Schedule Cracker Overview

Schedule Cracker Overview

Schedule Cracker deeply analyzes and assesses CPM schedules, detects scheduling anomalies, compares schedules for changes, identifies project trends, and presents results in a simplified and accessible format. Schedule Cracker generates over 200 project management critical metrics and is very easy to install, requiring no third party or scheduling software to be installed on the analysis workstation. Features can be summarized as follows:

  • Schedule Analysis and Assessment
  • Compliance with standard assessment requirements
  • Schedule Comparison
  • Schedule Trend Analysis
  • Earned Value Analysis
  • Schedule Viewer
  • Advanced Reporting

1. Schedule Analysis and Assessment

  • Uncover deep schedule insights. Through swift and comprehensive calculations.
  • Overview Activities with alarming conditions. Through pre-prepared filters.
  • Analyze Cost Related Metrics. By applying EVM calculations on the Cost related schedule data.
  • Identify Activities that can contribute to Project Delay. By identifying activities that can delay the project or can be delayed due to dependency on other activities.
  • Schedule Analysis Observations. Identify results needing user inspection to confirm whether acceptable or not.
  • Schedule Analysis Concerns. Identify results needing immediate user attention as it may indicate errors or severe issues in the schedule.
  • Identify and Rank Activities with Anomalies. By applying a patent pending technique to assign a severity score to activities based on the number and seriousness of business rules that it violated.
  • Schedule Dashboard. Allowing visualization of the schedule’s analysis results

2. Compliance with standard assessment requirements

  • Quickly Assesses Schedules using DCMA 14 Point Assessment to find areas where best practices as directed by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) aren't being followed, potential performance problems, and other issues that bear further investigation. It provides accurate and repeatable results in a fraction of the time it would require to calculate the same answers using an Excel-based process. It fully implements the “total task” concept.
  • Dashboard Presentation of the DCMA assessment findings with green, and red indicators that illustrate at a glance how the project schedule measures up against the DCMA assessment criteria to easily identifying any shortcoming.
  • Quickly Assesses Schedules using GAO Best Practices to find areas where best practices as guided by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) aren't being followed, potential performance problems, and other issues that bear further investigation.

3. Schedule Comparison

  • Uncover Base and Revised Schedule comparison insights. By relating activities across schedules and performing tens of change detection tests across all schedule critical properties.
  • Analyze Changes in Cost Related Metrics. By identifying the cost related metrics that changed in the schedule update from the previous schedule update or baseline.
  • Analyze Changes in Recourses Related Metrics. By identifying the resource related metrics that describe different that changed in the schedule update from the previous schedule update or baseline.
  • Identifies Slipped Activities. By identifying activities that should have started or completed in the schedule update compared to the previous schedule update or baseline.
  • Identifies Ahead Activities. By identifying activities that started or completed in the schedule update before the scheduled date in the previous schedule update or baseline.
  • Schedule Comparison Observations. Identify changes in the revised schedule from the base schedule requiring observation from the user to confirm whether acceptable or not.
  • Schedule Comparison Concerns. Identify changes in the revised schedule from the base schedule that require immediate attention from the user as it may indicate errors or severe issues in the revised schedule.
  • Identify and Rank Activities with Anomalies. By applying a patent pending technique to assign a severity score to the changed activities based on the number and seriousness of business rules that it violated.

4. Schedule Trend Analysis

  • Chart Project Characteristics for multiple schedule updates of the same project.
  • Apply Prediction limits to control the trend line forecast future date.
  • Trend and Forecast future EVM Criteria, Variances, and Indexes using trend lines produced from multiple project schedule updates.
  • Interpretation of Trend Line Findings in plain English based on the coefficient of determination and rate of change of the project characteristics.
  • Chart Forecast Prediction Limits with 95% Confidence to fine tune the forecasting model.

5. Earned Value Analysis

  • Calculate EVM Schedule Criteria such as EV (Earned Value), PV (Planned Value), and AC (Actual cost).
  • Calculate EVM Schedule Indexes such as CPI (Cost Performance Index), SPI (Schedule Performance Index), and TCPI (to complete Cost Performance Index) using different methods.
  • Calculate EVM Schedule Forecast Values such as CV (Cost Variance), and SV (Schedule Variance).
  • Identify Activities with Cost Overrun using CPI and Variance analysis.
  • Identify Activities with Cost Under run using CPI and Variance analysis.

6. Schedule Viewer

  • Freely explore the project plan using loaded schedule data.
  • Visualize activity successors, predecessors, and durations all in one concise graphical panel that doubles as a schedule navigation utility.
  • Create custom Groupings. Use any available activity value to organize schedule data into easy to navigate collections.
  • Create Custom Filters. Use any available activity value together with any logical conditions (And, Or, Not, etc.) to create advanced analytical schedule filters.

7. Advanced Reporting

  • Multiple Reporting Levels at the project level, category level, group level, and activity levels.
  • Flexible Reports. Report output can be customized by selecting all or part of the 200 analysis metrics.
  • One-Click Reporting. Through hyperlinks readily accessible through the interactive dashboard view.
  • Multi-Format Support XLS, PDF, HTML, and Text formats are all supported.
  • Customizable Printing Options. Allowing for the generation of pixel perfect reports ready to be shared with executive management or outside entities

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