

how to calculate the peak consuption of concrete with ms project

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Antonino Miragliotta
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Dear All,

I'm going to create a matirial resource concrete with standar rate  1/hr and assign for each concrete activities in the gant chart the  concrete resourse then in ihe unit I assign the quantity in cubic meter.  Afetr filter for concrete and see the spreadsheet.

Someone meet the same task could someone share or advice ?


Ashlyn angel
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Confused about calculating resource assignment in MS Project? Our in-house pro Chris Hubmann explains… MS Project 2010 – 2013 uses a standardised system for resource assignment calculations. These calculations rely on four values – work, duration, units and peak units.WORK Work is the amount of effort required by the resource(s) to complete the task within the allotted duration.DURATION Duration is the length of the task.UNITS Units are the initially specified proportion or number of resource(s) required to complete a task.PEAK UNITS Peak Units are used to calculate over allocation of resource. Peak Units and Units are related in that when a resource is first assigned to a task, whatever is specified in the Units field is replicated to the Peak Units field. Subsequently, if the unit value in an assignment is altered manually the peak units will change to match. However, if the work or duration values are changed in a task , the units value will never alter, but the peak units value will instead, and will then be the sole accurate indicator of the ‘unit’ value in an assignment for the purposes of determining over allocation. This can be rather confusing, and is a change from all versions of MS Project prior to MS Project 2010, but the basic principles of resource assignment still apply, only with an added dimension, Peak Units.At any point in time one of these three elements is fixed, and two are variable. When you change one of the variable elements Microsoft Project uses what you type and the value of the fixed variable to automatically update the other variable.For example, if the duration is fixed, when you change the number of units Microsoft Project will automatically calculate the work value. Alternatively, if work is fixed, when you change the number of units of a resource Microsoft Project will automatically calculate the duration.TYPES OF TASKS The element that is fixed determines the type of task that you are working with. For example, when you create a new task the default is for the Units to be fixed and the task is said to be a Fixed Unit type of task.Tasks can be:Fixed unit tasksFixed duration tasksFixed work tasksEach of the three elements are calculated by Microsoft Project (depending upon the type of task) based on an algebraic formula as shown:work = duration x units (peak units)duration = work / units (peak units)units (peak units) = work / durationA SIMPLE EXAMPLE Create a task with a duration of 2 days.Assign a single resource to the task using any technique. Observe that the standard values of Work Duration and Units are all in alignment and the correct as per the standard Project Work equation: Work = Duration * Units (W=D*U).MSProject1When we assign a single resource to this task it is assigned for its default Max Units value, in this case 100%. If we change the unit value manually in the task form Project behaves as it always has and recalculates the Work and Duration values as per the standard W=D*U formula. E.g.MSProject2However, if we change the task type to Fixed Work and change Duration, or Fixed Duration and change Work, the Units do not alter, and the equation appears to be incorrect. E.g.MSProject3This is because at this point, the Units have not altered but Peak Units have instead, Peak Units is at this point the correct unit value in the equation E.g.MSProject4If we manually change the Units value in the task form again, it will re-synchronise with the Peak Units value E.g.MSProject5   Check out ms project training institutes in Hyderabad with Certification
Rafael Davila
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Also keep in mind Microsoft Project resource leveling of resources with partial workloads is flawed.

It is possible that Antonio like many MSP users that realize how poor MSP resource leveling is have no other option than recurring to manual resource leveling.

Resource leveling for material resources or “consumable resources” is lacking in most American software and many schedulers do not understand it.


Like P6 it looks that MSP cannot resource level consumable resources and use the field “Type” for other purposes.

I found the following reference that I hope will be of help to Antonio.


Antonino, please clarify what 1 per hour means? Concrete consumption does not depend on activity duration. If for some reason activity finished later than expected it does not mean that more concrete were spent than planned.

Mike uses the software that has poor resource leveling capabilities and thus advises everybody to avoid resource leveling.

This is his personal problem, so don't be afraid to apply resource leveling though remember that MS Project does not level material resources.

Mike Testro
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Hi Antonio

Thats the best way to display the histogram.

If the peak is too high for your placing resource then move the non critical tasks to fill the troughs.

This is best done by inserting a dummy task called Concrete Production.

DO NOT use resource levelling as you will have no control over the changes.

If the peak is on th critical path then you will have to consider a different placement method.

Best regards

Mike Testro