P6 Leveling Resources - How to make it?

Hi,

I wrote some article reagarding Leveling resource in P6. If you're interested kindly read it here:

How does “Level Resources” in Primavera P6 work? : https://doduykhuong.com/2016/06/30/how-does-level-resources-in-primavera-p6-work/

How to Level Resources / Resource Leveling without changing Project Finish date in Primavera P6 : https://doduykhuong.com/2016/07/15/how-to-level-resources-resource-leveling-without-changing-project-finish-date-in-primavera-p6/

 Chris et al,

When you examine these two statements of yours together:

- these guys are long term PM's with extensive experience 

- the POB/resource constraint aspect is something they have real trouble get their heads around.

do you not notice a certain contradiction?  I mean, experience of what exactly? Clearly not projects with a POB/Resource constraint?

It is only FOUR YEARS since I last went through the arithmetic of crirical path analysis with someone whose title was "Project Manager" on a $100m project.  This was prompted by his request to one of the planners to overtype the "Float" column with something more acceptible. 

Pre Artemis? Absolutely. Not quite blackboard and chalk but we did have to hire the biggest commercially avaiable mainframe in Europe.  

Clearing out the attic last year I found my scalpel blades and various colours and thicknesses of Dymo tape. A VERY flexible way to make a bar chart, but a little time consuming by today's standards (unless you use MSP)

Chris,

as Rafael wrote in his post adjusting activity duration and corresponding resource assignments is available in Spider Project.

And Spider Project calculates resource constrained floats and shows Resource Constrained Critical Path.

So look at this software if you need this functionality and proper resource constrained scheduling.

Thanks David (and Vladimir and Johannes)

I do appreciate your comments and confirmation of my understanding.

The reply gave me a laugh (in a good way).  Not sure about the "uneducated audience" aspect though - these guys are long term PM's with extensive experience,  but the POB/resource constraint aspect is something they have real trouble get their heads around.

It is a battle that we will continue to wage.

1976?  Before Artemis! You would have still been using tracing paper?  Interesting times .

Thanks again.

Chris,

Adjusting activity duration in response to changes in resource availability is something any PM, even if a rookie will do manually if the software he uses does not help. But manual adjustments on many such activities can be impractical and inefficient.

What you are asking is possible if using other software, it have been available for decades.

At times the increase or decrease in production rate is linear and at times it is not, both scenarios can be modeled, this I do everyday using Spider Project. The following illustration shows the simple case where the relationship is linear, the difference in duration is huge, in addition the difference in resource idle times is also huge.

For the case where the production rate is non linear we simply define the alternate crews each with their own production rate as a multi-resource and set them as belonging to a same skill. The software will select the most productive available skill multi-resource and will adjust the activity duration accordingly. Very easy, intuitive and transparent if using the right tool.

Best Regards,

Rafael

Hi David,

You are entirely correct, resource constrained scheduling in a properly constructed schedule gives the best opportunity to stay on target.

Do you remember the first tankers coming at Christmas 1977, to take first oil from the S.A.L.M? I was on the tanker conversion site in Cornwall.

Good old times

Johannes

Well said, David!

Chris,

This is a familiar problem.  The "critical path" is very often the only tool with which the uneducated audience can understand the schedule.  I well remember my first Oil and Gas job, the Thistle hook-up in.... 1976(?)  there were 7500 activities in the plan, and when it was time analysed the job only took 3 days.  Trouble was that meant having just over 5000 men living offshore, and we had accomodation for 700. The critical path was irrelevent to the execution schedule, resource levelling using System as priority was the solution.

This is an education problem in my opinion. If resources are scarcer than time, the critical path is a dangerous myoptic view of the challenges the project faces, which are not the red bars on the schedule, but the red bits on the resource histograms. 

Thanks David,

Thought as much.  Was casting a net to the planning community!

Your confirmation of my investiigation of the literature is very much appreciated. 

As a follow on,  would you like to have a consideration on how to represent  "critical path" for a bedding resource constrained schedule?  Logic is being interupted by bedding constraints.

Thanks again.

Chris,

P6 cannot "Stretch" (the 20th century P3 nomenclature) activity durations during leveling to help it ft the resource availability profile, nor can it "crunch" (i.e. reduce durations) to absorb the available resources by "up-manning".

 During levelling can primavera 8 smooth resources by expanding activity durations to meet resource constraints?

If it can, can you please point me in the right direction?

Thanks

Hi,

I wrote an article regarding How does “Level Resources” in Primavera P6 work?

If you're interested, kindly read it here https://doduykhuong.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/how-does-level-resources-in-primavera-p6-work/

Cheer

Hi Amir,

if you reschedule the project without telling P6 Professional to use the resource leveling option, the dates will return to their original position. In order to maintain the new dates for the schedule going forward, you have a few options:
Select the “Automatically level resources when scheduling” option in the Level Resources dialog.

 Set the “Level resources during scheduling” option in the Schedule Options dialog prior to
scheduling the project.
 

Hi everyone,

I have a problem with resource leveling in P6. when I do it, P6 will level all the resources, but it changes the strat date of the project even if i consider a constraint for it. additionally, when I Schedule it, everything will go back to the original status which means I will have the same scheduling with overallocated resources.

Any help?

Bests.

Hi everyone,

I have a problem with resource leveling in P6. when I do it, P6 will level all the resources, but it changes the strat date of the project even if i consider a constraint for it. additionally, when I Schedule it, everything will go back to the original status which means I will have the same scheduling with overallocated resources.

Any help?

Bests.

You are welcome.

Hi all,

does anybody know how to define not man-hours but real quantities of resources that you have?

And how to distinguish between two resource units assigned with 50% workload and one resource unit assigned with 100% workload?

If it is not possible then the results of resource levelling are not reliable when resources are not assigned full time on all their jobs.



Best Regards,

Vladimir

Hi Izam,



You need to set your resource "Man-hours" Max Units/Time. If you need 6000 Man-hours a month then you should have 200 Man-hours a day, considering 30days/month calendar. Try to calculate now using this as your basis.



Go to Enterprise --> Resources --> Resources Detail --> Units & Prices tab:



1. Effective Date

2. Max Units/Time

3. Price/Unit



Put the value in Max Units/Time (e.g. 200) Then you can see the "Show Limit" & "Show Overallocation" in the Resource Usage Profile.



Try this exercise and let us know.



Note: The value of Max Units/Time depends on the calendar you assign to resources.



Regards,



Arnold