Putting your schedule in Time Location format lets you see it in a whole new way. You can see how all the elements of a schedule interact with each other instantly just by looking at it.
This lets you make powerful schedule optimizations that would be almost impossible using only a traditional Gantt Chart. Things like spotting errors, preventing clashes, understanding changes in production rates, and identifying other problems with the schedule.
Watch the video below for a visual demonstration of how to do these optimizations. Or scroll down if you prefer to read.
Sequence of Work
Once you start presenting where activities are occurring, you can also understand the sequence of the work.
Here we have one particular crew and we can very easily understand their starting point, the direction and areas they’re moving, and the time frame they’re working in.
Production Rates
We can also understand production rates, which are shown by the angle of a line.
When we see changes in angles we can ask “why is the production rate changing, why are they working faster or slower in any particular area?”.
It’s difficult to see that type of information on a traditional Gantt chart.
Non-Work Periods
You can also pick up periods where there is non-work occurring. Christmas breaks or seasonal holidays are all shown, providing you that context on 1 single page.
Overlaps and Clashes
It’s also easy to spot potential errors in your schedule when you have information about WHERE AND WHEN all tasks are occurring. You can ask things like “these two things are happening at the same time at the same place, is that physically possible?” You may not have spotted that on the Gantt chart because they are hundreds of lines and many pages apart from one another.
It also becomes much more obvious where you have clashes and mistakes in the schedule.
Resources Analysis
It’s very easy to do a quick resources analysis because if you look across the page across any time scale and count how many of a particular task is occurring you can say well “we have 5 crews being represented by those green lines”.
The real benefit compared to a traditional resource histogram is that not only can you see how many of a particular resource you have, you can also see WHERE those resources are.
Isn’t it amazing? When you present your schedule in Time Location Chart format, you can see 1000s of tasks elegantly displayed on one page, including location data. This allows you to see the schedule in a whole new way, see new types of information, and make improvements.
Get the Full Video Course On Time Location Charts
If you want to optimize your schedule using Time Location Charts, We’ve created a 30-minute video course that covers everything you need to know about Time Location Charts, including:
- What are Time Location Charts
- Why they are the best way to communicate a project schedule
- Who can benefit from Time Location Charts
- How to read Time Location Charts
- How to optimize a schedule using a Time Location Chart
- The best (and worst) ways to generate Time Location Charts
- A 90-second demo of how to create a Time Location Chart with Turbo-Chart
- Tips on getting your team on board with using Time Location Charts
If you find it helpful, feel free to share it and send it along to anyone that can benefit. And, contact me with any questions about Time Location Charts and Turbo-Chart!
