Hi Everyone,
I am levelling the resource in P6 but I dont know if it is correct one or not. Let me explain.
I am looking at the "Resource usage profile" and I see that in some remaining columns, there are overallocated units. Then, I am clicking on levelling button and nothing is changing. (I am not preservingearly and late dates and I am leveling just this activity.) After then, I am changing the finish date manually to a further date and I am clicking on the levelling button again. The result that I am able to level the resource by this way manually.
Do you think that I am levelling correctly?
Let me explain the sitution in detail and simply,
I have excavator as resource and Default unit time is 1 unit/day. The activity finishes on 30-Nov-2012. For november I have budgeted unit as 30 units. However, I have remaining 24 units for November now. (Because of the less actual work). So I need 17 units more. When I am clicking on level button, nothing is changing. (When I am levelling, I am not preserving the finish date and I want to make the program to take the finish for a forward time) When I am changing the finish date as 16-Dec-2012, then I am levelling and the program is levelling the resource. I am wondering that if the program can level the resource by changing the finish date?
Raymund,
As you read in my message, I am not able to do it automatically. In my planning, I have 208 activities and most of them need resource levelling. I am able to do it manually but it is not working well. Therefore, I want to make the program to do it automatically. Do you have any suggestion for me?
Resource Levelling in P6 is very simple to use. It is functioning well.....
The user just need to research on how to arrive with the best results.
I am not a P6 user but believe you can, maybe you set up your options for resource leveling to stop and disclose unfinished resource leveling if it would delay project duration. It is a matter of changing your settings but I don't know the details of how it is done in your software.
My software of choice does not provide an option for uncompleted resource leveling, I believe it to be on purpose as to prevent users to follow erroneous practice.
I consider that one of the most important things when resource leveling your job is to keep activity sequence unless slippage requires to make changes in activity sequence to get your job back on track.
I use Spider Project and have the option to select among several resource leveling algorithms, no matter which I initially use, for subsequent updates I use the option of an algorithm that will level resources keeping the actual activity sequence.
If on every update you change activity sequence your people will get confused. It is not uncommon for people that use software that lacks this functionality to suggest manual resource leveling, because of this some software developers go as far as advising against the use of their own software resource leveling.
Thank you for you help Rafael.
Now, I got what I am doing. I tried to correct it while finding a good practice, but I could not. So, how can I use a good practice for levelling? How can I make the software level my activity automatically?
Seems like you are trying to perform resource leveling but the software cannot finish the job. If you are using incomplete functionality that stops when the availability of resources delays project duration you are doing incomplete resource leveling, you are not following good practice to display a schedule that is resource feasible. You are hiding or pretend to hide your delayed schedule without solving the issue, a very dangerous approach.
Suggest using the functionality to get off your back the Owner when the project is behind schedule but not without using a second schedule where you can look for a solution that either solve the issue or keep the schedule behind but not as much as initial condition. At least you need to know where you stand.
I am not against the functionality as it can be used for some good if you do not stop there. I can see very limited use of this functionality when you can assign extra resources when the lack of resources is simple.
It is considered bad practice to mix manual resource leveling with software resource leveling.
Some of our CPM specifications prohibit use of incomplete resource leveling [I agree] and require you to disclose resource feasible schedule similar to the requirement of using the scheduling option for "retained logic" and forbidding "schedule override" [I also agree].