Material resources divided by 60 and presented as hours in graph?

[Coen]

Hi,

In my project large volumes of soil are processed by a contractor. This
contractor has made a projectplanning (2003) based on its demand. To get an
overview of the required amounts I have assigned material resources to the
contractors planning.
My job is to provide the contractor with the right amount and quality of
soil. My sources are other excavation projects that have their own schedules.

To get an overview of the future supply/demand and possible future
shortages, I have made a supply schedule in Excel and try to connect the
demand schedule by exporting the Work of the contractors' planning through
the "Analyze timescaled Data in Excel". This should work and gives me the
opportunity to present the difference (supply/demand) in graphs. Problem
however is that MSProject somehow divides all 'demand' quantities by 60 and
presents the volumes in hours.

Does anyone know how to export the right quantities to Excel (instead of
hours)? In the 'Resource graph' View, the right volumes (in cubic metres) are
presented....

Maybe there is a more effective way to connect the supply planning (my own
planning) to the contractors demand planning to get an instant overview of
future shortages etc. in MSProject?

 

[John]

Hi,

In my project large volumes of soil are processed by a contractor. This
contractor has made a projectplanning (2003) based on its demand. To get an
overview of the required amounts I have assigned material resources to the
contractors planning.
My job is to provide the contractor with the right amount and quality of
soil. My sources are other excavation projects that have their own schedules.

To get an overview of the future supply/demand and possible future
shortages, I have made a supply schedule in Excel and try to connect the
demand schedule by exporting the Work of the contractors' planning through
the "Analyze timescaled Data in Excel". This should work and gives me the
opportunity to present the difference (supply/demand) in graphs. Problem
however is that MSProject somehow divides all 'demand' quantities by 60 and
presents the volumes in hours.

Does anyone know how to export the right quantities to Excel (instead of
hours)? In the 'Resource graph' View, the right volumes (in cubic metres) are
presented....

Maybe there is a more effective way to connect the supply planning (my own
planning) to the contractors demand planning to get an instant overview of
future shortages etc. in MSProject?

Coen,
Because the resource has been tagged as a material type, Project exports
the value in the Work field in its basic form, which is minutes. For
example, if you have 100 cu/m of soil over a 10 day period, that will be
represented as 10 cu/m per day on the Resource Usage view or Resource
Graph. However, internally Project stores work values in minutes so on
export, those 10 cu/m per day become 10 minutes per day. A similar thing
will occur if you export Peak Units. Project will divide the value by
the default 8 hours per day for a resource.

Given the above information, it should be very easy to apply the
appropriate factor the the exported data in Excel and then make your
graphs.

With regard to showing your data more effectively, if you want graphs
Excel is your best choice. If you only need to see tabular data, you may
or may not be able to do it all in Project - it depends on exactly what
you want to see. Remember Project is a scheduling application is is
designed to work most efficiently with labor type resources. Although it
does have some capability for dealing with material type resources it is
mediocre at best when attempting to schedule/manage a supply chain.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Coen]

Thank you John! Without this explanation I would never had guessed project
converts cu/m to minutes. Still, I think it's odd that presentation within
the program delivers the right graphs (Resource graph) while the values are
converted upon exporting to Excel....
I guess I'll just set up separate supply and demand schedules and export
them both to Excel to get an overview of the difference.

Best regards,
Coen

 

[John]

Thank you John! Without this explanation I would never had guessed project
converts cu/m to minutes. Still, I think it's odd that presentation within
the program delivers the right graphs (Resource graph) while the values are
converted upon exporting to Excel....
I guess I'll just set up separate supply and demand schedules and export
them both to Excel to get an overview of the difference.

Best regards,
Coen

Coen,
You're welcome. Remember, Project is a scheduling application so
virtually everything is in terms of time.

John