resource allocation problem

[liati]

Hello,
I don't know how to make this thing:
I'm working with the standard calendar (40 hours per week).
I have a work resource, named Liat, that have a limit of 10 hours per week,
so in the resource sheet I gave this worker Max Units of 0.25
I have another work resource, named Gidi, that can work the whole 40 hours
of the week, so I gave this worker Max Units of 1
Now there is a task, named A, with a duration of 5 hours. This task A needs
Gidi for the whole 5 hours, and needs Liat only for 3 hours.
how should I do it?
I tried to give resources to task A: I gave 1 unit of Gidi, and 0.6 units of
liat (needed 3 hours for a 5 hours task), but it looks like it is wrong..
what should I do?
thank's!

 

[Dave]

Hello,
I don't know how to make this thing:
I'm working with the standard calendar (40 hours per week).
I have a work resource, named Liat, that have a limit of 10 hours per week,
so in the resource sheet I gave this worker Max Units of 0.25
I have another work resource, named Gidi, that can work the whole 40 hours
of the week, so I gave this worker Max Units of 1
Now there is a task, named A, with a duration of 5 hours. This task A needs
Gidi for the whole 5 hours, and needs Liat only for 3 hours.
how should I do it?
I tried to give resources to task A: I gave 1 unit of Gidi, and 0.6 units of
liat (needed 3 hours for a 5 hours task), but it looks like it is wrong..
what should I do?
thank's!

I would suggest making separate calendars for the resources with unusual
working patterns. That way the application will schedule their work for
the times they are present.

Then, on your task, you should just assign 5 hours of work to Gidi and 3
hours to Liat.

 

[liati]

Hi Dave,
Thanks for your answer.
Sorry, I am new to ms-project and I didn't understand exactly what you
suggest to do.. can you please explain in a little more details what you
suggest to do and how to do it?
thank you very much!

 

[JulieS]

Hello Liati,

Your example below is correct, you've done nothing wrong. In order
for Liat to produce 3 hours of work in 5 hours of duration, the
assignment units needs to be .6 or 60%. If Liat's maximum units are
..25 then you have just created an overallocation for Liat.

You have two choices -- if Liat needs to create 3 hours of work and
cannot have assignment units above .25, then the task duration needs
to be 12 hours. (3 hours * .25 = 12).

The max. unit setting isn't per day or per week -- it's actually per
minute -- so a .25 max unit means that the resource can only
generate a max. of 15 second of effort for every one minute of
duration.

Unfortunately there is no automatic way to do what I think you are
looking for -- allow the resource to work a maximum of 10 hours per
day -- but those 10 hours can occur in any mix throughout the week.
For example, the resource could work a full 8 hours on Monday (100%
assignment units) and then 2 hours later in the week. As Dave
suggests, you can modify the resource's calendar to only allow 10
hours of work per week -- but you still have to pick specific days
and times -- and I don't see it working in the scenario I just gave
above. If you leave Liat's maximum units at 1, then you'll need to
be very careful and review the weekly number of hours assigned to
Liat through the Resource Usage view. If you set Liat's max. units
to .25 you'll create an overallocation if you assign above the
25 -- as in your example -- but at least you'll see the resource's
name turn red and can investigate to determine if the overallocation
is acceptable.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

 

[Dave]

What version of Project are you using?

Hi Dave,
Thanks for your answer.
Sorry, I am new to ms-project and I didn't understand exactly what you
suggest to do.. can you please explain in a little more details what you
suggest to do and how to do it?
thank you very much!

 

[liati]

JulieS, Dave - thanks a lot. your advices were very helpful

 

[JulieS]

You're welcome. Glad to have helped and thanks for the feedback.

Julie

 

[jp]

Hi,

I have a quick question: In this example the Task duration is 5 hours but
the PM was to allocate 8 hours of resources. How can that be possible? If
anything the task duration MUST be changed. Did I misread the question or is
it stated as understood below:

TaskA = 5 hours of duration
Gidi = 5 hours
Liat = 3 hours

Simple math = 8 hours of work.
Gid is a full time resource for this task so she can take her 5 hours and
then the task duration has been satisfied. But now, Liat needs to come and
put in 3 hours of her very limited time per week (10% or 2 hours per day.) Am
I missing something?
Please explain...

-jp

 

[JulieS]

Hello jp,

The task *duration* must be 1.5 days (12 hours) in order to allow
Liat 3 hours of work at 25% assignment units. Gidi finishes the 5
hours of work on day 1. However because Liat can only produce 15
minute of work for every 1 hour of duration that passes, Liat needs
a total of 12 working hours to produce 3 hours of work. Read the
second paragraph in my reply to Liati.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie
Project MVP

Visit http://project.mvps.org/ for the FAQs and additional
information about Microsoft Project

 

[jp]

Hi Julie,

Thank you for the explanation again. I think I got it now.
I created the sceneario in Project and it did change the duration
to 12 hours. I like that stuff with the 15 mins of work for every 1 hour.
Where is that found in the program (MS Project)? Or does one simply
has to do that kind of math in one's head?

-JP

 

[JulieS]

Hi jp,

You're welcome for the explanation and thanks for the feedback.

You can see how many hours/minutes a resource works per time unit
(day, week, hour) in the Task Usage or Resource Usage view. If you
zoom in to show every hour in the timescale, you'd see Liat working
15 minutes during that one hour time period.

Julie

 

[jp]

Julie,

I applied what you said and I can see the difference.
;-)
You are a great helper in this Forum by far.

-jp
;-)

 

[JulieS]

Thank you kindly, jp We are very fortunate to have a number of
great helpers here and I'm happy to pitch in where I can.

Julie