cost duration v work

[shawn]

is there any way to calculate cost based on duration instead of actual work? For example, I will have a crew that works 12 hours a day offshore. They are charged on a dayrate, therefore essentially I have to pay for the 12 hours they don't work as well. However, I can't get MP2K to give me a cost based on the duration of the tasks, as opposed to the amount of work

Thanks in advance

 

[Gérard Ducouret]

Hello Shawn,
Do you need to manage both actual work, and duration cost ?
It is not easy ...

Gérard Ducouret

is there any way to calculate cost based on duration instead of actual

work? For example, I will have a crew that works 12 hours a day offshore.
They are charged on a dayrate, therefore essentially I have to pay for the
12 hours they don't work as well. However, I can't get MP2K to give me a
cost based on the duration of the tasks, as opposed to the amount of work.

 

[John]

Shawn,
There are probably several ways to handle this and just as many
arguments as to which way is the best. One way is to simply set the work
hours to coincide with the duration hours. For example, if the task's
duration is 5 days (i.e. 40 hours) then set the work for 40 hours. Set
whatever the dayrate is to be equivalent to 8 hours work. For example,
if the dayrate is $400 then set the rate to $50/h. You don't care how
many hours a crew member works on any given day because you will have to
pay $400 for that day anyway, and for a 5 day task Project will
correctly calculate a cost of 5 x $400 = $2000.

John

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Shawn,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

If it is as simple as you describe, why not just double the Cost Rate you
apply to the resource?

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

 

[shawn]

There are certain tasks that may delay the work, where I will still have to eat the costs of the crews. Also I'm doing a cost comparison, and the rates for the 24 hour crews are exactly double the rate of the 12 hour crew. Therefore, I want to be able to accurately predict both scenarios. I'd like to make the comparison as baseline v interim plan.

 

[shawn]

I'm trying to ultimately compare two cost scenarios, and the work is fixed. However the durations are dependant on other factors, one of which is the working time of the resources (depending on if I have 24 or 12 hr crews available). Other example of extending duration w/o increasing work would be availability of an external resource (or lack of i.