Resource Product & Resource Working Hours

Abdel Eljaroshi
June, 2010

Resource Product & Resource Working Hours

PRIMAVERA P6 APPLICATION STUDY
Releases 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 7.0
By:
Abdel Eljaroshi
Project/Program Management Specialist
AApM MPM CIPM CPE - CSE SEOP

Resource Product Concept:

A resource product (
ோ ) is the result of work time a time-based resource (் ) spends, using material based
resources (ெ ) in an activity (), and the result of the amount of work for this resource in the activity is
measured by the need for this resource to produce a certain amount of the product, therefore measured
with a material unit of measure, where the resource product is the result of the amount of work done by
resources working in the activity, and the combination of the resource efforts will result in a material
product.

The idea is to compensate using man-hours to calculate time based resources effort, and use resource
product amounts to calculate the required time for a resource to finish an activity.

Work, duration, and performance:

Performance is the number of hours a time based resource is able to produce in a time period, in the
Resource Product, performance is defined as the amount of work that a time based resource can produce
in a time period.

 
 ()


  =
 
()

  = 
  


  
∴  =


Brick wall example:

A worker uses cement, bricks, and sand to build a wall, and he spends a considerable amount of time on
the activity, the resource product of this resource is the brick wall. Measured in longitudinal meters with a
constant height, the worker produces 2 meters of this wall per hour, and the worker's work hours for a day
are 10.

Therefore when we apply the performance equation:


  
 =


10 ℎ
 = = 10 ℎ,  = 2  / ℎ
1

2 × 10 20
∴  = =
 

Applications:
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 Resource Product & Resource Working Hours
Abdel Eljaroshi
June, 2010

From a practitioner's point of view, applying this concept will be helpful in measuring resource performance
based on work quantities, and this will be applied using scheduling software Primavera P6 Project
Management Module.

Primavera P6 Project Management Module:

When working a project in Primavera P6 PM, you'll enter resources to the program in 3 steps:

1st Step:
Apply Resources Requirements Analysis planning process (according to PMBOK project management
process groups) A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Fourth Edition.

2nd Step:
Enter and organize resources in Primavera P6 PM Resources Screen, and define resource details: ID, Name,
Type, Performance (Default Units/Time, Max Units/Time), Calendar, Price/Unit.

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 Resource Product & Resource Working Hours
Abdel Eljaroshi
June, 2010

3rd Step:
Assign resource to activity from Activities screen, Activity Details, Resources tab, and after that enter
amount of work required from the resource in Budgeted Units column.

Our focus will be on step 2:

1. In choosing the resource type, we have: Labor (time-based for worker), Non-labor (time-based for
machines), and Material (non-time-based for materials), here our brick worker will be a material
resource
2. When applying the change, the Unit of Measure field is activated to choose a unit of measure for
this resource, and the unit of measure we need to choose is the unit of measure for the resource
product.
3. The performance fields (Default Units/Time, Max Units/Time), are filled out according to the
performance equation.
4. The Price/Unit field will contain the price the worker charges for one unit of the final product, where
our brick worker here charges 1 USD/m.

After applying the previous guidelines, step 3 will require the total amount of work to complete this project
according to the resource product concept, and to complete the example, let us say that the total length of
our wall will be 200 meters.

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 Resource Product & Resource Working Hours
Abdel Eljaroshi
June, 2010

Practice:
When applied, this concept facilitated conveying a construction project's Bill of Quantities into Primavera P6
PM, and working through resources to prepare work invoices based on BofQ items.

Also when applied, the concept made following resource productivity easier then charging them by the
hour, and time-based hours that had no work in them were easy to see, and fix.

Advanced research:
The concept is approved to work theoretically and practically, and under development research, to support
the concept of Resource Product and to replace time-based concept.

References:
1. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Fourth Edition.
2. Fundamentals of project management - By James P. Lewis.
3. Project Planning and Control Using Primavera P6 for All Industries - By Paul E Harris.

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