Using Project for manufacturing

[J]

I have a question that I would like to get some opinons on.

I work for a door manufacturing company and we are wanting to use project to
analyze different sections of manufacturing and help us better track costs.
We build custom doors so most of the time we don't have the same doors going
in and out of our facility. One thing they have in common though is the
different stages they go through.

Is this one of the intintions for MS Project or am I asking too much. One
problem I see is that each section has several people working it so the
resources are not really people or at least one person. Can I make resources
that are not one person but several?

Thanks for your time and just a small return note telling me I'm on the
right track would help.

Thanks!

 

[John]

I have a question that I would like to get some opinons on.

I work for a door manufacturing company and we are wanting to use project to
analyze different sections of manufacturing and help us better track costs.
We build custom doors so most of the time we don't have the same doors going
in and out of our facility. One thing they have in common though is the
different stages they go through.

Is this one of the intintions for MS Project or am I asking too much. One
problem I see is that each section has several people working it so the
resources are not really people or at least one person. Can I make resources
that are not one person but several?

Thanks for your time and just a small return note telling me I'm on the
right track would help.

Thanks!

J,
Over the years I have seen various posts similar to yours and I have
also seen responses ranging from good results to poor results when using
Project for production scheduling. You might want to do a search on this
newsgroup and get an idea of other user's experiences.

One problem with using Project for production is that a production
environment usually has tons of variables and the schedule is in
constant daily flux. If a plan is developed at the detail level (i.e.
covering each operation), it often becomes so complex that just
maintaining it is a major effort. If planned at too high a level, it
won't capture the data necessary to improve efficiency. But then that's
really true for any Project plan.

I suggest this. Do some research on past posts and then if you already
have Project, give it a try. See how it is works for your needs.

With regard to assigning resources, Project has quite a bit of
flexibility. It will not only allow a single resource on each task but
multiple resources or grouped resources can be used if that is more
appropriate. For example, let's say you have 5 guys working the finish
area and 2 of them are needed for each finish operation. Let's also say
that all 5 guys are equally competent, that is interchangeable. In that
case it makes sense to define a single group resource, perhaps called
"finishers". On the Resource Sheet, set the Units for finishers to be
500%. If there is a difference in pay rate for each of the 5 guys, you
will need to use an average value for the Std Rate but it should balance
out in the big picture. If there is a large disparity between pay rates
and you want to keep track of costs at a detail level, then the grouped
resource approach won't work. However, you can still assign multiple
selected resources for any given task.

Hopefully this give you a starting point.

John
Project MVP

 

[John Sitka]

The great advantage Project has for Custom manufacturers is distributed (web kiosk)
task sheets and status updates in the Server version. Many full scale Manufacturing ERP systems
don't even include this, while some can achieve it via bar scanning as a data colection point. Custom often
means a whole lot of unknows (and worse cowboys running through your plant playing hero to keep their customers happy,
and screw everybody else) so if you can find out the reality of your present situation you can make good scheduling
decisions with bottom line company wide impact of those decisions.
An offshoot of capturing the ebb and flow of work on the shop floor is that with a simple coding system, any cost
evaluation is a data query away. This can blend with existing process/material/production/sales systems already in place.

Job A had 5 hours framing-2 hours finishing-1 hour packing. This is a simple audit after the production of Job A has been completed.
This then becomes your actual hours vs. quoted hours(revenue or operational)....mix that with the materials per Job A and voila,
done.
All enabled by real time recording of actuals from the shop floor on
task completion,
task change,
end of shift.

The closer you can get to real time status the more accurate and better performance the shop will have
because true limits to production are easy to spot. This discipline lets cost calculations be a non issue.
Just go use the information you had to gather anyway in order to time the events of transforming "materials and work" into
"product:"

So Project does the same thing as Project server, you would just need a way to record the actual status of the shop floor
and get it into the files. (Clipboard and running shoes come to mind).