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1. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Demonstration of a 10 Year, Long Term
Forecasting Model using Primavera Resource
Loaded Projects
Patrick O’Connell
Project Control Group Lead
Georgia Transmission Corporation
patrick.oconnell@gatrans.com

2. GTC 10 Year LTFM
• There are more slides in this presentation with notes
and procedures
• Not all will be discussed as we will go demo as much
as we can
• Contact me if desired

3. GTC 10 Year LTFM
• GTC - owned by 39 Electric Membership
Cooperatives (EMCs) in Georgia
• Build, operate and maintain Transmission Lines and
Substations
• Not only for the EMC’s but also for the ITS
• ITS – shared transmission system in Georgia with 4
members: GTC, GPC, MEAG and Dalton

4. GTC 10 Year LTFM
• Why this methodology?
• The purpose of the LTFM
is to provide an aligned
cost (EPIS & Cashflow) &
man-hour forecasting tool
• Target audience
• Finance
• Functional Managers

5. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Definitions
• EPIS – Electric Plant In Service
• Depreciation begins
• Affects members as we plan to recover cost for their stations
and lines
• LTFM – Long Term Forecasting Model
• EPIS
• Cashflow
• Capacity planning / Workforce planning
• Cashflow vs EPIS
• Paying the bills vs how we pay off paying the bills

6. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Tools
• TPOP
• Planning tool
• Project attributes
• “Real” projects based on customer need
• P6 v7
• TPOP projects
• “Ghost” projects
• Access
• Query data from multiple data sources
• Excel
• Input/output
• Calculators
• Charts

7. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Tools
• Effect of “Ghost” projects

8. GTC 10 Year LTFM
P6
• Schedules created from standard templates
• Resource loaded
• Expense codes for invoices and payments
• Consistent across all projects
• Project schedule has all cost – BAC, AC, ETC, EAC
• Roles assigned in template
• Standard by project type / activity
• Many departments and job titles

9. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Types of Ghost Projects
• Nine types (well, 14 after considerations)
• Complexity / Size
• New / Mod Subs and New / Mod T/Ls
• Advanced Land Purchase
• Cost average across all for each type
• All expense codes
• All roles – input from team members
• Last 5 years of project history used
• Provision for non standard (like a $30M SS or TL)
• Excluded some as non repeating
• Also, reimbursable projects

10. GTC 10 Year LTFM
What are we doing?
• We have real data that goes out 2-3 years for some
load growth projects and long term projects that
extend for 5-6 year but we don’t plan at the project
level, really that far out.
• We add Ghost projects to match a projection and from
this we get EPIS by project types (accounting need)
and workforce planning by job title.

11. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Predictor Tool (Excel Spreadsheet)
• Sources of Data
• TPOP, Primavera and Formal Projection
• Calculator
• Compares TPOP, Primavera and a prediction to
determine the number of projects to add or remove by
project type
• Graph
• Visual aid as the predictor is adjusted
• It is bottom up estimating

12. GTC 10 Year LTFM

13. GTC 10 Year LTFM
MS Access Queries
• Count (number of projects by type)
• TPOP EPIS
• P6 EPIS
• How many do we need to add (delete)
• Cost
• TPOP EPIS
• P6 EPIS
• As projects are added the cost impacts are telling

14. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Spread Cost
• Each template spreads cost/MH based on activity
duration and cost curves
• Cost Curves
• Construction is back loaded
• Land
• T/L – modified bell curve
• S/S – last period
• Man-hours are linear

15. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Cost by EPS Sheet
• Sanity Check
• Visual check to see if an EPS node does not look “right”
• Useful first step if the chart looks like it has a spike

16. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Project Cost by EPS Sheet
• Error Check
• Step two if you think there might be a bad project
• Easy to sort and group by the same format as the previous
• Example:
• South looks like it has too much
• Drill to South node
• Spy projects and look for outlier(s)

17. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Reports
• EPIS Charts
• Workforce planning

18. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Chart

19. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Workforce Planning
• Departments
• Interface charts

20. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Workforce Planning

21. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Roles Tab
• List of roles with history
• Class of project
• Direct vs OH
• Number of people supporting the role
• This is how you have charged your time NOT the
place to estimate

22. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Selected Resources Tab
• Pruning
• Who are good candidates to describe the role?
• Selected are those who have worked full years,
consistently on projects
• Exclude
• Started mid year
• Part time
• Re-tasked to other assignments

23. GTC 10 Year LTFM
Role History Tab
• Summarized data by role
• Sanity check

24. GTC 10 Year LTFM
EPS Structure and Activity Counts

25. GTC 10 Year LTFM
LTFM EPS “Years”
• Note 2013 - 2014 have no data by choice
• See how we are extending into the future to capture the
impact of front end activities on the target years

26. GTC 10 Year LTFM
LTFM Templates

27. GTC 10 Year LTFM
LTFM EPS “Years”
• Note 2013 - 2014 have no data by choice
• See how we are extending into the future to capture the
impact of front end activities on the target years

28. GTC 10 Year LTFM
OH Impact
• No OH shown
• May be flat or steady but is (somewhat) independent of
capital growth
• Ability to predict future year OH rates