24 hours & resource allocation

[Richard]

I plan work which is done around the clock and have been using resources like
Fitter-Day & Fitter-Night attached to respective 12 hour calendars. This has
its draw backs when assigning resources to tasks, should the plan move the
wrong resource is allocated ie Day fitter pushing the task out because he was
not available for night work when the task happened to fall.
If I use a fitter based on a 24 hour calendar I'm not going to get correct
resource numbers because obviously humans don't work for 24 h periods. Am I
misunderstanding something?

 

[Steve House]

No, you've got the picture pretty well. One assumption is that you'll
decompose the tasks down to the level that a single task describes the work
done by one resource, that is, the task breakdown is granular enough that a
single activity is a small enough chunk of work that it can be assigned to
either Fitter-Day or Fitter-Night but not both. IF this isn't the case, not
an unusual circumstance, you have to take more care in assigning resources.

 

[Richard]

Thanks Steve, another approach maybe to just use resource Fitter and double
the resource requirements shown (2 fitters cover the 24 hour period even
though Project only see's one) this gives me the flexibility to plan without
spending too much time analysing whether its a daytime activity or night
activity or what to put should the task cross both shifts.
I'm using Project 2000 with an external resource pool along with a major
plan which has smaller plans inserted as well as one liners, the object being
to forecast Work and resource numbers, the town I'm working in has an
accommodation constraint.
I've heard from others that Project is not a very good resource manager, As
many plants do shutdown work around the clock do you agree that the 24 hour
problem is one that has not been well addressed by MS Project? Thanks in
advance

 

[Steve House]

I'm not sure I agree its a major problem. Think 'workday' == 'shift' If
normal practice is to define a task as a package of work done by ONE
resource producing ONE deliverable, Project's way of handling works fine.
If I have task 'Polish Fids' requiring 40 hours of work assigned to single
individual Joe Dayshift, that task will in fact physically run 8-5 for 5
consecutive workdays, standing down during Joe's off hours. 90% of the
tasks in many projects really do behave like this. If that task begins at
8am on Monday it will finish 5pm Friday. But if I choose to assign it to
Joe Dayshift, Bill Swinger, and Sally Graves, it will still take 5 workdays
but now we get 'threefers' and get three workdays accomplished out of every
24 consecutive hour time period and the task finishes late on Tuesday
evening. OTOH, if only Joe and Bill are qualified to do it, the task will
run 2 shifts a day standing down for the third and finish sometime on
Wednesday. Project's way of handling it works just fine and will produce
this scheduling behaviour as long as you keep your own knowledge of the
resources, their skills and working hours, in the loop.

 

[JROD]

Couldn't you have a different calendar for each resource? So the Day
Fitter would be assigned to the Day Calendar (which would consist of a
work day from 12 AM - 12 PM) and and Night Fitter would be assigned to
Night Calendar (12PM - 12AM). Then when you assign a day fitter to the
task, Project would assign work from 12 AM - 12PM, and then when you
assigned the night fitter to the task, project would fill in the
remaining time from 12PM - 12AM.

 

[Richard]

You are right, the way I have done it with the specific resources (Fitter Day
& Fitter Night) is technically correct and I get to see accurately what
resources will be required via use of the resource sheet and resource usage
screens.
On the day of execution if the cleaning task prior to the use of fitters
blows out (this is not uncommon) whoever executes my plan can either change
the day night resources around to best fit the schedule or he/she can change
the resource to Fitter on a 24 hour calendar as the resource requirement has
been known previously. From then on there is no juggling.
Imagine if as in a major shutdown we had a project plan with 4000 lines of
tasks, I doubt I would be popular for having been specific about day or night
resources.
If I could some how tell MS Project that the resource Fitter operating on a
24 hour calendar was using a 2 shift pattern then it could allow the use of
the somewhat generic resource Fitter and at the same time accurately
calculate the resource requirement.

 

[Steve House]

Let's say the task is scheduled to start at 8am with Joe Dayshift leading
the charge. Now the day before you learn the predecessor will take an extra
4 hours and our task won't be able to start until 1 pm. No problem, when
you change the duration of the predecessor it will push back the start of
our task by 4 hours and add fours hours onto the end. The resources may now
no longer be doing an equal amount of work, but so what? That task still
runs for the time period required to complete the work.

I think of a "resource" as one or more people with identical skills (so
they're freely interchangeable) who work the same schedule. You don't have
one resource 'fitters.' You really do have 2 distinct resources, the day
shift fitters and the night shift fitters. Even though they may have the
same skills, the fact that they work different shifts means they're
different resources.

 

[Richard]

Steve are you suggesting to load the task with both resources and let Project
choose which one is applicable, I have found that Project is a bit quirky and
sometimes chooses the wrong resource ie when I have a task which overlaps a
shift and I assign both day & night resources it isn't always plain sailing
but I could do more research on whether this is always true.

 

[Steve House]

Project doesn't 'choose' but it will distribute the work between the
resources you have chosen so the task runs continuously whenever the
resource calendar says one or the other (or both) of them is present. If
the task start time gets pushed back, it will recalculate the end time
accordingly and recalculate the work hours distribution.