Project Calendar and Resources with Different Calendars

[eric_amp]

I have to assign both equipment and people to the same tasks. The equipment
runs on a 24hr calendar and the people run on an 8hr calendar. I use a Fixed
Duration setting for my tasks.

If my Project Calendar is set so that the day starts at 8am and finishes at
5pm and is set to 8hr/day, 40hrs/wk and 20day/month I get a wonky allocation
when I assign both equipment and resources. For example if a set the task to
be 5 days in duration, the equipment shows 16 hrs on the first Monday, 24 hrs
for Tues, Wed, Thur, Fri and 8 hrs on the next Monday. The total hours match
up but the duration is one day longer. I assume this happens because the work
day starts at 8am.

I thought I would get around this by changing my Project Calendar to start
at 12am and end at 12am and set to 24hr/day, 40hrs/week and 31 days a month.
When I assign both people and equipment to a task everything works out. There
is 8hrs/day allocated for people and 24hrs/day allocated for equipment. But
when I delete the equipment resource and leave the people resource, the
duration is now shown as 1.67 days (40hr/24hrs). Also the task bar in the
right hand window appears over 4 days (no explaination for this). When I go
to the Resource Usage view it is correct in showing 8hrs/day for the 5 days.

Why is the Duration being shown as a fraction of a 24hr day when the
resource is allocated on an 8hr day?

How do I specify a Fixed Duration task to be 5 days and have project
recognize that 1 day = 24 hr for equipment, 1 day = 8 hrs for people and this
stays consist regardless of who is allocated?

Thanks,
Eric, PMP

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Simple answer to your final question: you can't.
There can only be one definition of what is "a day" (Tools, Options,
VCalendar) regardless of Project Calendars, Resource Calendars, Task
Calendars..)
Hope that helps,

--
Jan De Messemaeker
Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
+32 495 300 620
For availability check:
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/Calendar.pdf

 

[eric_amp]

Interesting. So how should I go about scheduling by Fixed Duration while
utilizing resources with different working hours and times?

Units and work are not practical for my application.

Eric, PMP

 

[Rod Gill]

Project does not handle this scenario very well. I assume the equipment is
running 24*7 with only supervision 8h/day? If so set the duration to 5ed
(ignores calendar) so the equipment runs at 24h/day and add the resource at
8h/day. Assign 120h per week to equipment and 40/week for resource.

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see:
http://www.projectvbabook.com