In Manufacturing, Mining and many other industries, bulk commodities are received or delivered in batches or parcels of various sizes and with various properties.
Businesses are often required to schedule the usage of these commodities in quantities which differ from the deliveries. Often commodities are used on a First In First Out (FIFO) basis, or they may be scheduled to meet certain input qualities, ie: Constant or Min/Max of an input quality.
This post will give some basic ideas for this type of scheduling within Excel.
Scheduling First in First Out Usage
Unlike my previous posts, this post will not be walking the reader through the actual scheduling or setup of the worksheet, but will look at each section of the scheduling process and discuss the relevant points where appropriate with reference to the implementation in Excel.
The Scheduling Workbook, Page Sched1 shows a simple FIFO schedule using an Iron Ore mine as an example.
Each section below is highlighted in the sample workbook.
Section 1. Inputs
Various parcels of Iron Ore are presented in order of delivery to a plant or as mined.
Each parcel is of a different sizes (Tonnage) as well as having various qualities of 3 different properties, namely the Iron (Fe), Silicon (Si) and Aluminum (Al) content. These are expressed as percentages but could be Kg/t etc.
Parcels may further be categorized as High, Medium or Low Grade.
From a production point of view it is important to know how much feed is required to meet a certain output from a process or what the quality of mixtures will be.
Section 2. Production Schedule
The mine/plant has a production schedule, ie: a quantity of Iron Ore that it is expected to mine or process every month. The schedule may have ups/down to reflect shutdowns, holidays, changes in rosters/workforce etc.
Section 3. Schedule
This part does the mechanics of the actual scheduling, allocating parcels of each block until the monthly requirement is met.
In operation it takes the minimum of the size of each parcel minus what has already been processed from that parcel or the production requirement minus what has already been processed that month.
This is done using a simple Min and Sum formula.
Example: K18: =MIN($C18-SUM($I18:J18),K$6-SUM(K$9:K17))
Conditional formatting is used to highlight the cell as a scheduled cell (tonnes > 0)
Example: Conditional Formatting, Cell Value > 0
Section 4. Reporting
Reporting can be prepared for Month by month production, Cumulative from the start or Remaining until the end.
Sum and Sumproduct formula are used to calculate weighted average for elemental grades as you have the quantity of each parcel, each month and the associated grades in the input areas.
Example: Cumulative %Fe in April 10, K36: =SUMPRODUCT(K$10:K$31,$E$10:$E$31)/K$35
More complex Sumproduct formula are used to report by various classifications.
Examples:
Used High grade tonnage in march, J53: =SUMPRODUCT(1*($D$10:$D$31=$I52),(J$10:J$31))
Used Medium grade %Fe in April 10, K59: =IF(K58>0,SUMPRODUCT(1*(($D$10:$D$31)=$I57)*(K$10:K$31),($E$10:$E$31))/K$58,0)
Section 5. Charting
Having produced a schedule and associated reports you now have a large amount of data which can be plotted to suit requirements.
The Next Step
Once a schedule has been achieved you can feed the production quantities directly into a budget or other downstream system as required.
Scheduling Random or Planned Usage to Achieve Goals
Although the above example, Sched1, is simplistic, First In First Out schedules can and are used in real life. However often some degree of stockpiling is allowed.
This means that parcels can be used in a different order to which they are delivered.
Often this is done so that the input quality of the feed source is varied or maintained, ie Averaged at a level, maintained below or above a level or maximised or minimized according to constraints.
The Scheduling example file, page Sched2 offers a simple manual way to account for this.
Sched2 varies from Sched1 in that it allows manual selection of the order in which parcels are processed.
This is done by simply allowing the user to specify which order parcels will be treated.
The spreadsheet then does all the work with the added benefit of tracking stockpile levels, as often these must be maintained at certain levels.
The spreadsheet has the same reporting and charting functions available as in Sched1.
Summary
In both the examples the scheduling is done using simple, Sum’s, Min and Max formulas.
The actual scheduled production is highlighted using conditional formatting.
The reporting is done using Sum and Sumproduct formulas.
In both examples adjust the values in the various Yellow cells and watch the scheduled tonnages and qualities change.
Next
The purpose of this post was simply to introduce the reader to simple options for scheduling.
It is clear that you now have a simple process from which to derive inputs to a budget, tracking and prediction reports
The post doesn’t attempt to go anywhere near optimization of the schedule using linear programming or other techniques.
However you can see that the addition of Excel solver may be possible to attempt to balance or minimise or maximise outputs, but this is beyond this simple example.
Functions Used:
Min: =Min(Range) returns the Minimum number from the Range
Max: =Max(Range) returns the Maximum number from the Range
Sum: =Sum(Range) adds the values in the Range
If: =If(Condition, Do this if condition is true, Do this if condition is false)
Sumproduct: http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/11/10/excel-sumproduct-formula/
How do you Schedule your production scenarios? Let us all know in the comments below:
Next week: Word Art – Yes it has a use !
49 Responses to “Project Management Dashboard / Project Status Report using Excel [Part 6 of 6]”
[...] display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource management Issue Trackers & Risk Management Project Status Reporting – Dashboard Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project [...]
Excellent!
I was looking forward to this and you've done it again...Shame I can't claim it was all my own work 😉
ps hope you're getting enough sleep
Excelent !!! Tks to share your knowledge with us.
Izabel
Sao Paulo - Brazil
Nice job!.
I'm also keen on PM Excel Dashboards. Please, take a look at
http://screencast.com/t/TyaxH5r4mDf
That's one example of my Project control Spreadsheets.
Cheers
Hi Miguel,
Do you share your PM Excel Dashboards? It looks awesome.
Regards,
Germán
Hi M. Miguel,
Can you share your Excel Dashboards? Awesome work BTW.
Regards,
Michel Levesque
Can you share the PM excel template?
[...] haired Dilbert hat zum Abschluss einer Artikeserie zum Thema Projektmanagement mit Excel eine Anleitung zum Bau eines Projekt-Dashboards veröffentlicht. Ein Dashboard ist eine Visualisierungsform für große Mengen von meist [...]
Quite a nice and helpful article. I am sure excel is one of the most used application across many many big companies. And your info on project status update using excel would surely be usefull. Keep up the good work on this blog site. Also to share there are some open source flash-based graphing and charting solution which caould also be used on any project..
http://askwiki.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-create-quality-charts-using.html
@Alex, Izabel .. thank you 🙂
@Miguel: Thank you. Your dashboard looks very good. It is inclined towards the budget and finances of the project. I have kept those aspects out of this series. May be I will revisit the financial aspect of projects at a later point.
@Rishil: Thank you. Yes, you can create flash based charts (or even simple image based charts) and embed them in a project dashboard that can be published to the team using intranet (like sharepoint). This is how large companies usually do it. Thanks for sharing the Askwiki article.
Great looking dashboard!! Do you have a version for the Mac versions of Office available?
Thanks
Chandoo,
this is great piece of collating info.I liked it and shall try using it in office.
Thanks for the all hard work behind this.
Chandoo,
Kudos. This is really as simple as it gets for laymen. We did this sort of stuff in Consulting - but this can now become really simple for people. Will have my team look at this! Great work.
thanks,
Mrigank
[...] I suggest reading my 7 part series on project management using excel. Starting with Excel Gantt Charts to Project Dashboards. [...]
Just downloaded the project management template bundle...great!
Have you done anywork on a Project Portfolio Dashboard template?
@Bw... Thanks for getting a copy of the templates. 🙂 I have worked on few assignments where we built such templates. But these are similar to other regular dashboard templates. I will share some of these ideas in a later post someday. Meanwhile if you have any ideas on how to structure project portfolio dashboard, let me know using comments or email.
[...] to display milestones Time sheets and Resource management Issue Trackers & Risk Management Project Status Reporting – Dashboard Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project [...]
[...] display milestones Time sheets and Resource management Part 5: Issue Trackers & Risk Management Project Status Reporting – Dashboard Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project [...]
[...] to display milestones Time sheets and Resource management Issue Trackers & Risk Management Project Status Reporting – Dashboard Bonus Post: Using Burn Down Charts to Understand Project [...]
Thanks fro the great ideas! To get a sense of the layout and design of a Dashboard more geared toward Cost and Schedule anaysis, check out the example Dashboard at http://www.ProjectDashboards.com which was built entirely in excel.
hey,
i just need a simple Chart where by i can show some of the projects by % wise. no dates required.
1st column Project name and 2nd column will be status (filled with %). can you pls help me out.
Thanks.
@DS... if you have excel 2007, you can use data bars in conditional formatting for this purpose.
Hi Chandoo - this series is an excellent resource and tutorial, thank you for sharing.
When I sat down to consider what my dashboard should look like, one of the most important features for me is to be able to maintain version control and to show simply on what version is on display.
Apart from the naming convention of the file name, is there a good way to do this within a dashboard? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!
@Larph: Welcome 🙂
> You can do version control thru Macros (but always remember that your audience can disable macros)
> Another option is to use a static time stamp / version number in the title page of dashboard that you update manually whenever you make changes to the file
> In excel 2010, you can keep track of file versions from File menu. This can be used to select a previous version of dashboard.
> Best option is to use a version control system like SVN or upload files to Sharepoint or something like that. This will take care of versioning for you (although it is a bit technical and dashboard audience may have difficulty figuring the versions out).
> The easiest option is to use filenames and the CELL() formula to get the version number (or date) from the filename so you can show it on the dashboard.
Hi Chandoo... I'm following you from Brazil...
I would like to thank you for the tips about excel, mainly with dashboards ... It helped me a lot …
Take care...
Di
On the dashboard when I print, the text is blanked out in the middle of the Issues list - suggestions on how to fix?
[...] Project Management Dashboard in Excel [...]
Hi Chandoo, do you have an equivalent Project Management Dashboard / Project Status Report for MS Office 2010?
As a Microsoft trainer I'm interested in your choice of Excel for project management. I'm assuming that you've tried Microsoft Project and have decided not to use it? We get folks on our MS Project courses who've tried to use Excel for PM purposes and none of them have made such an impressive project plan, but I wonder is it worth all the effort?
This looks very interesting. How may I be a part of this
Does this template work in Google Spreadsheets?
Many thanks for sharing your expertise with us. Keep up the good work 🙂
Heya i'm for the first time here. I came across this board and I to find It really helpful & it helped me out a lot. I am hoping to offer one thing again and aid others like you helped me.
Hi Chandoo,
Your PM dashboards impressed me so much that I've downloaded the Portfolio and Project Management package. All of the documents look very professional.
I was going through the Portfolio dashboard and I had a question.
When I enter in additional holidays they are highlighted in the gantt chart. Is it possible so that the name of the holiday shows up in the highlighted area of the gantt chart.
Thanks
Adam
[...] Project Status Dashboard [...]
[...] Project Status Dashboard in Excel [...]
[...] Project Management Dashboard in Excel [...]
can you confirm that the downloads will work on a mac - excel for mac v14.3.6
thanks
Made a slight variation on the schedule sheet,
1. Add a date column for start
2. In week column cell use =weeknum() and link to date cell
3. Hide week column
When you enter in a date for each task the week number is populated accordingly
simple but more effective, you can also dynamically link the date cell to your MSP project file for even more automation!!
I purchased a copy of the project management dashboard excel file. I misplaced the password to unlock the file and make modification. Can you please resend the password.
Thank much in advance...
Hi there! I just would like to give you a big thumbs up for your great info
you've got right here on this post. I'll be returning to your website
for more soon.
I bought ur project management template just want to know how to hide the budget section from portfolio?
Hi, Thanks - very good job you've prepared!
You've inspired me as well 🙂
Best regards
Hello!
I am using a gantt chart template which i got from your website. All is good just when I add all my acitivities in data spreadsheet and then go back to gantt chart to view them, I only see first 9 and then I need to keep scrolling for the next ones. is it possible to see most of the activities if not all in the single frame.
thanks for answering!
This is my first time pay a visit at here and i am actually happy to read all at alone place.
I am interested in your dashboard; downloaded the locked version, unable to use it...do you have a user guide that is available that I can see and use on the locked version?
Please send me daily newsletter
Hi,
I downloaded the PM dashboard and the gantt chart only has dates till the year 2016. How do I change this to include 2017 FY as well.
When I enter a activity for this year , it fails to show up on the chart.
Hi
Would.like to purchase the project management .kits
Pls share the payment link in INR
Also share your contact number to speak with you
Regards
Hari
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