maximum of 5 units produced at any one time

[JulieD]

Hi All

been asked by a friend as to whether or not project can help them in their
company. The company's basic purpose is to produce pulley's and associated
components and they want to use project to schedule the production of their
orders right from tender through to send out invoice stage.

i know that by definition a project has a defined start or finish date & is
producing a unique outcome and that project isn't the tool for a continual
production line - but in this case, if each "order" is treated as a project
& they use a resource pool i can't see why project can't assist them with
the scheduling and the generation of realisic delivery dates (which is one
of their prime needs). However, the bit that i'm stuck on is how to deal
with the situation where more than one pulley is ordered in one order. 1
pulley takes 16wks to produce, if 2 pulleys are ordered at the same time it
can also take 16wks but it might not - based on how many other pulleys from
different orders are being produced at the same time - the factory can
produce a maximum of 5 pulleys at any one time. The other additional
factor, which i'm not sure that project can deal with is that the factory
works 2 x 8 hr shifts a day, however, if they are busy (>3 pulleys in
factory) then they ramp-up to 10hr shifts (2 x 10hr shifts a day).

My question is basically, is project going to provide anything really useful
to them? is there a better product on the market? has anyone had experience
using project in this type of environment? any ideas how the 5 in the
factory & the 2 shift length possiblities can be handled in project? if
project is suitable (to a useful degree) which version would be best for
them to purchase - they currently have a mix of 98 & 2000 which aren't
actually being used. If they go for 2003 i think they will have to upgrade
their hardware / operating system, but i'm not really sure on this point.

Any comments would be appreciated

Cheers
JulieD

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

Start with Excel. With a scenario like this, you always have to work out
what's important and what's not. Use the simplest tool first and if it can't
handle it, then why not? I suspect that a database should be your next step
(EG Access). Project can be used as a scheduling tool occasionally, but
Project isn't designed to store data long term and would require skilled and
careful updating.

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Rod Gill
Project MVP
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development services
visit www.projectlearning.com/

 

[JulieD]

Hi Rod

this is currently being tracked in excel - the main limitation there is that
a change in one thing doesn't automatically result in a change in everything
else and this, of course, is one of project's strengths. Also if the guy
who is currently managing the excel spreadsheet is asked a question along
the lines of, we've tendered for 5 pulleys and it looks like its going ahead
when could they be delivered given a starting date of july 1 he's got no way
of simulating / producing this information from his excel spreadsheet.

i've proposed a solution along the lines of - each pulley is a separate
project file with the processes required for its manufacture (including
resources and predessors), additionally there is a tender process file and a
post production process file. There is also a resource pool file and the
resources for each part of the process are taken from the resource pool.
I've created a resource called workshop with a maximum availability of 500%.

when a new tender comes in a new project file is created for the order with
the tender process as one phase, each pulley that the order is for as
another phase and at the end the post production phase (these are copied and
pasted in from the "template" files) - so an order with 1 pulley has three
phases and order with 5 pulleys has seven (whether or not the pulley's are
the same type or not). Links are created between the first phase and each
of the pulleys and then end of each pulley and the post production phase and
the file is saved under the tender number.

This new tender file is then inserted into a master file along with the
other tenders & orders-in-progress ... the file is then levelled and all is
well when changes are made the project is re-levelled etc.

i feel that this will, for a start, provide a better solution than they
currently have - i am now looking at using VBA to automate the "setting up
phase" where they can choose the type & number of pulleys in each new tender
& project automatically inserts (copies & pastes) the information in with
the tender & post process phase, saves the files & inserts it into the
master - haven't got very far with this as i've not done any serious
programming with project before and i've only spent about 1/2 hr today
playing with vba - hopefully i will get some time over the next couple of
days to do this.

The main "outstanding" issue that i then see is that of the "ramping up"
concept ... i'm wondering if again using VBA i can automate the master file
that when the workshop resource reaches 300% that the working time for the
workshop increases to the 10hrs from the 8hrs automatically until the
resource useage drops below 300% ???

any comments / advice / warnings would be appreciated.

Cheers
JulieD