine the project objectives, tasks to be carried out, schedules and budgets. b. During the project. The plan that has been made is compared with the actual performance, time and costs. c. If there is a difference between what is planned and what will actually happen, corrective action needs to be taken and cost and time estimates can be updated. 2. Stages of Project Planning Mahapatni, S. P. (2019, p. 34), states the stages of project planning as follows. a. Cost Estimation Cost estimation is an important element in managing overall project costs, because it has a very broad function in planning and controlling resources such as: materials, labor, time, and others. Estimation aims to estimate the amount of costs incurred to carry out an activity in the future, therefore it needs to be done as accurately as possible. Costs themselves can be categorized into two types, namely direct costs and indirect costs. Direct costs are cost elements that are directly related to the volume of work listed in the payment item or become permanent components of the final project results. Direct cost components consist of labor costs, equipment operations, and materials. Indirect costs are cost elements that are not directly related to the volume of physical components of the final project results, but have a contribution to the completion of activities or projects. Included in the indirect cost category are, among others. 1) Project costs, such as tax costs, field accommodation costs (electricity, clean water, drinking water, etc.), insurance costs (risk insurance and loss insurance), and others. 2) General conditions, such as head office expenses such as office rent, telephone, etc., and documentation costs. There are several factors that affect cost estimation, such as the following. 1) Labor productivity. The greater the productivity, the faster the work is completed. This is related to the amount of wages paid, but also requires a deeper analysis because with greater productivity, the unit price of labor wages is also more expensive. 2) Availability of materials. The rarer the material on the market, the more expensive the price offered. 3) Financial Market. The exchange rate will affect the labor price index, as well as other project resources. b. Time Planning Time planning is determining the project schedule, the duration of the project for each work item from the start of the project to the end of the project. Project scheduling also aims to facilitate control, and control aims to avoid project delays. In project management, time management is contained in the preparation of time planning (time schedule). The first thing developed in time schedule planning is Gantt Charts. What is considered in Gantt Charts is the relationship between activities and their processing time. Gant Charts are made after the preparation of the work schedule division or Work Breakdown Structure. The following is an example of a Gantt Chart. 3. Definition of Project Control Control is needed to maintain conformity between planning and implementation. According to Dimyati (in Mahapatni, S. P., 2019, p. 78) control is looking back, determining what actually happened, and comparing it with previously planned results. There are certain processes that need to be carried out to carry out control in project management, as follows. a) Worker Orientation A job will come from top management. To get to the lower level so that it can be implemented, authorization is needed, namely granting authority to the lower management level to the work team to carry out the work that is their responsibility as stated in the plan, schedule and budget. If the authority has been given, a project manager or functional manager, or supervisor can start using project funds to purchase materials or pay for labor. b) Data Collection Work orders and related cost accounts are an important part of the control process. The progress of the work and its costs for each work package are periodically entered into the PCAS to then be summarized and calculated for the entire work package and department. From here, you will get a summary of information about costs for a particular department up to a certain point in time, or costs for a particular set of work packages. 4. Project Control Function Evrianto (in Mahapatni, S. P., 2019, p. 81), states that control has two functions, as follows. a. Monitoring Function. With good monitoring, all elements in project activities will work well. b. Managerial Function. In complex and change-prone projects (dynamic), the use of good control and information systems will make it easier for managers to immediately find out which parts of the work are experiencing irregularities or have poor performance. Thus, efforts can be made immediately to overcome or minimize these irregularities. 5. Stages of Project Control According to Santosa (in Mahapatni, S. P., 2019, p. 83), in general there are three main stages in the control process, as follows: a. Determining the performance standards of something to be controlled. These standards can be in the form of technical specifications, budgeted costs, schedules, and resource requirements. b. Comparing actual performance and standard performance of work results and expenses. c. Taking corrective action if actual performance deviates significantly from that planned. 6. Project Control Methods a. Project Control with the Crashing Method The faster an activity is completed, the other activities can be completed faster than the specified time so that overall the completion of the construction project does not experience delays. To return the level of project progress to the original plan, an effort is needed to accelerate the duration of the project even though it will be followed by an increase in project costs. One way to accelerate the duration of the project in foreign terms is crashing. Crashing is a deliberate, systematic, and analytical process by testing all activities in a project that are focused on activities that are on the critical path. The crashing process is a way of estimating cost variables in determining the maximum and most economical reduction in duration of an activity that is still possible to reduce. b. Time and Labor Control with Resource Leveling Method In the implementation of a project, there are often situations where a project absorbs too many resources (labor) and at other times requires too few resources so that the use of resources is uneven. For this reason, leveling must be carried out so that no resources are left (especially labor) after a certain time is needed. This resource leveling is often referred to as resource leveling. Resource Leveling is an activity to minimize fluctuations in the use of human resources in all project activities. Because resource leveling is a valid scheduling technique that can be used in construction projects, this technique is an efficient technique in planning labor. The principle is to shift noncritical activities within the available grace period.