SAS Institute. The Power to Know

FOCUS AREAS

SAS/OR Software

Comprehensive Tools for Project and Resource Scheduling

SAS/OR software's project management and resource scheduling capabilities offer great flexibility to plan, manage and track project and resource schedules through a single integrated system. Project management is achieved through management of schedules, resource requirements, resource availabilities, and calendars. Each of these project defining components is represented in a SAS data set. They can be analyzed and used by various procedures to schedule the project and report on schedules, resource availability, and resource usage.

Scheduling Techniques

Critical Path Method (CPM)

The CPM procedure enables you to produce and update single- and multi-project schedules subject to precedence, time, and resource constraints. Inputs to the scheduling process include hierarchial project structures, resource requirements, and workshift/calendar/holiday information for activities and resources. The procedure produces no printed output but saves the schedule and the resource usage information in SAS data sets for maximum flexibility. The procedure provides for user control over scheduling algorithms with task and resource prioritization, skill-pooling, resource driven durations, activity splitting, etc.

Constraint Programming (Experimental)

The CLP procedure is a finite domain constraint programming solver for constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) with an emphasis on scheduling. In addition to having an expressive syntax for representing CSPs with scheduling, linear, logical, and global constraints, the solver features powerful built-in consistency routines and constraint propagation algorithms, a choice of nondeterministic search strategies, and controls for guiding the search mechanism that enable you to solve a diverse array of combinatorial problems.

Interactive Scheduling Capabilities

The Project Management suite provides a method of managing projects interactively - PROC PM.

PROC PM enhances the extensive project management capabilities of SAS/OR software by providing a graphical user interface for creating, editing, and scheduling projects. The PM procedure's Project View combines a Table View and a Gantt View to enable you to define and modify project models interactively with immediate visual confirmation of the effects on the project schedule.



Project Visualization

Gantt Charts

The GANTT procedure produces graphical, line-printer, and full-screen Gantt charts from a project schedule. Such a schedule can be the result of applying the CPM procedure to a project model or can be a custom crafted schedule. The procedure supports drawing network logic and extensive labeling capabilities.

Network Diagrams

The NETDRAW procedure provides graphical, line-printer, and full-screen network diagrams. The procedure is designed to draw activity networks, tree diagrams, and general cyclical and acyclical networks. However, it is particularly suited to displaying large complex project networks that have been scheduled. These networks can be displayed as time-scaled and zoned network diagrams.



The Earned Value Management (EVM) Macros New!

The set of earned value management macros (experimental version 1.0) is a supplement to the SAS/OR project management procedures, and it can be used to conduct earned value analysis of projects. Two distinct types of macros are included:



Microsoft Project Data Conversion Macros New!

The SAS macros %MDBTOPM and %MP2KTOPM are used for converting MDB files saved by Microsoft Project 98 and Microsoft Project 2000 (and later), respectively. These two macros are now wrapped into the macro %MSPTOSAS in SAS/OR 9.1.3, Release 2.

The %MSPTOSAS macro converts Microsoft Project 98 (and later) data. The macro generates the necessary SAS data sets, determines the values of the relevant options, and enables you to invoke an instance of the PM procedure with the converted project data. Execution of this macro requires SAS/ACCESS software.

Statistics and Operations Research Home Page | Operations Research