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Equipment usage

3 replies [Last post]
Jimm Litschewski
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I am trying to put together a production schedule and the most significant limiting factor is the availability of test equipment. I have two test racks (Rack #1 and Rack #2) and at each rack can test only one unit at a time. How can I set up my MS Project schedule such that I can assign both test stations to the testing steps and let project determine which one is available to use? I thought I could put them in a group and let project pick from there, but I don’t know how to assign the group to the task. Also, is there another way to define test equipment as a resource instead of as a personnel type resource? I would think there is a difference but maybe there isn’t. Let me know if you need more clarification on my issues ;)

Replies

Jimm Litschewski
User offline. Last seen 17 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 18 Jun 2007
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Thank you Alexandre and Brian. You’ve given me some good ideas and confirmed what I thought about the way Project handles equipment. It seems to be a bit of a weakness but I think I can make it work.
Brian Ultican
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Joined: 10 Jun 2007
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There are those that like to use Material resources for this kind of thing but I have never liked that approach since material resources were designed to model the consumption of materials (wood, cable, cement, etc). The rationel that I have heard is that using material resources for this kind of thing does not add Work hours to the task the way a Work resource does. In Project if you assign a work resource to a 1 day duration task (with all the defaults set) then the assignment will add 8 hours of Work to the task. A material resource will not do this.

However, Material resources cannot have calendars and availablity. They are assumed to always have unlimited availability and this does not match up with your situation.

I would create a Work resource called Test Racks and give it a Max Units value of 200% (because you have two of them. Then assign it to all the tasks you need to. If at any point the Test Racks resource is allocated more than 200% then you will need to reschedule some tasks. It would be up to you to decide which task uses which rack. Project will not care. If it is important to know which one ahead of time then create 2 resources, Rack 1 and Rack 2 with Max Units of 100% each.