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activity as a resource

5 replies [Last post]
Cc cglr
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Hi!

For example I have an activity of "preparing one serve soup" with resorces 0,5 lt of water, 3 tomatoes, a pinch of salt, 1 hour cook etc. 

Then I have another activity "preparing a dinner for 6 persons" I want to insert that "preparing soup" activities' resources 6 times by simply adding to dinner activity. Because I have houndreds of different activities with  thousands of resources. but it will be manageble if I can insert activities in each other as resourses. Then if somebody tell me "no you have to put two pinch of salt to the soup" I dont have to go through all other dinner activities with different number of guests and change all salt resources.

now I am computing the amount of resources in excel for each activity and inserting in the program. Is there any easy solution?

Replies

Rafael Davila
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Joined: 1 Mar 2004
Posts: 5229

> Material [consumable resources] assignment can be defined as a function of servings [per unit volume] as shown on rightmost pane. 

> If you do not plan enough stockpile the software will tell you when you run short and of what ingredient as per pane in front of rightmost one.

> If need be the model can be expanded to include different recipes for a single event, materials [consumable resources] can be grouped in material sets for easy assignment ..

T_Soup photo T_Soup_zps9sr5ufaj.jpg

Rafael Davila
User offline. Last seen 1 day 1 hour ago. Offline
Joined: 1 Mar 2004
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What will happen if you have materials for 20 servings a dinner for 10 and another for 15.  You will only be able to make it for one of the events, the second must be delayed until there are enough resources.  Or are you going to schedule for 20 and leave five hungry in the middle of the activity?

Modeling consumable resources is a very different thing, perhaps unknown by many whose software is incapable of modeling consumable resources. You shall model consumption as well as replenishment, this cannot be done using regular renewable resources.

Also I do not believe P6 have the functionality to model multi-resources as for you to simply adjust multi-resource quantity and see total individual resource quantities on a report. 

You can substitute the skills of the tomatoes by the Habanero, you can substitute a tomato with two Habaneros.  Not sure about the use of skill replacement here. LOL.

If you do not have the capability to correctly model consumable resources then I suggest define those as resources not to be leveled and manually solve over allocations while allowing other resources to be leveled.  It is kind of primitive but better something than nothing.

Make sure in your model you allow for the tomatoes be shared among the recipe for the soup and the spaghetti tomato sauce. To me all tomatoes are equal, I am not a good cook.

Scheduling Dinner using CPM schedules, no matter how fan of it I am, does not makes much sense to me, I would rather use Excel for schedules you draw without CPM logic. 

Zoltan Palffy
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what you can do is have one resource called "preparing one serve soup"

under that main reouces you have the other ingredients that comprise the main resource

i.e.

"preparing one serve soup"

           0.5 lt of water

          3 tomatoes

          a pinch of salt

         1 hour cook etc. 

 

now if you want it for 6 people add this resource 5 more times to the same activity

 

what you are esentially asking for here is a crew Mix or a compound resource

Rafael Davila
User offline. Last seen 1 day 1 hour ago. Offline
Joined: 1 Mar 2004
Posts: 5229

For a start water, tomatoes and salt are not renewable resources but consumable resources.  P6 cannot model consumable resources therefore you might not even know the difference.  What they call material resources is essentially a label, in no way a model of consumable resources.

http://www.pmknowledgecenter.com/node/104 

Quantity of materials is related to volume of work [how much soup or how many persons] but again P6 do not model volume of work in any way.  Do not pretend it can model consumption by resources if it cannot even do the basics. 

By the way I want my soup spicy, you also forgot the Habanero chili.

Mike Testro
User offline. Last seen 6 weeks 10 hours ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 4418

Hi CC

You have forgotten the basil leaves - lightly crushed.

Best regards

Mike Tetro