A workshop cum Training on Construction Project Management (CPM) and Building Information Modelling (BIM)was conducted by Civil Simplified (Skyfi Labs) - Hyderabad from February 27, 2017 to March 2, 2017 at Dronacharya Group of Institution, Greater Noida. The workshop was coordinated by Mr. Gyanendra Kumar - Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering and attended by 18 Students of 4th Year Civil Engineering.

While inaugurating the workshop Prof. D. V. Bhise - HOD highlighted the importance of project management in a construction project and its implementation in planning and organising the resources for efficient and effective working of the project.

Day 1:  27th February 2017

Mr. Vivek Singh, Trainer - Civil Simplified,presented a demonstration of Primavera6, a computer-aided building construction planning software program used to create blueprints for buildings, bridges and outline project. He said that Primavera6 became the most widely used CAD program in the world because of its robust set of automated planning tools and features.
Mr. Singh started with introduction to mastering Primavera6 and the pre-qualification needed for it. He then introduced students to quick and easy overview of managing projects with the help of Primavera6. He explained how to create a new project and establish the basic constraints that project will use for its calculations. During the day students learnt about:

1. Use of multiple methods to create a new project, including opening an Excel file and a SharePoint Tasks list.
2. Establish one or more calendars to constrain resource availability.
3. Configure Project to calculate the schedule from the Start Date forward, or from the Finish Date backward.
4. Adding Holidays to the company calendar.
5. Making a custom calendar.
6. Setting the Project Start date.
7. Setting of the constraints.

Day 2:  28th February 2017

Mr. Vivek Singh explained how to manually schedule project tasks and how to leverage the auto schedule and create a useful work breakdown structure and enter it into project. Students learnt the details of Project Schedule and Work Breakdown Structure i.e.

1. Describe which project functions are turned off for tasks using Manually Schedule mode.
2. Change the task mode from Manually Schedule to Auto Schedule and back.
3. Identify tasks that are in Manually Schedule mode by the task mode column and shape on the Gantt chart.
4. Describe situations that are particularly appropriate for using Manually Schedule.
5. Describe the limitations that a user must be aware of when using Manually Schedule mode.
6. Students practice switching tasks between Manually Schedule and Auto Schedule modes and identify the impact that makes on the project schedule and the individual tasks.
7. Build and use summary and subordinate tasks, Understand and use milestones, Develop WBS Outlines and Assign completion criteria

Day 3:  1st March 2017

Mr. Vivek Singh discussed the visual presentation of the planning and design of a building for the satisfaction of a client which is performed by introducing a new software of BIM (Building Information Modeling) i.e. ArchiCAD. He encouraged the students to get into the shoes of a Construction Manager and a BIM Engineer and develop necessary skills needed for efficient project management. Students learnt the following:

1. What BIM is all about and how to interpret it
2. How to Mass model a structure using Morph Tool
3. Follow a project timeline from initial phase till completion
4. Generate BIM models and develop an efficient project
5. Experience a live construction project case study

Day 4:  2nd March 2017

On the final day Mr. Vivek Singh discussed rules for establishing dependency link between tasks and presented the features to use project to establish and display these dependencies, how to enter resources and specific resource information in Primavera6 and assign resources to specific tasks. Students get to know about the following in detail:

1. Mass Modeling with Morph tool

2. Creating various structural elements with preloaded data

3. Generate 3D documents from Floor Plans

4. Interactive Scheduling and Visualization

5. Refining Surfaces and Publishing

6. Sequencing activities effectively using PDM relationships

7. Tracking Project Progress with Baseline

8. Risk identification and Management

9. Generate Analytical and Graphical reports

10. Case studies on Industrial projects

The workshop cum training session was a new experience and a good learning opportunity for the students as well as for the faculties.