LEOPARD PROJECT CONTROLS
quality control
Melanie Calverley is an experienced professional with several years of knowledge and practice in Project Management as a Program Cost and Schedule Control Analyst on multi-million/multi-billion dollar projects, Project Controls, Strategic Planning, Engineering Planning, Earned Value Management (EVM), and Earned Value Management System (EVMS) implementation, Configuration Management, and writing/editing. She commands full utilization of Primavera P6 software, MS Project, and MS Project Server. Her career background includes industry experience in oil and gas, energy, aerospace/defense, IT, litigation, and media.
Calverley has extensive experience in the planning and scheduling arena since 1999, as well as extensive experience in the aerospace and oil and gas industries combined. Calverley has worked for the large and high-visibility players in the aerospace industry - Boeing and Lockheed Martin, as well as the large companies in the O&G industry, such as Schlumberger, GE Energy, and Chevron. She supported NASA directly and a host of smaller sub-contractors over the years before exploring the O&G and IT industries. Calverley understands the strict, organized flow of the aerospace industry's horizontal and vertical logic integration, the criticality of resource loading, and the reporting functions that support Earned Value Management (EVM). She has also participated in various audits such as DCMA audits, JSRs, ISRs, and CAM reviews. In 2013, Calverley was responsible for implementing a full EVMS in Primavera for Cameron International's (now Schlumberger) Process Systems Division across the globe. The system was fully tested and successfully implemented and run in the United States, Brazil, the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Middle East.
Calverley owns her own business, Calverley Consulting, LLC, which has been operational since 2017. Calverley is also a solid writer, editor, and process flow documentation expert. She possesses a full command of the proper English language, and she is also a published book author. Calverley developed and championed multiple process flows and written documentation via policies and procedures for various well-known companies.
Focus on Schedule Lag in Primavera P6
Introduction to Primavera P6 Schedule Lag When scheduling and planning to utilize scheduling best practices, one of the subjects that the project team will try to avoid is the subject regarding schedule lag. Positive schedule lag should be used sparingly, and although the Defense Contract Management Association (DCMA) allows limited positive lags in the project schedule, no more than five percent of these positive lags should exist. DCMA provides contract administration services for the Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal organizations and international partners. The organization is a key part of the acquisition process from pre-award contracts throughout [...]
Primavera P6 Top-Down Estimation Process
Introduction to Primavera P6 Top-Down Estimation Primavera P6 contains a unique feature that allows the user to break down budgets into dispersed components by WBS and tasks throughout the project schedule. Projects will be allocated for a specific budget, and with this assigned cost, the Primavera P6 user will need to distribute the costs throughout the project schedule to specific tasks. Primavera P6’s top-down estimation feature helps the user quickly assign the budget for labor and non-labor based on weights per WBS and task. This article addresses how to use the Primavera P6 top-down estimation feature, which can be [...]
Primavera P6 Visual Appeal and Formatting
Primavera P6 offers an array of visual features and formatting for its project schedules. Users can benefit from changing bar labels to highlight areas in the Gantt to enhance the analysis of the project data and timeline. This article addresses several of the useful and popular visual features that you can utilize in your Primavera P6 schedules. How to Show Text Bar Labels in the Gantt Sometimes a client wants to see the taskbar labels or text descriptions in the Gantt chart portion of the schedule. The snapshot below shows a Primavera P6 schedule without bar labels: To show [...]
Suspending Project Work in Primavera P6
The Suspend Work Conundrum When Managing Projects In a perfect world, projects are executed on time and budget (or even ahead of schedule and below cost) and have a continual run until the end goal of the project is completed and closed out. Project managers and other project team professionals know that situations may dictate otherwise when executing a project schedule. A specific activity or group of activities may be temporarily suspended, or even the project itself may experience a suspension in operations due to an unforeseen circumstance. The suspension cause can vary as much as the type of [...]
Using and Managing Primavera P6 Notebook Topics
Introduction to Primavera P6 Notebook Topics Primavera P6 users can take advantage of tracking their project concerns with its ability to store and communicate project notebook topics. Situations and points that need to be documented often arise during the execution of a project. Being able to conveniently document, store, and communicate these concerns to the project team can be valuable throughout the lifecycle of the project. Primavera P6 notebook topics also provide a means to compare data to future execution projects, since without proper documentation, many concerns would get lost in the daily project activity. This article is comprehensive [...]
What do Construction Managers do?
By: Dominic In this article, I am going to share with you my personal experience as a Construction Manager in a small construction management firm here in the Philippines. By the way, I am working here for 2 years now as an Assistant Construction Manager and our company is handling high-rise construction projects from foundation to finish. I'll try to explain the construction manager's responsibilities as well. Construction Project Manager Consultant Services Project management plays a big role in construction projects like this. Currently, our project is a 32-story warehouse building that has deep foundations called bored piles. Bored [...]