Material Resources Assignment in P6

Norman

P6 was designed for the IT industry and not the construction industry.

These normal functions that you are looking for are not available with materail resources along with many other functions I expect such as EV with material quantities etc that people who run construction projects seek.

There are two options in my opinion:

1. Use Labour resources with then brings ina raft of other issues such P6 will then add up m3 concrete with tonnes of steel etc.
2. Invest in some software designed for the construction industry, like say Asta Powerproject that will do all of this sort of stuff very and probably exceeed your requirements.

Regards

Paul E Harris

Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Planning and Scheduling Training Manual & Book Publishers, Consulting and Training
www.eh.com.au
www.eastwoodharris.com
www.primavera.com.au - a Primavera scheduling software resources site

In the activity view, there is no such item to descripe material resource in a column. But, you can go to resource assignment view where can show the budgeted units and actual units of each resource!

Norman,

I suggest to look at Spider Project where you will find everything that may be needed about material resources.

You may see them in the columns, you may define and use material requirements norms, you may apply EV to material resources, you may simulate not only material consumption but also supplies and level project (portfolio) materials.

It looks like you need not only material planning but to use volumes (amounts) of work defining project activities. It is not the same but is also supported by Spider Project.

Ecample: Concreting activity has volume XX m3 and for each m3 of volume will require 1.02 m3 of concrete (material).

Best Regards,

Vladimir

I would recomend using the P6 facility "Expenses"  to hold your material information rather than using material resources:

1) You probably do not want your entire materiial  catalogue in the resource dictionary. Expenses do not require to be backed by a dictionary

2) Expenses are always "Lump Sum"..... for example a drilling job needs a drilling rig at $50k per day, and there is $250k of tubulars.  Every day costs $50k, so the P6 Duration type is "Fixed Duration and Units/Time"  which is a "per diem" activity type. If the duration of the activity doubles, the cost of the drilling rig will double. BUT the cost of the material remains the same.  So the $250k for materials is coded as an Expense, NOT a material resource.

Hi all,

Paul Harris comment has forced me to answer this post.

Of course Primavera was designed for the construction industry and if I may say, after that for the others industries. That's why it has material resouces and everyoine can use it to assign material quantities of steel, piers and m3 concrete and get the figures of it's application onAssignements and Profiles.

How do you think that Three Gorges was built, or Petronas Towers or Burj Califa.

Soory if someone think I'm beeing rude, but on a P6 forum someone that I consider saying such inconsidered words.

Well.

Best Regards

Luis Quintino

Portugal

Luis,

I would have to agree with Paul.  Although P6 is successfully used for construction projects, it was unquestionably not designed for them.

I have used it  since version 1.0. It was then an ERP system and its design clearly showed attributes unhelpful for Contruction.  For example it was designed for  named individuals as resources  rather than the disciplines which Construction require. To this day P6 v8.2 does not store earned value and productivity in the Resource Assignment table, but only  in the Activities table.  So unless each activity has only one resoirce (a typical ERP setup, not Contstruction) you cannot report on the productivity or earned value of "Pipefitters", "Riggers" or "Welders". This is the legacy of its original design.

I recommded P3 to all of my construction cllients until we reached version 4.0.  It is to Primavera's credit that the system is now so flexible that most of the irritatiions of using a general purpose project controls tool for contruction have been dealt with.  All of my global clients want a single project controls tool for a huge range of project environments - and P6 is that tool.

Eagle Ray that became P3e was not developed for construction. For example, materials were added to this software much later (in P4 or P5 version, don't remember exactly).

David mentioned some problems with the application of P6 to construction projects. There are many others. It looks like construction managers adjust to P6 capabilities, not the software adjusts to people needs.

Hi,

P6 is a powerful software for Planning, scheduling and control.

The image here will show what was exactly been asked to display.

Hi David Kelly and all,

The question of having or working with a software designed for construction or not, it's a matter of philosophy. There any software designed fgor the job as the job varies every industry, sector and owner, contractor, cm, etc. Then the question should be what's the software that fits the job or the owner or the industry  for the purpose of that project. And also wahts is the software that has enough flexibility and capacity to face a big and a bigger job.

If someone tries to face a new challenge on a project with the need to control material resources as well as labor and non labor he will find that Oracle P6 faces that with flexible answers. As someone had already present a screen capture with it.

Owners and contrators all over the world when describing how they want the4ir projects to be controled and executed they are thinking on Oracle P3 or P6. There is some differente functionaliities on each product but one thing we must admit they efectively interchange and integarte data. I have experience of contrators working and mixced environments with no problem.

But,  sorry, don't expect 4 for version 3.1 of P3. The times they are changing and we need products more efective and enterprise like.

An material resources will have KPI's defined and directed to the project controls needs.

From NCP on Blantyre Malawi, for a week more.

Luis Quintino

Hi Luis,

calling material resource controling as a new challenge in construction projects is brave.

Owners and Contractors in my country do not think about Oracle P3 or P6 when they manage complex programs and portfolios, why do you speak for the whole world?

This is the thread for discussing material resources, if you want to discuss advantages and weaknesses of P6 start the new discussion.

Regards,

Vladimir

Sorry Vladimir and all,

I was following a thread on the conversation.

You can allways enter on P6 as the subkect area is P6 Material Resources and have them used as KPI for production. I foiund only a problem on Resource Usage to see them in a set.

Do you know how to do it.

Luis Quintino

Excuse me

I'm facing the Same problem but in P6 rel.8.2 &  i cannot see the Image attached in your Comment

Anybody can help me ?

Thanks in advance for all of you