Consumable resource leveling capabilities of scheduling software
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Does this mean these the software can level consumable resources, or they just make a warning of some over allocation?
Oracle Primavera P6:
- Adding Resources - Use this task to add resources to the resource pool. Resources include the personnel and equipment that perform work on activities across all projects. Resources are generally reused between activities and/or projects. Resources can be distinguished as either labor, material, or nonlabor. Labor and nonlabor resources are always time-based, and material resources, such as consumable items, use a unit of measure you can specify.
Asta Powerproject:
- http://catalystusa.com/wp-content/docs/WP-2011-Allocating%20Resources%20for%20Construction.pdf
- We use resources to allocate materials. We can also use materials in this way to track stock levels. To do this we use a different type of resource called ‘Consumable Resources’. They are allocated the same way as other resources but have slightly different properties.
Deltek Open Plan:
- http://www.fplotnick.com/CPMinConstructionManagement/DeltekOpenPlanManuals/DeltekOpenPlan35UserGuide.pdf
- Consumable – An individual resource that can be consumed or “used up” over the course of a project. Building materials such as bricks used in a construction project are a typical example of a consumable resource. Units of consumable resources that are not required during one period of availability are carried forward to the next period. For example, assume that the availability of bricks is defined as 3,000 units on a particular day. If the requirement for the bricks is only 2,000 units on that day, Open Plan carries forward the remaining 1,000 units to the next day.
To figure it out we can try resource leveling the following consumable resource scenario [Bricks/Cement&Sand] that is unfeasible unless all are leveled or constrained.
58 replies
Oldest first- 0Anoon Iimos ·
I'm not sure why you had a
I'm not sure why you had a debate on "consumable materials" (bricks installation in particular), while keep on giving wrong or misleading examples. This is the problem with "sample only", considering theory. It always lead you to believe that what you are doing is correct. However, when the time you come to realize it (or hindsight), you might start to believe that what you did was totally incorrect. As "bricks installations" are not just bricks and mortars. Of course you will need scaffoldings, crane if you are working on high rise, rebars where necessary, stiffiner columns or beams, portable mixer for mortar if manually mixing, or ready mix supply, etc.,etc.,etc. Please remember that theories are always different from realities. Or nothing is certain in real world. So again, Forget about using "Retained Logic Only"! - 0Anoon Iimos ·
IMHO, The difference between
IMHO, The difference between Engineering, Construction and Project Controls (Planning and Scheduling in particular), is never understood until today. WHY? Simply because the process is always forgotten. For example: Engineering has "Basic Engineering" and "Detailed Engineering"; and going forward to "Construction Operations", you still need to develop the so-called "Shop Drawings" and "Method Statements" (which are basically part of detailed engineering). Now, let me ask everyone: How do you usually develop a certain "Construction Schedule"? Or where do you base your "construction schedule" from. Perhaps 99.99% of you will say: You just copied your schedules from previous projects or you were just given samples of similar projects from peers. Now, still wondering why your schedules are always wrong or never followed by people in the fields? The fact is: To develop a detailed construction schedule (material resources included - of course without even mentioning leveling) is only a DREAM! Most of the time, the only thing a scheduler can do is make a guess or assumption. So what do you think would be the output using a software (and resource leveling for that matter)? Kindly check your bins please? - 0Rafael Davila ·
The following resource
The following resource leveled schedule can showcase different production rates and what happens when planning for all installation activities allows splitting.
Not leveled schedule showing materials overload.
Leveled schedule allowing for activity splitting.
Leveled schedule not allowing for activity splitting yields a longer duration schedule.
- 0Rafael Davila ·
As Vladimir said before –
As Vladimir said before – “Manpower shall be leveled but it does not mean that the best solution minimizes idle time of all trades. Fast execution of the critical activities minimizes project duration and indirect costs. Additional indirect costs may be higher than the cost of resource idle time. Resource optimization has constraints like certain target dates and criterion (usually overall project cost). So an approach that minimizes resource idle time does not always lead to the best solution”.
Say delivery 2 is delayed 3 days then what is best action to prevent delays?
Under such delivery schedule better allow for more than 2 bricklayers [16h/day], if availability is increased to 4 this will allow for more than 2 activities to be scheduled at the same time.
- 0Rafael Davila ·
Johannes,Yes, I have uploaded
Johannes,
Yes, I have uploaded a large image and hope that this is better readable.
- I downloaded it and is still unreadable. The missing information is still missing.
- Instead of using “print-screen” I get better images by printing a report into PDF, then using my PDF editing software I export the PDF to jpeg, finally I crop the jpeg and post the image. For Powerpoint png yields better results.
- Please post the XER file of the model you already have. It does not make much sense not to use XER files.
- That would make everithing easier and will solve most of the basic issues.
But I also conclude that at the same time the manpower histogram for the bricklayers is not adequately leveled.
- Please be specific, we can verify hour by hour the histogram.
- We level resources not effort; this could yield unfeasible leveling if using partial workloads.
I consider that the labor resources should be leveled or smoothed taken into account the constraints on the material delivery and go for the best-suited option.
My model, as you can see, is designed to have a permanent un interrupted work process for the bricklayers, with a minimum of “lost time.”
- We are talking about my specific model not yours.
- I took my time with your model, I deserve you do the same and follow my model requirements.
- My requirement is to allow for interrupted bricks installation, not so for cement plaster.
- We consider intermittent scheduling for bricks installation desirable; otherwise a simple change of the condition for activity to be splitable as shown in column 10 of my figure, from Yes to No would be enough to get such undesirable schedule.
- No doubt we can disagree on whether allowing for splitting or not for all or just a few. For purposes of my scenario the descision is to allow splitting on some activities. At home we would never delay installation of some materials such as bricks. I would appreciate if you follow the requirements of my model, otherwise the conclusion would be P6 cannot handle such simple scenario, so common at home, unless by manual methods, by brute force.
Once again thanks for your cooperation to this discussion, without you it would probably be deserted.
Best Regards,
Rafael
- 0Rafael Davila ·
Johanness solution is
Johanness solution is overloaded, easy to verify if calculating materials/day and keep cumulative values to calculate inventory levels - please click following link for a PDF you can download.
Or take a look at the following worksheet.
- 0Rafael Davila ·
You said - This is easy in
You said - This is easy in P6. You can specify different max.time/time Per calendar.
But what happens when the delivery is not fixed by calendar dates but by the finish of some predecessor activities? This I use for modeling of Spatial Resources such as flying forms for elevated slabs that must remain in a building until structure is completed and last pour can be stripped. A common resource in all my jobs.
Spatial Resources Presentation Hyperlink
About skills I use them frequently in combination with multi-resources so that 2 low skilled resources might be automatically assigned in substitution of 1 highly skilled depending on availability. Multi-resources are convenient when different crew size and productivity is not linear. Also because resource can have different calendars I use it to automatically replace one crew for another depending on the season the work is scheduled/re-scheduled. This is necessary for some Monte Carlo runs where you cannot make manual adjustments.
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