durations and resources

[Steph]

I was wondering if there was a way to link durations with my resources. For
example, if I change an hour in durations I want project to calcutate that
one hour equals 1000 ft and change that amount of material in the resource
column. Is this a possiblity?

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Yes - when you enter the material consumption in your resource assignments,
instead of entering the total amount estimated to be used enter the *rate*
of consumption along with the time unit. An example would be video tape -
if you're using 60-min cassettes enter it with "1/hr" as the assignment
units. If the task is 6 hours it will calculate you'll use 6 cassettes, if
it changes to 8 hours the usage will change to 8 cassettes.

 

[Steph]

Thank you for responding, but I'm still a little confussed. Where are you
talking about enter material consumption and rate of consumption. I already
have the units to units/time but when I go into the Gantt Chart and change
either the units or the duration the other is not changing to match. I'm
going wrong somewhere... just not quite sure where.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Unlike work resources you can't change the materials and have the duration
change as a result. Changing duration, though, can change the total
materials consumed, depending on how you enter it in the resource assignment
to begin with.

Let's say your resource is fuel for a generator. The generator itself is a
work resource but the fuel is a material resource and the resource list will
have both entries along with the people working in your project. You would
enter the fuel in the resource sheet with the name would be "fuel," the type
"material," the material label might be "gallons" and the standard rate
would be the cost per unit in the material label, for instance entering
$2.00 in the standard rate would mean it costs $2.00/gallon. Now let's say
your generator uses 5 gallons per hour. When you assign resources to the
task that uses the generator you would include in the list "Fuel" along with
the people, etc, and in the assignment units column for the fuel you would
enter "5/hr" without the quotes. Now Project will multiply the task
duration in hours by 5 to determine the total gallons used and that in turn
by $2 to determine the cost of fuel for that one task. If the duration
changes later, it will automatically recompute the number of gallons for the
new duration. You can see that calculation in action if you split the
screen and in the bottom window right mouse and select the "resource cost"
form.

OTOH, the other way to account for materials is to enter the actual expected
total consumption of the material by the task using it. If you're doing a
100 metre long wall 1 metre high it will take the same number of bricks for
the wall regardless of how long it takes to do it. For that one, the
resource sheet would have "Bricks," the label would be perhaps "each" and
the standard rate would be "$1.50"" the cost per brick. When you assign
resources to the "Build The Wall" task the resource list would be "Joe
Bricklayer, 100%" and "Bricks, 5000" meaning it will require 5000 bricks for
the wall. Notice that the "/hr" is missing in this case, indicating it will
take 5000 bricks regardless of whether it takes 1 day or 1 week to build the
wall.


--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs