Auto assign a resource from a group during leveling

[rjgmich]

Hi: My question is about resource leveling (assigning tasks to a machine).
I have 3 machines - all identical. All run 24 hours/day. I also have about 10 tasks (each independent of other). Each task can be done by any of the 3 machines. (The duration of each task is different, though. Some require 10 days, others require 3 days, etc.)
I want MS Project (version 2003) to do the leveling for me. I want it to pick one of the 3 machines to one task, and then another machine to second task etc. It should do the "machine leveling" for me, meaning it can put tasks in such order that machines are fully "occupied".

IS THIS POSSIBLE? IF SO, HOW?

 

[PDQBach]

You actually have two questions here:

1. Leveling the work load so that the machines are as fully occupied as possible

2. Using a 24-hour calendar.

Let's start with the first question. For the purpose of this discussion, a machine (M1, M2, M3) is a resource. It appears to me that you want to be able to have MS Project assign the first available resource (machine) to next incoming job.

That's not possible. Well, it's not possible in MS Project (though it is, obviously, possible in linear programming). In project schedules, you (as the PM) have to assign resources to tasks.

As a workaround you could simply add the task 3 times (let's call them Job73-1, Job73-2 and Job73-3), assign M1 to Job73-1, M2 to Job73-2 and M3 to Job73-3 and then ask MS Project to level. Once you see which of those three tasks has the earliest start date you could delete the other two "dummy" tasks. If you try that, though, you'll find that leveling doesn't always put your new task at the end ... in some cases, it will actually put it as the next task to do and bumps any unstarted tasks off into the future!

You can overcome that by using priorities to make sure that existing tasks are scheduled first but this is starting to get very messy -- so I don't recommend this approach.

So what it comes down to is: you add the task; you review the workloads for M1, M2 and M3 and then assign the "next up" of those three to the task.

I'll answer your second question later. Right now, I'll wait for your comments on my discussion above. This sounds a bit like a homework question so I'm curious to hear what the official answer turns out to be.

 

[procygnus]

You will need a finite scheduling software package - not a plain old project management package like MSP.