Ressource leveling with task to do in last

[Paul]

Hello everyone, first of all please excuse my English, it is not my first language.

So I’m looking for help, my company is using ms project and is moving to new organization. The goal is to split the product (train) in a bunch of subassembly.

The planning need to reflect that. However the ressources allowed for each department (departments are not 100% related to subassembly : 4 departments for about 20 subassembly).

What I’m trying to do on my planning is to set up the tasks in their subassemblies, attribute ressources and then use the ressource leveling to organize the tasks.
But some subassembly need more time for design than other. I also want to make my procurement at the latest time (big parts so avoiding stock is important.
So I tried to put my procurement with a requirement that a task has to be done as late as possible. However when I do that the ressource leveling isn’t working and I got some ressources overloaded.

Any ideas how to deal with that ?

Thank you so much in advance for your help

[Anonymous]

Great question. I only have a little information, but let me suggest this. Set the procurement task as a successor with negative lag to the start date of the task needing the part. Then do not level that task. One option is to not level the procurement resource. That way it will land on the right date to whatever date the part is leveled. Hope that helps. Let me know if that doesn’t make sense.

[Paul]

Thank you very much for your answer.
My text was not clear enough, I Don’t really want to level resources on procurement (I created an unlimited resource anyway), but more so to the production that comes after that.
However, I tried the method you described, the problem I have with that method is that if there is delay it won’t be visible right away, let’s take an example so I make myself clearer:
Task Design 1 can start August 1st for 3 days with the limited resource “Designer”
Task Design 2 can start August 1st for 6 days with the limited resource “Designer”
Procurement task 1 (30 days) can start when Design 1 is done and need to finish when the production 1 start
Procurement task 2 (10 days) can start when Design 2 is done and need to finish when the production 2 start
Production 1 (3 days) start when procurement task 1 is done and need to be finished when assembly start
Production 2 (10 days) start when procurement task 2 is done and need to be finished when assembly start
The two productions tasks are using the same limited resource
Assembly (6 days) start when procurement 1 and 2 is done and need to be finished October 12th. The assembly use a different resource.
So, I have overload on my resources (designer and production).
Method 1: If I have set that my procurements and my production/assembly to be done as late as possible and I do resource leveling on my project, my designer will be leveled but my production won’t.
Method 2: If I organize my task the way you have been suggesting it will effectively “remove” overload but won’t maintain the arrangement of my planning, in the example given the assembly would start without the production 2 done.
Method 3: Using method 1 and manually level resourcing of my productions tasks. However, with a project over 800 lines with a lot of different resources involved it is a nightmare to do.
I think my need would be to have something similar to what Oracle software called backward leveling (or something similar). But so far I didn’t find an equivalent in MS Project…

Thank you for your time

[Anonymous]

OK, I’m losing you a bit on all the details but let me give you a couple of other suggestions. First thing to do is to define your required constraints. What has to be done before others with required lead time. Then what I usually do, because I know more about my tasks than Project does, is to use and set task priorities. Priority 1000 says do not level the task. 999 is high down to 1 is lowest priority. Then change the leveling order from Standard to Priority, Standard in your Leveling Options. This gives you control over what tasks you want Project to level first. Tips:
* Prioritize the entire project. Set leveling ranges throughout the project (Initiation-900’s, Requirements-800, Design-700s, etc.)
* Multiple tasks can have the same number so it doesn’t need to be an exact science. Start with groups, level the project, then tweak the results by changing priorities of certain tasks.

This should give you what you need. Required constraints are important, and then you have control of the project from there.

Hope that helps…

[Author]

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