Limited material resource management

[yomtov]

Is there a way to set a limit on units in a material resource? For example
if we cannot use more than 100 gallons of fuel for a certain project. Is
there a way to track how many gallons I can still use and how many I have
used already?

In the same vein, is there a way to assign materials directly in to work
resources? Using the same example, I would like to assign the fuel usage for
each machine (work resource) and how many hours it can work on each gallon.
This way, when I assign that machine to a task it will automatically
calculate how many gallons I need instead of me having to assign the fuel to
the task and make the manual calculation.

All help is appreciated.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

yomtov --

First of all, you cannot assign a Material resource to a Work resource. You
can only assign a Material resource to a task. When you assign the Material
resource to a task, you need to enter your estimated usage of the Material
resource in the Units column. There are two ways to enter the Units value.
You can enter the usage as a static value, such as 100 gallons for gasoline,
or as a variable value by entering 100 gallons/day. The software will
automatically calculate the usage of the gasoline by multiplying the Units
value times the Duration value. On a 10 day Duration task, the software
would calculate the usage as 1,000 gallons in this example. You can also
enter your actual usage of the Material resource in the Actual Work field,
and the Remaining Work field will show how much you have left. There is no
way to apply an upper limit, however. Hope this helps.

 

[yomtov]

Hi Dale,

Thanks. Yes your post helped me understand the limitations of Project.
However, it is not helping me how to manage my project. I will explain why.
If I have a three machines assigned to a task, and each one has different
fuel consumption rates, the only way I can input the gallons/day estimated
usage rate is by manually computing the the three different fuel usage rates
and coming up with the gallons/day rate for that specific task. And if I
have many tasks with each one using different and multiple machines I have to
do the calculations for each task separately. That almost renders the whole
point of using Project useless, as the time I am saving by not using Excel is
lost by all these calculations. Unless I am misunderstanding something, or
there is another way. If you can explain it to me I would greatly appreciate
it.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

yomtov --

I know of no other way. Sorry, but maybe someone else has an idea for you.
Hope this helps.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi yomotov,

Project is essentially a scheduelling program designed to produce a series
of dates on which things should happen, and provide an end date when the
project should end, based on the data you provide. On the way, it allows
you to enter costs against assigned resources to give you a stab at a
budget. It is not designed to estimate usage rates, you'll need another
program to do that.

Mike Glen
Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

As Mike said, Project doesn't do that sort of calculation. Remember that it
is essentially a work scheduling and cost estimating program - it is NOT a
cost accounting program. When one does cost estimating for work resources,
it is a common practice to use standardized burdened labour costs rather
than actual salary data, similar to the way you might do department staffing
projections ... ie, you might have 10 engineers on staff whose salaries
range from 65000 to 95000 depending on seniority. But for budget planning
purposes you use the same standard rate of, say, 78000 for all of them. So
why not do this ... let's say Machine 1 uses 10 gallons per day, Machine 2
uses 15, and Machine 3 uses 20. You could probably assume that you'll use
each machine equally on average over the duration of the project so your
mean usage is 15 gallons per day for tasks that require a machine - if not,
estimate the degree to which each machine will be used over all and weight
your mean accordingly. When you assign resources to the tasks you use a rate
assignment of 15/day regardless of which machine would actually be used.
Sure, it's not going to be exact to the penny but so what? Until you
actually do the work and review the bills after the dust settles it's only
an guestimate anyway. The accurate cost and revenue tracking are for the
accounting department to worry about and really aren't part of the project
manager's role - you'll be in the ballpark within a reasonable error
percentage - say +/- 10% - most likely and for project estimating that
usually so close to spot-on that it doesn't matter. Don't get so hung up on
tracking pennies that you lose sight of the overall big-picture objective of
guiding the project to completion on time and on budget.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

 

[yomtov]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the information. The problem though with my project is that we
are very limited on the usage of a certain fuel. And to schedule this
project we have to know in advance if this will work or we will drop the
whole project. So a +-10% projection will not do.
Interestingly though I am sure that there are many projects where the
accuracy of the projection will make or brake the project, so I am not sure
how they work this out.

Thanks anyhow.

As Mike said, Project doesn't do that sort of calculation. Remember that it
is essentially a work scheduling and cost estimating program - it is NOT a
cost accounting program. When one does cost estimating for work resources,
it is a common practice to use standardized burdened labour costs rather
than actual salary data, similar to the way you might do department staffing
projections ... ie, you might have 10 engineers on staff whose salaries
range from 65000 to 95000 depending on seniority. But for budget planning
purposes you use the same standard rate of, say, 78000 for all of them. So
why not do this ... let's say Machine 1 uses 10 gallons per day, Machine 2
uses 15, and Machine 3 uses 20. You could probably assume that you'll use
each machine equally on average over the duration of the project so your
mean usage is 15 gallons per day for tasks that require a machine - if not,
estimate the degree to which each machine will be used over all and weight
your mean accordingly. When you assign resources to the tasks you use a rate
assignment of 15/day regardless of which machine would actually be used.
Sure, it's not going to be exact to the penny but so what? Until you
actually do the work and review the bills after the dust settles it's only
an guestimate anyway. The accurate cost and revenue tracking are for the
accounting department to worry about and really aren't part of the project
manager's role - you'll be in the ballpark within a reasonable error
percentage - say +/- 10% - most likely and for project estimating that
usually so close to spot-on that it doesn't matter. Don't get so hung up on
tracking pennies that you lose sight of the overall big-picture objective of
guiding the project to completion on time and on budget.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Dale,

Thanks. Yes your post helped me understand the limitations of Project.
However, it is not helping me how to manage my project. I will explain
why.
If I have a three machines assigned to a task, and each one has different
fuel consumption rates, the only way I can input the gallons/day estimated
usage rate is by manually computing the the three different fuel usage
rates
and coming up with the gallons/day rate for that specific task. And if I
have many tasks with each one using different and multiple machines I have
to
do the calculations for each task separately. That almost renders the
whole
point of using Project useless, as the time I am saving by not using Excel
is
lost by all these calculations. Unless I am misunderstanding something,
or
there is another way. If you can explain it to me I would greatly
appreciate
it.

 

[Dave]

If the problem is simply a matter of measuring the total fuel
consumption for the project, then how about the following approach.

You enter your machine types as distinct equipment resources.

Then essentially, the fuel consumption is simply the consumption rate
for a given machine multiplied by the number of hours that machine
works, summed over all the machines.

If you go to the resource view, ensure that the Work column is displayed
and add a number column, Number1 for example, for consumption rate.
Enter that against the machines, and 0 against the other resources.
Then add another number column and customise it to use the formula
[Work] * [Number1].

Then you could apply a group so that the machines are grouped together
thereby giving the total consumption.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the information. The problem though with my project is that we
are very limited on the usage of a certain fuel. And to schedule this
project we have to know in advance if this will work or we will drop the
whole project. So a +-10% projection will not do.
Interestingly though I am sure that there are many projects where the
accuracy of the projection will make or brake the project, so I am not sure
how they work this out.

Thanks anyhow.

As Mike said, Project doesn't do that sort of calculation. Remember that it
is essentially a work scheduling and cost estimating program - it is NOT a
cost accounting program. When one does cost estimating for work resources,
it is a common practice to use standardized burdened labour costs rather
than actual salary data, similar to the way you might do department staffing
projections ... ie, you might have 10 engineers on staff whose salaries
range from 65000 to 95000 depending on seniority. But for budget planning
purposes you use the same standard rate of, say, 78000 for all of them. So
why not do this ... let's say Machine 1 uses 10 gallons per day, Machine 2
uses 15, and Machine 3 uses 20. You could probably assume that you'll use
each machine equally on average over the duration of the project so your
mean usage is 15 gallons per day for tasks that require a machine - if not,
estimate the degree to which each machine will be used over all and weight
your mean accordingly. When you assign resources to the tasks you use a rate
assignment of 15/day regardless of which machine would actually be used.
Sure, it's not going to be exact to the penny but so what? Until you
actually do the work and review the bills after the dust settles it's only
an guestimate anyway. The accurate cost and revenue tracking are for the
accounting department to worry about and really aren't part of the project
manager's role - you'll be in the ballpark within a reasonable error
percentage - say +/- 10% - most likely and for project estimating that
usually so close to spot-on that it doesn't matter. Don't get so hung up on
tracking pennies that you lose sight of the overall big-picture objective of
guiding the project to completion on time and on budget.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

Hi Dale,

Thanks. Yes your post helped me understand the limitations of Project.
However, it is not helping me how to manage my project. I will explain
why.
If I have a three machines assigned to a task, and each one has different
fuel consumption rates, the only way I can input the gallons/day estimated
usage rate is by manually computing the the three different fuel usage
rates
and coming up with the gallons/day rate for that specific task. And if I
have many tasks with each one using different and multiple machines I have
to
do the calculations for each task separately. That almost renders the
whole
point of using Project useless, as the time I am saving by not using Excel
is
lost by all these calculations. Unless I am misunderstanding something,
or
there is another way. If you can explain it to me I would greatly
appreciate
it.


:

yomtov --

First of all, you cannot assign a Material resource to a Work resource.
You
can only assign a Material resource to a task. When you assign the
Material
resource to a task, you need to enter your estimated usage of the
Material
resource in the Units column. There are two ways to enter the Units
value.
You can enter the usage as a static value, such as 100 gallons for
gasoline,
or as a variable value by entering 100 gallons/day. The software will
automatically calculate the usage of the gasoline by multiplying the
Units
value times the Duration value. On a 10 day Duration task, the software
would calculate the usage as 1,000 gallons in this example. You can also
enter your actual usage of the Material resource in the Actual Work
field,
and the Remaining Work field will show how much you have left. There is
no
way to apply an upper limit, however. Hope this helps.




Is there a way to set a limit on units in a material resource? For
example
if we cannot use more than 100 gallons of fuel for a certain project.
Is
there a way to track how many gallons I can still use and how many I
have
used already?

In the same vein, is there a way to assign materials directly in to
work
resources? Using the same example, I would like to assign the fuel
usage
for
each machine (work resource) and how many hours it can work on each
gallon.
This way, when I assign that machine to a task it will automatically
calculate how many gallons I need instead of me having to assign the
fuel
to
the task and make the manual calculation.

All help is appreciated.

 

[yomtov]

Thank you. Thant worked great.

If the problem is simply a matter of measuring the total fuel
consumption for the project, then how about the following approach.

You enter your machine types as distinct equipment resources.

Then essentially, the fuel consumption is simply the consumption rate
for a given machine multiplied by the number of hours that machine
works, summed over all the machines.

If you go to the resource view, ensure that the Work column is displayed
and add a number column, Number1 for example, for consumption rate.
Enter that against the machines, and 0 against the other resources.
Then add another number column and customise it to use the formula
[Work] * [Number1].

Then you could apply a group so that the machines are grouped together
thereby giving the total consumption.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the information. The problem though with my project is that we
are very limited on the usage of a certain fuel. And to schedule this
project we have to know in advance if this will work or we will drop the
whole project. So a +-10% projection will not do.
Interestingly though I am sure that there are many projects where the
accuracy of the projection will make or brake the project, so I am not sure
how they work this out.

Thanks anyhow.

As Mike said, Project doesn't do that sort of calculation. Remember that it
is essentially a work scheduling and cost estimating program - it is NOT a
cost accounting program. When one does cost estimating for work resources,
it is a common practice to use standardized burdened labour costs rather
than actual salary data, similar to the way you might do department staffing
projections ... ie, you might have 10 engineers on staff whose salaries
range from 65000 to 95000 depending on seniority. But for budget planning
purposes you use the same standard rate of, say, 78000 for all of them. So
why not do this ... let's say Machine 1 uses 10 gallons per day, Machine 2
uses 15, and Machine 3 uses 20. You could probably assume that you'll use
each machine equally on average over the duration of the project so your
mean usage is 15 gallons per day for tasks that require a machine - if not,
estimate the degree to which each machine will be used over all and weight
your mean accordingly. When you assign resources to the tasks you use a rate
assignment of 15/day regardless of which machine would actually be used.
Sure, it's not going to be exact to the penny but so what? Until you
actually do the work and review the bills after the dust settles it's only
an guestimate anyway. The accurate cost and revenue tracking are for the
accounting department to worry about and really aren't part of the project
manager's role - you'll be in the ballpark within a reasonable error
percentage - say +/- 10% - most likely and for project estimating that
usually so close to spot-on that it doesn't matter. Don't get so hung up on
tracking pennies that you lose sight of the overall big-picture objective of
guiding the project to completion on time and on budget.
--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs



Hi Dale,

Thanks. Yes your post helped me understand the limitations of Project.
However, it is not helping me how to manage my project. I will explain
why.
If I have a three machines assigned to a task, and each one has different
fuel consumption rates, the only way I can input the gallons/day estimated
usage rate is by manually computing the the three different fuel usage
rates
and coming up with the gallons/day rate for that specific task. And if I
have many tasks with each one using different and multiple machines I have
to
do the calculations for each task separately. That almost renders the
whole
point of using Project useless, as the time I am saving by not using Excel
is
lost by all these calculations. Unless I am misunderstanding something,
or
there is another way. If you can explain it to me I would greatly
appreciate
it.


:

yomtov --

First of all, you cannot assign a Material resource to a Work resource.
You
can only assign a Material resource to a task. When you assign the
Material
resource to a task, you need to enter your estimated usage of the
Material
resource in the Units column. There are two ways to enter the Units
value.
You can enter the usage as a static value, such as 100 gallons for
gasoline,
or as a variable value by entering 100 gallons/day. The software will
automatically calculate the usage of the gasoline by multiplying the
Units
value times the Duration value. On a 10 day Duration task, the software
would calculate the usage as 1,000 gallons in this example. You can also
enter your actual usage of the Material resource in the Actual Work
field,
and the Remaining Work field will show how much you have left. There is
no
way to apply an upper limit, however. Hope this helps.




Is there a way to set a limit on units in a material resource? For
example
if we cannot use more than 100 gallons of fuel for a certain project.
Is
there a way to track how many gallons I can still use and how many I
have
used already?

In the same vein, is there a way to assign materials directly in to
work
resources? Using the same example, I would like to assign the fuel
usage
for
each machine (work resource) and how many hours it can work on each
gallon.
This way, when I assign that machine to a task it will automatically
calculate how many gallons I need instead of me having to assign the
fuel
to
the task and make the manual calculation.

All help is appreciated.