seting up the manufacturing process with using ms project? any hel

[alper]

I am currently trying to conduct a manufacturing plan for the electrical
panels production phase in our manufacturing department. Up to now, we have
planned our manufacturing schedule with using ms office excel. so as you can
predict that our system is not as complex as any other production planning
system in which has been using with the big plants to monitor and run their
production schedule smoothly. our production panel planning based on coming
orders irregularly from our customers and also each order for the panels
completely different from each other. therefore purshasing the materials,
scheduling to finish dates and resource allocation(workers) between the
projects make the planning production system almost not applicable to any
other uniqe production planning software for our planning purpose! I belive
also with using ms project does not exactly fulfill our most optimizing goal
to monitor best planning stradegy. I would like to give you briefly
explaining our production phases within the multiple projects, tasks and
subtasks. In my project, there are some multiple projects like project A,
project B, project C……, also each project has some subtasks (we are producing
electrical panels, so in project A there are several panels to be produced.
Also each panel has 3 production phase. 1 purchasing the materials 2
manufacturing the panel 3 logistics. So we only just want to know how many
workers we should assign into manufacturing stage and how we should
balance(assign) the workers into each panel to produce and also within the
projects. Our total number of workers are 20. we do not want to know that
assigning number of workers for stage 1 (purchasing the materials ) and stage
3 logistics. Manufacturing stage is the only one primary target to focus on.
But we also would like to see the other phases (1,3) in our forecast plan.(
in ms project 2003 regarding each project’s finish dates and their date
links(slack and lags) ).to just want keep the relationships between each
panel and its subtasks also between projects…
ms project schedule style gives us a enough flexibility to schedule and
monitor manufacturing phase more efficiently with regards to leveling
overalocations among the multiple projects which get start at the same time.
lastly, we do not spare extra budget for buying a new costly software. I
also believe strongly with using ms project as a planning tool in our system
provides partly monitoring and scheduling the panels more efficiently than
before(excel).

I need your kindly advise and any comments which are useful for me to coduct
the ms project into my manufacturing planing set up.

Question 1. if I choose the check the effort driven box in manufacturing
stage for each panel task and also uncheck the effort driven box for the
other 2 stages (1,3) for each panel task, it can be the solution to keep
focusing on assigning worker for only manufacturing stages in each panel and
giving 0 value( decimal) to max units in stages (1,3) to be able to see
finish dates of panels( and also project ).

Question 2. in my case using the resource pool is the best way to handle
this whole project?

On the other hand, if there are 7 projects and each project has 5 to 10
panels how can I see and run those projects and their panels (also their
stages) as one sheet in ms project 2003

question 3. how can I use critical path method to adjust and level
workers(resource allocation) in multiple projects get going at the
manufacturing site.
(we only control over manufacturing process(phase 2)
but also phase1 and phase 3 should be on the ms project plan in order keep
the whole integrity strong enough to monitor project finish dates.
Is there any alternative way to run this whole project other than using
resource pool method????

my e-mail addres: (e-mail address removed)
alper

thanks

 

[davegb]

I am currently trying to conduct a manufacturing plan for the electrical
panels production phase in our manufacturing department. Up to now, we have
planned our manufacturing schedule with using ms office excel. so as you can
predict that our system is not as complex as any other production planning
system in which has been using with the big plants to monitor and run their
production schedule smoothly. our production panel planning based on coming
orders irregularly from our customers and also each order for the panels
completely different from each other. therefore purshasing the materials,
scheduling to finish dates and resource allocation(workers) between the
projects make the planning production system almost not applicable to any
other uniqe production planning software for our planning purpose! I belive
also with using ms project does not exactly fulfill our most optimizing goal
to monitor best planning stradegy. I would like to give you briefly
explaining our production phases within the multiple projects, tasks and
subtasks. In my project, there are some multiple projects like project A,
project B, project C......, also each project has some subtasks (we are producing
electrical panels, so in project A there are several panels to be produced.
Also each panel has 3 production phase. 1 purchasing the materials 2
manufacturing the panel 3 logistics. So we only just want to know how many
workers we should assign into manufacturing stage and how we should
balance(assign) the workers into each panel to produce and also within the
projects. Our total number of workers are 20. we do not want to know that
assigning number of workers for stage 1 (purchasing the materials ) and stage
3 logistics. Manufacturing stage is the only one primary target to focus on.
But we also would like to see the other phases (1,3) in our forecast plan.(
in ms project 2003 regarding each project's finish dates and their date
links(slack and lags) ).to just want keep the relationships between each
panel and its subtasks also between projects...
ms project schedule style gives us a enough flexibility to schedule and
monitor manufacturing phase more efficiently with regards to leveling
overalocations among the multiple projects which get start at the same time.
lastly, we do not spare extra budget for buying a new costly software. I
also believe strongly with using ms project as a planning tool in our system
provides partly monitoring and scheduling the panels more efficiently than
before(excel).

I need your kindly advise and any comments which are useful for me to coduct
the ms project into my manufacturing planing set up.

Question 1. if I choose the check the effort driven box in manufacturing
stage for each panel task and also uncheck the effort driven box for the
other 2 stages (1,3) for each panel task, it can be the solution to keep
focusing on assigning worker for only manufacturing stages in each panel and
giving 0 value( decimal) to max units in stages (1,3) to be able to see
finish dates of panels( and also project ).

Question 2. in my case using the resource pool is the best way to handle
this whole project?

On the other hand, if there are 7 projects and each project has 5 to 10
panels how can I see and run those projects and their panels (also their
stages) as one sheet in ms project 2003

question 3. how can I use critical path method to adjust and level
workers(resource allocation) in multiple projects get going at the
manufacturing site.
(we only control over manufacturing process(phase 2)
but also phase1 and phase 3 should be on the ms project plan in order keep
the whole integrity strong enough to monitor project finish dates.
Is there any alternative way to run this whole project other than using
resource pool method????

my e-mail addres: (e-mail address removed)
alper

thanks

I'll caveat myself by saying I didn't have time to read your entire
thread. I read parts of it and came to the same conclusion I usually
come to in these circumstances. MS Project is for planning projects.
Manufacturing processes are not projects. Can you somehow bend it to
make it fit? Probably. But my experience is that you spend more time
bending than you'll receive benefits for.

You mention that conventional production management software won't
work in this application. My guess is that you'll have to bend it less
to make it work than you will Project. Project wants a start and a
finish. CPM is based on that premise. I can't really help you apply
this because I believe that as soon as you overcome one problem,
another will pop up. You'll end up "pounding gophers" like at the
arcade.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi Alper,

Having had the opportubity of looking into the depth of the complexity of
most production softwares, I am totally convinced your decision to rather
use the more straightforward MS project ids the right one. Yes, a project
has a start and a finish but so have your projects - the order date and the
delivery date.

This beoing said, here are some answers to your questions.

Question 1. Yes, this is a solution to manually distribute the resoruce load
over the different orders.
Question 2. As long as you have different project files you have to use a
pool.
To have a total view of all tasks in all projects, open the pool with the
third option ("Pool and Sharers") and Project will open for you a master
file allowing you to explore tasks as if there were only one project.

Question 3. This is not a matter of critical path method but of resource
leveling. There are several ways to exclude phases 1 and 3 from the
leveling:

- Insert a column "priority" in a task view and give the tasks you don't
want to see leveled a priority 1000
- Or, in a resoruce view, insert a column "Can Level" and put it to "No" for
the specific phase 1 and phase 3 resources.

This may sound far away if you never used leveling so in that case first
look up the help on that proces.
Hope this helps,

 

[alper]

--
alp

Hi Alper,

Having had the opportubity of looking into the depth of the complexity of
most production softwares, I am totally convinced your decision to rather
use the more straightforward MS project ids the right one. Yes, a project
has a start and a finish but so have your projects - the order date and the
delivery date.

This beoing said, here are some answers to your questions.

Question 1. Yes, this is a solution to manually distribute the resoruce load
over the different orders.
Question 2. As long as you have different project files you have to use a
pool.
To have a total view of all tasks in all projects, open the pool with the
third option ("Pool and Sharers") and Project will open for you a master
file allowing you to explore tasks as if there were only one project.

Question 3. This is not a matter of critical path method but of resource
leveling. There are several ways to exclude phases 1 and 3 from the
leveling:

- Insert a column "priority" in a task view and give the tasks you don't
want to see leveled a priority 1000
- Or, in a resoruce view, insert a column "Can Level" and put it to "No" for
the specific phase 1 and phase 3 resources.

This may sound far away if you never used leveling so in that case first
look up the help on that proces.
Hope this helps,

Thanks for reply about seting up the manufacturing planning process with
using ms project.
we are just currently using ms project 2003 version. But also i have
downloaded the trial version of ms project 2007.
After testing planning process, we are going to buy the latest version of ms
project server hopefully

I am very glad to hear from you (as an ms project expert) that ms project
system can be applied to our manufacturing system to monitor and allocate
resources within our multiple projects.e
Also you noticed that each project has a start and finish date so our
projects have an order and delivery times. Approaching from this point of
view, ms project gives us a rigth feeling that our planning needs are met by
ms project logic. Furthermore, tracking the our manufacturing planning system
from gantt chart is the most handy way. monitoring the other useful charts
and tools within the ms profect are more attractive features when comparing
with the costly and not useful production softwares.


if you have time and do not mind that. I have several question about ms
project details in my case.

1. in your reply, you mentioned the using the priority feature for
excluding the phases 1,3 to not effect on balancing the manufacturing
phase(2) resource allocation.
what do you think about using effort driven option boxes are unchecked for
the tasks in phases 1,3 for to not effect on resource allocation and leveling
in phase 2( manufacturing)

2. currently I am using ms project 2007 version on my pc, I know the main
idea about how to conduct resource pooling into the projects. But I am not
the advance user about resource pooling subject. could you please explain
little bit more about ( To have a total view of all tasks in all projects,
open the pool with THIRD OPTION ( "POOL AND SHARER") and project will open
for you a master file allowing you to explore tasks as if there were only one
project.......!!!


3. lets say we have only 20 workers total in our manufacturing department so
we also want to know daily basis monitoring the workers for the task
assignments in multiple projects as you know. so is there any way to see in a
column in the gantt chart or the other charts in ms project.we basically want
to see the workers avaibilities and allocations every day to make leveling
between the projects and task. i hope you understand what i explained.


many thans again
i am really grateful to your valuable help.

Alper Kosgan
industrial engineer
(e-mail address removed)