What is in this brief

Ten sections. Read the brief once from start to finish, then work with the dashboard open beside P6.

The project

A four-pad commercial foundation package. Four sectors, the same five trades on each, and one concrete crew that moves from pad to pad.

Metro Plaza is a commercial development whose building sits on four large pad foundations arranged around a central plaza. The foundation package covers the North, South, East and West pads. Each pad is cleared and graded, excavated to formation, shuttered with timber formwork, reinforced with fixed steel, then poured with ready-mix concrete and cured.

Activities within a pad run in sequence. The four concrete pours are chained so that one concrete crew, one truck and the pump move from North to South to East to West. That chain is the critical path of the job: the whole North sector, then each pour in turn.

Plate 1 · The site at golden hour

Four pads around the plaza. Formwork and steel in the near pads, excavation still open on the far side. The sequence you will plan runs clockwise from the top.

Calendar and settings

Set these before you add a single activity. Most reconciliation problems trace back to a calendar or a default that was left alone.

Work breakdown and activities

Five WBS nodes, twenty activities and two milestones. The durations are given; the dates are yours to schedule.

Work breakdown structureTable 4.1

Activities, logic and resource assignmentsTable 4.2

Table 4.2 continues on the next page.

Activities, logic and resource assignments, continuedTable 4.2

Resource dictionary

Twelve resources in three types. The type decides how P6 turns units into money.

How each type is costed

• Labour and nonlabour (hours): budgeted units = units per day × number in the gang × duration. Cost = units × price per hour. Site Preparation, North: 2 × 48 h/d × 3 d × £28 = £8,064.
• Material (quantity): enter the budgeted units straight from Section 06 and let P6 spread them over the activity. Rebar Installation, North: 8.5 t × £850 = £7,225, plus the fixing gang.
• Limits: enter the limit per day on the Units and Prices tab. R004 Carpenters is limited to 128 h a day (two gangs of eight). The baseline asks for 256 h on 10/07 and 11/07. Find that in the Resource Usage Profile before you save the baseline, and say in your report what you would do about it.

Material quantities

The budgeted units for the three material resources. They drive the formwork, rebar and concrete pour costs.

Plate 2 · Formwork

Carpenters and formwork ply. Four pads that all want the gang in the same week.

Plate 3 · Reinforcement

Steel fixers on the North pad. West fixes the most steel on the job with the smaller gang.

Week 1 site report

Progress to close of play on Wednesday 09/07/2025. New data date Thursday 10/07/2025 09:00.

Week 2 site report

Progress to close of play on Wednesday 16/07/2025. New data date Thursday 17/07/2025 09:00.

Deliverables and submission

One workbook, one XER and one page of narrative. Submit through the class dashboard.

How to work

• Build the baseline from Sections 03 to 06. Reconcile the budget to £371,621 before you save BL1.
• Assign BL1 as the project baseline and the primary baseline.
• In P6, build the 18-column layout listed on sheet 07 of the answer workbook, copy the Activity Table and paste it into that sheet. The baseline sheet fills itself; sheet 11 is yours to fill with VLOOKUPs.
• Apply Week 1 from Section 07, schedule, and read the position. Then Week 2 from Section 08.
• Check every proof number against the dashboard. Where yours differs, find the reason before you move on: that is the learning.

Marking

Four equally weighted parts. The narrative carries as much weight as the numbers.