Requiring multiple resources to work on a task

[DanG]

I have two resources who must both be present to work on a task. For example,
I have a mover, and a truck. The mover is available to work 8 hours each day.
The truck is only available four hours each day. It will take 32 hours of
work to complete the task (16 hours each, four days duration). The trucker
can work on other tasks when the truck is not available, and shouldn't be
working on this task when the truck is not available. How do I accomplish
this so I get the correct Work and Duration?

Thanks!

 

[Rod Gill]

Currently the only way is to have the truck and mover as one resource. Then
add a separate mover for the remaining 4h/day.

 

[snetzky]

I've been fighting with this myself for awhile. Why hasn't this been
addressed yet? Other tools seem to handle this without throwing up all
over the place?

Larry

 

[Rod Gill]

Question of priorities. Microsoft have to work out what they think most
people will want in the next version. This just hasn't ever been high enough
in their priorities.

You also have to remember that Project does a lot of things other tools
can't do as compensation!!

 

[snetzky]

I'm currently working with a plan turnaround project, and frankly
Project is driving me crazy! I finally figured out why my calculations
were going haywire, but Project is still in last place with me as far
as planning tools because of its inability to schedule multiple
resources on tasks.

Larry

 

[DanG]

Thanks for the reply. I'm surprised this hasn't been raised as a priority
because it seems to be a situation that wold be common to most projects. My
organization has never worked at this level of detail before, but as we
improve project management skills, it's frustrating to have a constraint like
this determined by the tool. It makes it difficult or impossible to level the
resources or see the actual resource allocation for this part of the project.
For the record, we have a couple of hundred licensed users who would all view
this as a very important feature. I'm sure that's a drop in the bucket of
overalll licenses, but it would surprise me if this waqsn't a common need.

Thanks again,

Dan

 

[snetzky]

Dan,
My guess is that this has been brought up since version one,
especially since P3 and other tools will handle this without any
problem. Just another example of Microsoft arrogance that "they know
best".

Project is much easier to use than P3, but my guess is that most are
using it for putting together pretty Gannt charts rather than using to
actually produce schedules.

If Microsoft ever hopes to take market share away from P3, they need to
resolve this, as I think it could definitely be a P3 killer, given
Microsoft's other advantages.

 

[Catfish Hunter]

I am a 15 year P3 user and not required to use MS Projects. P3 is the BMW and
MSP is a Dodge, make no mistake about it!!
But you can set a truck, driver & mover all as seperate resouces and set the
resource calanders to their availability. This may require you to make some
new calanders first. It may be necessary to have seperate task for each
resources.
Good Luck

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

"Inability" is rather exaggerated.

It can't force two resources on a task to be simultaneous, that is a big
setback, I agree, but once you allow the resources to work
non-simultaneously it has all the options one can imagine.

Could we agree on "weakness" rathe rthan "inability"?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Lots of my customers DO use it to produce schedules, but they are only very
rarely in an industrial or building environment where the need for
simultaneous work between multiple resources is more frequent.
But yes, it is an incredible weakness.
I'm surprised about the remark on leveling because leveling CAN schedule
simultaneous resources!
So it's not that this feature hinders leveling, to the contrary, you need
leveling to make it work.

Greetings,

 

[snetzky]

Sorry, but that doesn't work. What you end up with is that you have to
set a matching calendar for each resource against every other resource
that you want to work together. This still doesn't stop Project from
scheduling them at differing hours.

Believe me, I've already tried this, which is why I will strongly
recommend that my client evaluate and select another tool for project
scheduling.

Larry

 

[snetzky]

No, because too frequently multiple resources working on the same task
are a requirement, at least in the construction industry. I can't
think of an industry where this situation wouldn't come up at least
once.

As people are more typically working together on project tasks than
separately, I see this as a serious problem, and one that Microsoft
needs to resolve if they want to take additional marketshare away from
P3.

Larry

 

[Lowkey]

I'm no expert, but it seems that the easiest way to get around this problem
is to create separate tasks that are scheduled simultaneously. So for
example, the truck could be assigned to a task of "loading dock" and the
'trucker' could be assigned to a separate task, such as "load truck x". S/he
would then be able to be assigned to other tasks for the other four hours.

 

[snetzky]

It's possible, but why would you want to, you just exploded your number
of tasks to track by a factor of 2 or 3 and made the effort of tracking
the project that much more labor intensive. The planning tool should
work for me, not the other way round.

Larry

 

[snetzky]

It's possible, but why would you want to, you just exploded your number
of tasks to track by a factor of 2 or 3 and made the effort of tracking
the project that much more labor intensive. The planning tool should
work for me, not the other way round.

Larry

 

[DanG]

Hi Jan,

When we leveled, we ended up with the truck working for four hours each day,
but the mover worked a full 8 hour day moving on Day 1, when he should have
only moved four hours, then spent four hours in the warehouse. On the second
day, the truck worked four hours, but the mover had already completed the
task and didn't move at all, spending the whole day in the warehouse.

In reality, we'd be moving hundreds of times, and the moving and warehouse
work is sequenced in a way that the schedule ends up not even remotely
resembling the actual work. BTW, this is just a made up example, not the real
job, but it's an accurate model.

We also tried just using the truck as the resource, but then the mover's
allocation is artificially low. We tried creating another resource called
truckmover thinking we could treat mover and truckmover as a group, but that
didn't work either. We tried creating a super-set calendar, but that didn't
work out either.

It seems that if there were a logical AND capability for providing the
resources, the problem would be solved. Simple in concept, but I'm sure it's
not so simple in implementation. However, this is a huge obstacle for us in
trying to use Project.

Thanks,

Dan

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

When you uncheck "Leveling can adjust individual assignments on a task", and
have the salme calendars for the resources, all assignments on a task will
be simultaneous.
In Leveling it's an option - leveling will not split them if you don't want
it, it's the different calendars that do the harm.
HTH


soft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
+32-495-300 620

 

[DanG]

Hi,

Yes, agreed - the different calendars is a big part of the problem (maybe
even the root cause). I saw the "uncheck Leveling can adjust..." solution to
an earlier, similar question, and tried that to see whether it was a
solution. Making multiple calendars available for a given resource with the
ability to map resource calendars to specific tasks would be a possible
solution, as long as the resource allocation included all the calendars.
Unfortunately, there appears to be no solution to my problem with Project as
it now exists.

Thanks,
Dan