Resource Planning

Hi Kumar,
please clarify your question. Best suited for what?
Regards,
Vladimir

Hi vladimir,
What i mean is..
If u r carrying out say,excavation for pipe laying at various locations,which is a typical worktype.ok.
How u will plan the resource for this?
Based on the available duration and capacity of the resource gang,u will decide on,how many resource gangs to use.
we will try to keep to min. and try to move it from one area to another.

this flow of resource gang can be monitored easily by activity codes by grouping the typical work[excavation for pipe laying] to a common header like,EXCAVATION and organising by the header and check the flow.

I need to know whether the same can be done in WBS?and any further advantages of WBS is there?

hope i’ve clarified enough.

thanx

Kumar,
it depends on the software that is used.
For an example, in Spider Project you can create unlimited number of WBSs for the same project organising activities by results, by locations, by types of work, by responsibility, etc.
You can use activity codes for organizing activities in Primavera.
We usually suggest to define not only unique activity codes but also activity types (like Excavation) to be able to apply norms (resource productivity, material requirements per volume unit, etc,) and other common characteristics from the corporate databases (reference-books).
In Spider Project your gangs are called multi-resources. And activity duration is calculated basing on muti-resource productivity. Changing the number of resources in the multi-resource you’ll automatically change total multi-resource productivity and activity durations. It is very useful for what if evaluations.

But I see another problem. The program shall understand that moving resources from one location to another takes time and money. It is not reasonable to use some resource one day at one location, next day at the other and then again at the first location. You shall add links or use some other tools to avoid this situation.
Did you meet this problem?

Vladimir,
yes,u r right..
Can u suggest some tool for managing the situation like what u mentioned & to have control over resource,in the place where resources are frequently shifted from one location to another becoz of scarsity of resources.

Kumar,
I don’t know what software do you use and thus don’t know if my advice will be helpful.
If you want to restrict movements from one location to another until the work at each location will be finished:
1) Create artificial resources Location A, Location B, etc. The total quantity of these resources shall exceed the potential number of parallel activities at each location.
2) Create hammock activities that last from the beginning to the end of work at each location.
3) Assign one unit of current location resource at each work at this location.
4) Assigh total quantities of other location resources on hammock activities.
Now activity can be performed if both necessary resources and location resource are available. New Location resource will be available only when the work on other location is finished.
You can create not one but several location resources and corresponding hammocks for different types of machinery and people.
In Spider Project the same approach may be realised easier because it simulates resource production.
Inform me if this approach is helpful in your case.
Regards,
Vladimir

Thanx

The query seems simple. If u have any previous programme made on similar logic, ma not be same, will remain helpful.

Jaikishan,
Can u please explain me how u r controlling the resource team/gang and how u estimate the teams required.

dear Kumar Siva
I think you might want to check LINE-OF-BALANCE or LINEAR SCHEDULING METHOD to schedule and minimize your workforce. Basically,You will use production rates to determine the number of labors for each type of activity and the pace of your project. And of course using leadtime or space to control work flow smoothness. I believe you can find free academic software to solve your problem, just try keyword Line-Of-Balance, or Linear Scheduling Method, or Repetitive Scheduling Method (pick one). Let me know if you want me to explain more about the concept. :)

Kumar,

a very simple computation: manual excavation = 20 cu m. plan productivity: 1 cum per mandays.

Total mandays = 20/1 = 20 mandays.

1 team = 2 labourer

Duration = 20 / 2 = 10 days per team of 2 labourer

After two days work, the team only accomplish 2 cu. m. So how are you going to control in such a way the the original duration of 10 days will be achieve.

If you add three more team with 2 labourer for each team then, how long do you think excavation will be finish.

Using the same analogy, consider 150,000 cu m of road excavation with one gang composed of 1-payloader, 2-dumptrucks capacity 6 cu m each dumptrucks with cycle time of one hour (from loader - to dumping - and return of dumptruck).

How long do you think it will complete the whole excavation?

If you got the correct answer and if and only if you are looking for a new job with salary of around 2,000 US dollar per month, then and only then, please submit your cv. I friend of mine maybe interested to call you for an interview.

cheers,

charlie

chachrist,

Thanx for the information and it is the one i was looking for and we are doing the same way.All the resources from the search result was self explanatory.

Regards
Kumar.

Charleston
As per ure given data,atleast we have to add one more team along with the existing team to acomplish the job in remaining 8 days,.18 cum.

And if u employ three more team with 2 laboures each along with existing team[8 labourers],within next two days u can achieve the target.@ production rate 1 cum per manday.

For 150,000 cum ,u need 12,500 hrs to excavate & dispose.
That was a good exercise !!!!

As of now am earning more than the 2000USD ...looking for a better package...hope to hear a favourable reply from u soon..

Cheers
Kumar

Richard,
If that is case..there are other factors to be considered..
eg.,
1.Efficieny of the Loader.
2.Job efficieny
3.Operators Efficieny.....

that was a piece of rough workout..thats it.

I think we r deviating from the topic of resource planning..

Regards
Kumar

Kumar wrote:
"If that is case..there are other factors to be considered..
eg.,
1.Efficieny of the Loader.
2.Job efficieny
3.Operators Efficieny....."

Yes, and in Spider Project activity duration (if an activity is of Productivity type) is calculated basing on the quantity (volume) of work to be done and the total productivity and workload of assigned resources. This is easy.
I understood that the problem was about creating a schedule where resources will be assigned to the new location activities only after finishing the works at the initial location.

Vladimir wrote

"Yes, and in Spider Project activity duration (if an activity is of Productivity type) is calculated basing on the quantity (volume) of work to be done and the total productivity and workload of assigned resources "

please can you explain more, you mean the productivity of the driving ressource ( or what ever you call in your case)

mimoune

In Spider Project activitiy can be defined as productivity driven (there are also duration, hammock and milestone types).
Productivity is the quantity that resource can do in an hour. Productivity can be assigned to the individual resource assignments or to resource crews (multi-resources in Spider Project terminology).
You can use more than one driving resource (different machines or people that have different qualifications).
If activity is productivity driven the its volume (quantity of work) shall be defined. Activity duration is calculated in the process of scheduling basing on the total productivity of all assigned resources.
Usually productivities for typical assignments are stored in the database and it is sufficient to define activity and resource types and activity volume.
Spider Project also permits to assign not individual resources but roles and selects available resources in the scheduling process. That is why activity duration is calculated during project leveling and not before.
If you will have additional questions I will be glad to answer.

Kumar,

My friends limit is maximum of 2,000 USD/month.

So, you dont have to sent your cv.

As for the exercise, it just show that you know how to answer your question, the basic only.

I’ll try to pick some live exercise, but this time, it will be multiple resources.

I’ll make it as quick as possible so that it will not consume lots of time.

Cheers

Charlie

Vladimir
This is really interesting that your software has this feature (from a newbie point of view as me),
actually what I do is defining two custom data item let say quantity( qty) and productivity per day(pro) then with global change I make original duration = qty/prod.
Of course for a particular productivity I assign a standard crew (group of resources, no driving) then I adjust my schedule if I need less duration for a given activity either I double the number of the crew or make a shift ( I hope this is the right word;)

But the idea that is implemented by default in the software is a great plus.

Mimoune

Ps: sorry English is the third language in my country ;)

Mimoune,
English is not the first language in mu country too. What matters is understanding of each other.
This feature is highly estimated by Spider Project users because it permits to implement corporate norms.
Your approach is not easy because you shall recalculate productivity field each time when the crew is changed.
You shall also monitor quantities and make changes to the quantity field for recalculation of remaining duration.
Spider Project also simulates shift work. Before scheduling it is hard to predict which part of the work will be done by which shift. Without modelling shift work you will need to adjust each shift quantities after project scheduling and to do it many times.
In Spider Project you can create standard crews and assign these crews to the work. At any moment you can change the crews and make global change. Productivities will be changed and you can estimate what will happen with the project schedule. It is very useful for What If analysis.
Regards,
Vladimir

Vladimir,
Everything seems good with spider project regarding the resource assigment & monitoring.Can we Implement These processess in primavera or it needs suppport from other tools.


Kumar

Wondering what it will be the answer of Vladimir; it is like asking Bill Gates how to use Firefox ,)

I think it will be a good idea to make a new section in this forum for spider project, actually I don’t use this software but I love living in a world of diversity, unfortunately Planner are famous to not like changing, they stick with one product and defending it as the best one, must have; the professional tool of choice stuff like that.

mimoune

Hi..
Guys, one other major problem to ponder on...
I think what matters most is Resources deployment will always depend upon the Front available at a particular time and it will not follow a Mathametical formula.. i mean it will not be linear or normal distrubution..
Than the question is how exactly these software will guide us regarding the TRUE RESOURCE requirement to ensure the most optimum utilization???????
The other thing is, how to decide the maximum resources we can put for an activity??? There would always be a space constraints to saturate any resource.. Can any body tell from his experience the maths / thumb rules of deciding maximum resource we can put (without considering the optimum utilization)...

Cheers...

Excuse me for the delay with the answer. I teached our customers in another town and did not have time to access Internet.

Kumar,
Primavera does not have the features that were discussed. The process described by Mimoune can help though it requires a lot of manual adjustments.

Mimoune,
I would be glad to discuss approaches used in Spider Project. Many of them may be of interest to serious project planners and for me it would be very interesting to learn other planners oppinions. Unfortunately I am afraid that such discussions may be considered as my attempt to sell Spider to PP members.
But I will be glad to answer any questions if you will write to me directly. My E-mail: spider@mail.cnt.ru.

Regards,
Vladimir

Hi Brij,

I got your point. This is one thing that planning software is not aware. Whatever data you place, the software will calculate and give you the answer. If the input is wrong, then, the output is wrong.

Perhaps it is high time to tell the IT wiseguys in the planning industry to consider your idea.

Cheers,

Charlie

the software is just a tool, and it can’t assign resources by itself! the Planner can anyway...

If space requirements for project resources are known and the total space on activity is known then the software can help with resource assignments.

Vladimir,

Spider can do it. How? Does it need special scanner to scan the plan or some sort of stylus to define the space limitation, or ???

Please explain. I doubt if Primavera got this add-in in P5 ver 5.0


Cheers,

Charlie

Of course space limitations shall be defined by the planner. And space required by each resource also.
I did not write that Spider can do it.
But if it is known then Spider will assign resources taking into account space requirements and space limitations.
I am sorry that my message was not clear.
Regards,
Vladimir

do you mean Spider will automatically assign resources and level if necessary?

I wrote that Spider will level resources basing on resource limitations including space.

Project planner may define
- that some activity may be performed by some resources that need certain space (per unit),
- that the number of assigned resources shall be larger than some minimal value and not exceed some maximum,
- that activity has some space limitation.
In this case if the minimal number of resources will be available they will be assigned, additional resources may join when they will finish their current work but the total number of assigned resources will not exceed defined maximal value. Besides resources will be assigned only if necessary space will be available. If (for an example) some resources are working at the same place performing some other activity they use necessary space and the remaining space may be too small for current activity to start (or additional resources to join those resources that started activity execution).
Space may be defined for the site.

There is one more option - you can define resources that may be used at some work type, each of them can have different productivity. These resources belong to some Role. Then you shall define the total number of Role resources to be used or total productivity of assigned resources. Spider will select and assign Role resources basing on their availability, productivity and cost.

Hope I answered your question.
Regards,
Vladimir

Vladimir,

I thank you a lot.

Your explanation is clear.

Resource assingment, productivity and space limitation are essential ingrdient in planning.

This is specially true in acceleration or catch up in building construction, project turnaround in oil and gas construction to name a few. or maybe ship building or maybe nuclear powered submarine construction.

The acceleration or catch up or turnaround schedule must be check: resource allocation vs space limitation.

Cheers,

Charlie

thank you Vladimir, but i got stucked-up in defining activities and relationships before i can even allocate a single resource! is there any other faster way?

Faster way requires preliminary works - creating databases with characteristic of typical activities, resources, materials, assignments, creating libraries of typical project fragments (models for standard work packages), creating templates for typical WBS and RBS.
Having these tools you will be able to create new model very fast.
The work will become easy and fast but preliminary work (creating databases and libraries) is hard and long. But this work is necessary if there is a need to implement corporate PM System.

Three years after and I did not figure out this resource planing problems, now how to model this problem.

Let’s start with the known data.
Wbs is defined,
Total duration of the project is know (2 years)
the network logic is done, only hard logic (excavation, concrete work, erection of steel structure, piping etc),
warehouse constraints are implemented, one the package is on site the foundation should be ready.
Three years after and I did not figure out this resource planing problems, now how to model this problem.

Let’s start with the known data.
Wbs is defined,
Total duration of the project is know (2 years)
the network logic is done, only hard logic (excavation, concrete work, erection of steel structure, piping etc),
warehouse constraints are implemented, one the package is on site the foundation should be ready.
total quantity by activity is know (volume, concrete, excavation, weight of packages etc)

now what’s unknown is duration of activities to satisfy those conditions.
What I want to do is assign initial unite rate by activity lets say 10 m3 of reinforced concrete by day and do the same for all the program and let the software adjust (increase or decrease) those unite rate.

Does it make sens ! Eh at this stage I suppose resource are unlimited !!!

I use P3, and we are planning to move to P6, it seems all those fancy option of crunching stretching are removed from p6, I hope I am wrong
Best regards

Hi Mimoune,
your question is not clear to me.
You wrote that activity volumes are known and you defined unit rate (productivity of assigned resources?). These data define activityy duration. What do you mean by adjusting unit rates (productivities)? Adjusting to what?
Best Regards,
Vladimir

thanks

yes the actual unit rate is known, but if we keep them we will not respect the finish of the project.

for example
drawing available 1 march
equipment arrived at site 1 june

i want to adjust the duration of activity to respect those constraints, the excavation should start 2 march and the concrete work (including curing) must be finished 30 may.
so i want from my software to calculate the new duration and by consequence the new productivity needed to be done from my subcontractor to satisfy my constraints, it is up to him to organize his resources (double shift, or increase resource etc )

best regards

best regards

Mimoune,
All you need is resource leveling. Do what if scenario such as resource acceleration using the actual productivity and constrain defined. (Ex: using constrain how many resources required to attain date completion having a performance productivity of ???)
Is that help?

Hi Mimoune,
“drawing available” and “equipment arrived at site” shall be added as milestones to your construction model and these milestones shall be linked with the activities that depend on them or vice versa.
You wrote that you do not care about contractor resources. So you shall define required activity durations and let the contractor to worry about resource productivities.
In any case P6 does not have the field for resource productivity.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

rodel and vladimir

thanks very much for your replies.
"So you shall define required activity durations" the problem is here how to make this automatic process, because as you know those milestones are dynamic and they change every time.

i will try to use this process and see if it works.
- define those activities as independent ( resource driven)
- in the first iteration define the duration as total quantity/actual productivity
- define maximum productivity as actual productivity x 2( i suppose contractor may do double shift)
- schedule and level, and let P3 crunch or stretch the durations to respect those milestones.

hope it make sens

Hi Mimoune,
Quantity and Productivity fields do not exist in P6.
Levelling does not make sense if you do not assign resources.
If you talk about single activities with the expected start and milestone defined finish you can define them as hammocks. They will last from the start event to the finish event.
Knowing durations you can estimete required productivity.
But if you want to adjust a set of activities then it is harder. Somebody shall estimate at what activities additional resources can be used. It is not necessary to re-estimate the durations of all kind of jobs.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

"Quantity and Productivity fields do not exist in P6"
yes they don’t exist per se, but you can simulate them. i am talking about p3 i am not sure about p6

and yes i define resources. for example concrete
i define resource concrete and i define it as driving, as a budget quantity i put the total volume of concrete for this activity, and i put unite rate as the actual productivity, p3 will automatically calculate the duration of this activity.( the activity must be independent not task, it is like productivity task in spider)

now as i said before, i define the normal and max limit of this resource, and let p3 level the activities, p3 has an interesting features to "adjust" unit rate to satisfy the maximum limit of the resource, thus the durations may increase or decrease.

so for simplification i can put those value
resource concrete : normal 20 m3, max 40 m3
unite rate for one activity : 10 m3

now after leveling, i should found different unit rate( and thus different duration) for each concrete activity based on the start milestone and finish milestone of the package. (drawing available, arrival of equipment).

now the quality of leveling of p3 is another subject ;)

best regards.
mimoune

Vladimir,
What do you mean by Quantity and productivity not exists in Primavera? For Labor Primavera have hours or unit, Non Labor hours or unit and Materials quantity. Productivity= Unit/time. I believed those are the same? The leveling of P3 is more powerful than P6. P3 has a capability of Forward/backward leveling and can decrease or increase duration while P6 only resolve conflict of resource but doesn’t touch duration.

I mean the following:
Activity has physical volume that is measured in physial units (meters, tons, cubic meters, etc.). Assigned resources have productivities that are measured in activity volume physical units per hour, materials may be assigned as quantities per volume unit, etc.
Both P3 and P6 have poor levelling algorithms and produce schedules that are far from optimal.
Duration is defined by activity volume and total productivity of assigned resources. It can be increased or decreased only if the quantity, calendars, or workload of assigned resources are variable.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

I agree that Primavera may not be that précised and leveling module is far from optimal but still doing the work. For some reason they retained the crown where planners have no choice as the company dictates what to use.
The good thing is planners are flexible.

Rodel,
few planners level resources, so they do not notice these problems.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

Valdimir,
Absolutely got the point. It’s the quality of planner and I agree with a good help of the software.
Best Regards,
Rodel

All,

Vladimir said: "Duration is defined by activity volume and total productivity of assigned resources. It can be increased or decreased only if the quantity, calendars, or workload of assigned resources are variable."

To what level of the schedule this definition applies?

I mean for example, an activity is called:

"Reinforced Concreting Works" - how do you measure or level resources and adjust duration(s) (using the above definition)?

Anoon,
It’s very simple. It either by acceleration or de-acceleration of resources (resource driven activity). It’s called leveling of resources to justify the needs of a project.
Ex: Reinforced concreting works have duration of 20 days having a good productivity say 1:1 but don’t have any constrained on resources. Now on scenario given there is a parameter milestone that an equipment delivery is due in 15 days and have no location to stored what should the action to be done? Level the resource on the parameter given and see how many resources required to attained Milestone date on the same volume of concrete.

Anoon,
it can be applied to activities that have certain volume unit and the crew that is doing this specific work from start to finish.
Reinforced concreting works include activities like reinforcing and concreting that have different measures (tons and cubic meters) and crews that do them. Resources have productivities measured in different units, the crews do not work in parallel.
So levelling can be applied only to the detailed schedules where resources are properly assigned.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

Vladimir and Rodel,

Thanks for the answers.

A simple "reinforced concreting works" may not turn-out to be simple when you are going to apply resource levelling.

So as Vladimir wrote:"So levelling can be applied only to the detailed schedules where resources are properly assigned."

So - What is a Detailed Schedule?...Where you can assign resources that could be measurable and adjustable?