Great response Rob
SQL because it is plays into my skill set. I've read some stuff about well
VBA this OLE that,
or Access. No thanks. Not when SQL is an option.
"Distributed actuals" represent the need to include what we call our Value
Stream Managers to
be presented with a task list and then update the actual work for those
tasks. (I hope they can
signal tasks as complete as well.)
Truely the best way to think about this is how it actually goes down on the
shop floor.
The famous question " How much do you have left "
How many hours of work does the value stream manager have left to complete
that task.
Ideally we would like to ask him that every day and let him update his
tasks.
As he is a manager as well, he may have some flexability in terms of how he
orders his tasks,
whether they are part of the critical path or not or parallel tasks. That is
often dependent on the
custom nature of a build and it's varities.
This concept is in conflict with what many view as scheduling. But in truth
the root cause of any ability
to move forward in terms of scheduling and what we are trying to do in
project is that the Projects do not
reflect reality close enough, it lacks concurrency. By bringing the
production plan closer to real time we
can get the accuracy we need to use it as a finite scheduling system. Right
now by the time folks get around
to updating them they are out of date. I don't want to roll out a bar code
real time collection system to get this
done, it would be a total bloat.
(I just need a knife not a food processer, because the knife I can use in
the woods)
For example. Reschedule, level a few times, get a nice plan. then by lunch
something has happened
which demands one of our huge expensive finite resources is going to be
reassigned to a different
task, every production plan would has the opportunity to be impacted by
this. The task that got
bumped would show zero progress on a day one would expect to see 10 hours
actual. Our Project Manager,
manages the variance and rescehdules. His managing of the variance and
rescheduling is only as valuable
as the accuracy and concurrency of the actuals.
In order to recover the actuals from a Value Stream Manager everyday I
envision a task bar docked or web application
that the Value Stream managers fills in his best estimate on how much is
left. These guys know that daily.
The company thinks they know that a week in advance, sometimes they do
sometimes they don't.
The rate of change is too rapid and our buffers cannot be that big.
Thus he takes on the role of a status manager for his range of tasks he is
reponsible for.
Our shop manager can then have an upto date project to work with.
So really that is why SQL because I don't believe there is an Data Provider
for Project,
is there? That would be real funny. I swear I looked for one.
