J
Joe Carlin
In Project 2000, I am managing a project that is working two 12 hour shifts
each day to complete a series of back-to-back tasks. I am assigning multiple
resources to each 12 hour shift. What I would like Project to do is causes
resources to work for all of each 12 hour shift, even if it means that the
overall work allocation for the task will be unequal. Or to look at it a
different way, I want resources to work continously around the clock so that
the duration of each task is minimized.
For example, I find that if I have a task that takes 40 hours, and I assign
1 resource to each 12 hour shift, with fixed units/effort-driven logic,
Project will always assign each resource 20 hours of work. This often results
in the entire project duration being longer than if each shift worked
continuously. As an example, for a 40 hour task starting at 8AM on Monday,
the shortest duration would be:
Monday: day shift works 8AM-8PM (12 hr), night shift works 8PM-midnight (4 hr)
Tuesday: night shift works mignight-8AM (8 hr), day shift works 8AM-8PM (12
hr), night shift works 8PM-midnight (4 hr) and the project is complete.
Project does not like this allocation, however, beacuse the day shift works
24 hr while the night shift only works 16 hr. Project will even the workloads
by making the day shift work only 8 hours on Tuesday, then having no one work
for 4 hours, then having the night shift work an 8 hour shift, ending at 4AM
on Wednesday. So Project added 4 hrs to the total project duration above the
minimum possible duration.
I have a long series of tasks that need to be completed by these shifts, and
I find that Project adds several days to the overall project duration by
creating these down times between shifts to balance the workload for each
task.
Is there any way around this by which I could force all resources to work
continuosly during their shift, so that the project is complete sooner? I'm
up against a deadline and am shifting numerous resources around to try to
complete the project as quickly as possible. I can manually adjust each
resources workload to accomplish this but it takes a long time and I would
prefer if there was a way to make Project do this automatically,
Thanks,
Joe
each day to complete a series of back-to-back tasks. I am assigning multiple
resources to each 12 hour shift. What I would like Project to do is causes
resources to work for all of each 12 hour shift, even if it means that the
overall work allocation for the task will be unequal. Or to look at it a
different way, I want resources to work continously around the clock so that
the duration of each task is minimized.
For example, I find that if I have a task that takes 40 hours, and I assign
1 resource to each 12 hour shift, with fixed units/effort-driven logic,
Project will always assign each resource 20 hours of work. This often results
in the entire project duration being longer than if each shift worked
continuously. As an example, for a 40 hour task starting at 8AM on Monday,
the shortest duration would be:
Monday: day shift works 8AM-8PM (12 hr), night shift works 8PM-midnight (4 hr)
Tuesday: night shift works mignight-8AM (8 hr), day shift works 8AM-8PM (12
hr), night shift works 8PM-midnight (4 hr) and the project is complete.
Project does not like this allocation, however, beacuse the day shift works
24 hr while the night shift only works 16 hr. Project will even the workloads
by making the day shift work only 8 hours on Tuesday, then having no one work
for 4 hours, then having the night shift work an 8 hour shift, ending at 4AM
on Wednesday. So Project added 4 hrs to the total project duration above the
minimum possible duration.
I have a long series of tasks that need to be completed by these shifts, and
I find that Project adds several days to the overall project duration by
creating these down times between shifts to balance the workload for each
task.
Is there any way around this by which I could force all resources to work
continuosly during their shift, so that the project is complete sooner? I'm
up against a deadline and am shifting numerous resources around to try to
complete the project as quickly as possible. I can manually adjust each
resources workload to accomplish this but it takes a long time and I would
prefer if there was a way to make Project do this automatically,
Thanks,
Joe