Constraints are the pre-requisites necessary to be completed before an activity can start. Any preparation work, such as getting an approval from an authority or a getting a contract to start an activity can be represented as constraints in Lean PlanDo.
After Lookahead is generated, Constraints can be added to the activities or tasks.
Prerequisites could be contract, approval, material, safety, engineering design related, QA/QC or construction related.
Constraint will be indicated by a grey circle and will be located on the due date planned and in-lined with its activity.
Constraints can be added to an activity in the Masterplan or to a task and activity in the Lookahead.
Conditions refer to the intermediate steps to complete/accomplish the Constraint.
Any delay to a constraint will result in the delay to the corresponding activity. This in turn will affect the activities that have existing dependencies with that activity.
The following steps guide you to Add Activity Constraint:
Single click on the activity bar
Click on the Add Constraint button
Select the constraint category in category drop down menu and select the constraint in constraint drop down menu
Enter the constraint description in the description box
Assign the Company and User to the constraint
Set the ETA or go with the default ETA
Set the Conditions due dates (this will automatically become the base date for the constraint)
Hit Reset to reset the Condition due dates and ETA
Click Save
Repeat the above procedure to assign multiple constraints on an activity
Note:
1. ETA (Expected time of arrival) is the minimum time gap between completion of the constraint (due date) and the activity start date. If the ETA is set to 1, the constraint can be completed within 1 day of the start of the activity. Similarly if ETA is set to 5, the constraint should be completed within 5 days of the start of the activity.
2. The constraint due-date always matches with the last condition's due-date. This is because when the last condition is completed, the constraint is completed.
3. Condition due dates are allowed only in increasing order. i.e. second condition due date should be the same or greater than the first one.
4. Constraint Status represents the actual state of a constraint. There are two types of possible status for a constraint. A constraint will be displayed as Red Circle, if the Current date sail over the constraint due date and the constraint status still NOT DONE YET
Not Done - The initial state of the constraint. It will be shown Blue in color
Done - The completed state of the constraint. It will be shown Green in color
The steps to add a Task Constraint is similar to adding a Activity Constraint. Read more in article 4.11 Add task constraint.