How are material resource consumption tracked

P

PaulLinscott

I setup a couple of material resources in Project Pro and assigned these
resources to a tasks i.e. gold with a label g (for gramm). Can someone
tell me if it is posible to enter actual amounts used for such material
resources. For example we would like to assgn a certain amount of gold
to a task and depending on the amount needed, the person who is
performing the ask would enter the actual amount of gold used in a
field - similar to the process of assigning and tracking actual Work
for a human resource. The system would then calculate the variances and
costs associated with this resource i.e. over budget, under budget etc.
Is this possible?
I am familar with the fixed and variable material consumption and how
MS tracks costs using these methods. They dos not satify our needs. You
can image that when working with gold, every gramm counts.

thx

Paul
 
R

RickD

Gold would be defined in the Enterprise Resource Pool as a Material Resource
with a standard rate of (for example) $400.

When you have to buy 20 grams of gold in a project task, you merely assign
gold as a resource with 20 in the units. The cost would be an extrapolation
of $400 * 20.

To be precise, if your buy task is multiple days, you may want to access the
Task Usage View and put the 20 (grams) in whenever you want to plan the buy,
otherwise Project will prorate the buy over the duration of the task (which
is not a problem if you have a task of 1 day).
 
P

PaulLinscott

Thanks Rick,

This means that there is no way to be able to track actual amounts of
gold used. The system simly prorates the amount across the duration. My
idea is to be able to allocate 40 gramms of gold over a duration and
when we actually use the gold or any part of it, the user would enter
this value in an actual field. The system would then place the
difference in the remaining field. I want the same
feature/functionality with material resources as I have with work
resources. I need to have a budget assigned to gold and have someone
enter the actual amount of gold used. This way I can see the budgeted
vs the actuals and also determine if I need to order more. Seems like
project does not give this flexibility. Am I correct?

thx again

Paul
 
R

RickD

That's an incorrect assumption Paul.

If you use the Resource Usage View in Pro you input the actual units of gold
when you actually make the buy/sell. The total units of gold will appear in
the Work column. Remaining Work should show the balance of the planned stock.
Note that units only show in this View. If you swirch to the Gantt View, Work
is presented in Hours.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]

Paul:

If your point is to be able to capture this as an update coming from Web
Access, then why not go ahead and treat Gold as a work resource? Give Gold a
Project Server authenticated account so your resource can logon as Gold and
update hours, which you'll treat as grams, in the Gold timesheet. Otherwise,
Rick has hit the nail on the head.
 
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