AnyPlan3D for Resource Management
A successful plan relies on a match between the scheduled activities and resources to execute the work. The optimal allocation and prioritization of the right resources is therefore a key part of integrated planning and scheduling. With AnyPlan3D you can apply resources to a plan, visualize and measure the cost, utilization and available capacity across projects, work orders and portfolios of projects and plans. With AnyPlan3D ‘s in-memory live portfolio management capabilities provide categorised views across projects, activity types, product development and departments.
Resources for Integrated Planning
AnyPlan3D is setup to manage standard resources such as departments, teams, people, equipment, machines and supplies. Resources are defined in terms of their costs (fixed and variable), capacity, calendars. Any number of custom attributes can be added such as competencies and skills.
Custom resources can easily be developed to suit any industry need and managed in the same intuitive visual resource catalog.
Organizational Structures
AnyPlan3D helps manage resources in a structured way. Since all AnyPlan3D data is part of an in-memory network Resources are also managed as a network and can be presented as a hierarchical list or a tree view. Many AnyPlan3D customers import Resource identities from an ERP system, often as a simple list. AnyPlan3D allows a resoruce manager to re-organise these to match a project or departmental structure.
Resource Calendars
AnyPlan3D is the first integrated planning and scheduling system to focus on the importance and impact of calendars. In AnyPlan3D Calendars are part of the in-memory network. As well as determining when activities can be scheduled they are also used to determine when a resource can work on an activity or work order. AnyPlan3D Calendars can be defined for organisations, departments or individuals. They can be linked together so that an individual calendar can inherit from a departmental calendars. This helps to keep the calendar data accurate and easy to manage.
Resource Views and Charts
The impact of resources, and their availability on projects can be seen in AnyPlan3D through the use of real-time charting:
Resource visualisation is a continuing theme for the future development of AnyPlan3D.
Features for Resource Management
Most of the features and modules decribed in the Products section are relevant to AnyPlan3D for Resource Management. Availability will depend on whether the planners need access to projects, work orders and portfolios but resource management is generally common across all planning domains.
In some installations features such as Resource Profiles management may be hidden to keep the functionality simple and relevant to the end users. Organisational calendars can be set to be editable only by administrators to protect the integrity of calendar data that is applied to the majority of projects and resources.
Capacity and Constraints
Resources are not only defined by their names, costs and capabilities. They also defined by their capacities and constraints such as availability and location for a particular task or project.
AnyPlan3D provides clear visibility of resource capacity against allocation. AnyPlan3Dcan perform this analysis across single projects or portfolios of project by, for example, department. AnyPlan3D can also provide visualisation of conflicts such as teo vessels that are planned to load at the same quay at the same time.
Resource Profiles
AnyPlan3D can also handle complex resource requirements. For example, resources may not be applied evenly over the course of a long activity within a project. This may be true for large projects or for activities that are planned at a high-level. In this case a non-linear profile can be created for a resources so that the hours and costs can be applied at different rates across the activity.
