Resource Group and Operations in Engineering and Construction Company

Kinetic ERP
1

Good day!
We provide engineering services and construction services. I am trying to setup my operations and resource group and I am clueless how they should be setup, and what would the impact be if I don’t define them properly.

More explanation through an example:
Example one:
Assume I am supplying manpower to a client at a charge fee. I could create a resource group for every job category (i.e. Surveyors, Draftman, Project managers, Document controllers)… is this correct?.. and if so, what would the operations be?.. should the operations be named the same (i.e. surveyors, draftmen, … etc.?)

example two:
Assume I am building a house. I could create a resource group for (painters, brick layers, site superintendent, site engineers, … etc.) is this correct?.. and if do, would hte operations be (wall paint, lay bricks, build wall, pour concrete, … etc)?

Thanks,

2

Hi Saeed!
Welcome! This is a big question! There are lots of other posts here where we try to figure out the best approach for assigning operations, resources, and resource groups. There are also capabilities, if you have the advanced planning and scheduling module.

The short answer is, yes. You can setup your groups the way you defined above. The long answer depends on your company setup. I won’t pretend to know the best way, but I find it best to get started somewhere.

Get into your pilot database, so you don’t make any mistakes on the live server. Setup your resource groups first. Think of these groups like tasks that only members of the group can perform. I think of resource groups as collections of similar machines, or collections of similarly trained staff.

In our company, Vertical Milling is a resource group. Within this group we have 16 individual machines (resources) that call all perform the same vertical milling task. We also have a resource group called milling operators that contains 12 people that can run a milling machine.

With this setup, when we schedule a job that calls for a resource group, the scheduling engine will look through all the resources and assign the next free resource to our job/operation.

Operations can make setting up a job faster by pulling in resource groups automatically. Operations often follow along with resource groups, but that isn’t a requirement. In our case, we have operations for many of our resource groups, but not all.

For example, say you have a operation called Vertical Milling. To do this operation, you need a machine from the vertical milling resource group, and you also need an operator from the milling staff resource group. Add the vertical milling, and the milling staff resource groups to the operation. (Without the APS module you can only have 2 resource groups per operation.)

Now every job that you add a vertical milling operation to, will automatically have the vertical milling machine, and milling staff resource groups assigned, and a resource will be chosen from each group when the job is scheduled.

Good luck!
Nate

2 Likes
3

Thanks a lot for the elaborate answer, and I sort of see what you are saying from a manufacturing or shop perspective. What I am trying to understand is how would this translate into a manpower supply contract, or construction contract. In a manpower supply it feels like I either need to create an operation for every job title, or i create one operation and call it ‘manpower supply’ and add all resources to it…

any thoughts?

thanks a lot

4

Hello @saeedsaeed!

Did you purchase the Projects module? If so, did you get the Advanced Billing option? Again, if so, the “Fixed Fee” advanced billing option seems to fit well with construction companies.

And project jobs will fit better than production jobs.

Mark W.

5

Hi, yes I have the project module, and am not sure if we have the advanced billion option… how do I find out?..
can you explain please how does this resource groups and operations?

thanks a lot

1 Like
6

Another way to look at how you set up your Resource Groups, Resources, and Operations is what data are you looking to collect, and at the end what data do you want to analyze? In your example of house construction, there is mostly a sequence to follow (you can’t do the framing before the foundation is poured), but some operations are more time-flexible than others. Do you need to know how many hours the painters took to paint this one house, or do you just give them one day and they can take 4 hours or 16 hours, as long as it’s finished that day? Do you want to use the Resource Groups and Resources as a scheduling constraint, or are you more concerned with just having the labor dollars captured?

1 Like
7

You can tell by looking at the Contract Tab and seeing if “Fixed Fee” exists in the dropdown:

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When selected, you can then create stages for billing (foundation, electrical, etc.) and bill as work is done.

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Finally, you create Phases, which are your Project Jobs.

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This is where Operations come in, and therefore Resource Groups. Ernie explained this well. There is the added ability to choose roles which can have different rates when billing customers.

It’s been a bit since I’ve used projects, but I recall that the Fixed Fee method was basically created for construction-like companies, although you could use others. As Nate said, your best route is to create demo projects in a test database and walk through very simple examples. Don’t try to design the complete system in one go.

8

Thanks Ernie,
What I am trying to do is monitor the expenses and be able to track it. We purchased all modules to have the full company operating using Epicor (from Sales, to Projects, to Supply chain, to accounting). and My understanding to have the project management fit in, we need to define the WBS, link it to the quotation line items, create job entries that has the estimated values, and then when time comes to place the order we simply release them.
In order for me to do the Job Entries, I need to define the operations and the resource groups…
The question that you asked about what data I need to collect and what data I need to analyze got me really thinking… and honestly… a bit confused …

If I am supplying manpower, and assume I am subcontracting some of these positions, then I need to create the job entry so that later on I can release it to create the purchase order… right? and to do the job entry, I need to associate it with an operation and a resource group…

please help…I feel I am complicating things and it looks like I am missing something signficant in my thinking process…

9

Thanks Mark!
Yes, I have the Fixed fee option… but isn’t this related to billing rather than to planning and filling up the estimated column in the project entry sheet? please see my response also to Ernie.

Thank you so so so much for all the explanation

10

Sure, but one should start with the end in mind. It’s easy to locally optimized for one issue and make downstream activities much more difficult. Get the big picture first and it will guide you on the smaller details later.

11

What you’re describing does not sound like it would need much detail in the Resource Group/Resource arena. Those series of settings are generally used more for scheduling constraints and the costs associated with operators and machines… whereas it’s more likely your costing is either known beforehand (you have a contract with your painters) or estimated somehow and then updated when you get invoiced. I’d start looking more at how you’d use WBS phases within the Project structure, and jobs related to the phases, but with a minimum of Resource Groups and Resources.

What version of Epicor are you using? If you’re on Kinetic 2021 or sooner, look through the Intro to Project Management Education Course for a pretty good discussion of how the functionality works which you can start applying to how you want to enter and see your data (there isn’t yet a Kinetic Hands-On course.)

12

Hi Saeed
I am supplying manpower to a client at a charge fee
We can do this activity in Epicor as followings

  1. Create a SO for the Manpower Supply and then manually create a Invoice. this way you are not capturing cost related to Manpower
  2. To capture the cost we can go through Job Entry wherein what you have mentioned is correct
    I am building a house.
    In this case best solution will be to go with Epicor Project Managment Module which will enable you to create different phases of project Laying Foundations, Erection of Beams and Columns. Wanted to check if you are into manufacturing as well? Some of the other things that might come into considerations is how finance team wants to recognize the revenue and cost.
    Hope did not complicate the solution, but to understand the whole picture need some clarifications