If you are currently unaware of the individual labor resource performing an activity, it is possible in Primavera P6 Professional to assign labor roles to that activity as a place holder until later assignment of an actual labor resource.
Resources may be defined for labor, material, and equipment. Labor resources may be actual individuals or trade skills. In lieu of not presently knowing the exact labor person performing a task, assign a placeholder trade skill or role to that respective task. In this way it is possible to compute the project budget without having assigned any particular individual labor resources to the schedule.
Later when the project manager, or resource manager in a matrix organization knows the availability of project labor team members, these placeholders can be replaced with the individual labor resources in the project database.
This article demonstrates how to define and assign labor roles to work activities and later replace these labor roles with actual individual labor resources.
We begin with our demonstration project, Figure 1.
Figure 1
This project is for an underground pipe installation. Our project resources, Figure 2, are listed under the resource sheet parent quality engineering.
Figure 2
None of these resources have current role assignments.
Before we engage in the nuances of particular individuals performing the work, let’s create and assign trade skills to our schedule. To demonstrate creation of a trade skill, select enterprise | roles, Figure 3.
Figure 3
Let’s add a role to our construction trades & management (CT&M) parent role, Figure 4.
Figure 4
In Figure 5 we name our new role heavy equipment operator and assign the role ID HEO.
Figure 5
In Figure 6, we assign the resource Samuel Jacobs the role of heavy equipment operator.
Figure 6
We set a standard rate of $70/h for this role, Figure 7.
Figure 7
Note from Figure 2 that Samuel Jacobs has a standard rate of $70/h. Great! So our standard rates match. Finally, we set the limit of our HEO role to 8h/d, Figure 8.
Figure 8
This is equivalent to one resource working 8h/d.
We continue and set the resource, price, and limit attributes of the other CT&M roles. Let’s now pause to note the primary role assigned to each quality engineering individual resource in the resource database, Figure 9.
Figure 9
Now with our role attributes fully defined and associated with individual resources we are prepared to assign our roles to activities.
In Figure 10 we have our schedule task table, including budgeted total cost and role ID columns.
Figure 10
Highlight the Mobilize on Site activity and click add role in the resources bottom details frame, again, Figure 10. In Figure 11, we select all the tradesmen and foreman associated with the Mobilize on Site activity.
Figure 11
Note if we had four common laborers working on the project CT&M.CL would be assigned to the Mobilize on Site activity four times. This is because the resource to role correlation is many to one: only one of possibly many individual labor resources is assigned to each activity role. So you may have multiple resources available that you can assign to a trade, but each trade has only one resource assignment. In Figure 12 we have our Mobilize on Site role ID assignments.
Figure 12
All role assignments are shown in Figure 13, along with the budgeted total cost of the project.
Figure 13
We now have a schedule complete with role assignments.
Now we want to begin the process of assigning individual resources to our activity roles. Let’s first start with the HEO. Highlight the HEO and select Assign by Role in the resources bottom details frame, again, Figure 13.
In Figure 14 we see a list of all the individual resources we can assign to the backhoe excavate activity.
Figure 14
In our demonstration we select Samuel Jacobs. Say yes to the popup menus regarding price/unit and units per time of the new resource. Note the resource ID JacobsS is now associated with the backhoe excavate activity, Figure 15.
Figure 15
Summary
When first planning a project, you may not want to concern yourself with the exact individuals performing the work. It is much more efficient to assign labor roles to activities. And it is possible to define and assign trade skills or Roles to activities in Primavera P6 Professional.
Once the general plan, and, possibly, budget are known you want to proceed and begin the process of assigning individual labor resources to trades associated with respective activities. In this process, the activity labor role placeholders are replaced by individual labor resources.