What are Resources and how are they used?

You have to do something to bring about the changes in capability and doing something requires the use of resources. Resources can be people, things like materials or equipment and services. They are defined on the Resources screen or imported through the file menu. There are four categories of resources that can be charged on a day rate or unit cost basis. With these four you can model any type of resource.

One or more Resources could be used in a Component for a design, as part of a Project carried out or Process performed. There also can be one or more people carrying out a Function, such as running something such as an office, a call centre, a post room etc.

For each of these nodes you can add delivery, sustainment and disposal resources to it. These nodes all behave in the same way and any information about resources applies equally to all of these nodes. You are able to change the type of node (through right clicking on the node and selecting 'Change Component Type) and this does not affect the resources attached to the node.

Resources can be used by a component during delivery (a set up phase before the component is ready), sustainment (the phase where the component is active during the lifetime a capability is active for) and disposal (after the capability has ceased to be active). You can specify how many of each resource are active during each of these phases separately.

Once resources have been created there are three different ways you can add them in to a model. They can be added as Delivery resources, Sustaining Resources or Disposal resources.

A Resource can be used to create or change a Capability and we call these Delivery Resources. They deliver new and changed Capability. Delivery is performed before a phase begins and you can specify how many days it will take for this to happen as "Days to Deliver". You can then specify the delivery units and the percentage of utilisation.

Once a Capability or part of a Capability has been created, then it may need a Resource to Sustain it. We call the Resources used to do this 'Sustaining Resources'. They sustain the capability. For Sustainment you can enter how many units of Resource are used there and at what level of utilisation. The duration of the sustainment resources is the same as the phases it is linked to in the Optimisation stage.

When a Capability is no longer needed, then some Resources may be required to clear up or dispose of it. We call the Resources used to do this Disposal Resources. They dispose of the Capability and are triggered when the Capability ceases to be active. You can enter the “Days to Dispose” and the number of units of Resource is entered and the percentage utilisation as well.

Resources are used whenever they are attached to a programme node that is “active”. In the diagram below the three processes will be active whenever I-1 is at quality level Q-2. 

The map also represents time, so the order of the processes going into CAP-1 shows the order in which they must be started. So for Prc-1 to be initiated Prc-2 and Prc-3 must already exist. Setting I-1 to Q-2 (Optimal) for phase 1 means that prior to phase 2 the three processes must have finished being started. 

  

Here the three processes each have a startup duration of 10 days, and a disposal duration of 6 days. The important thing to note is that Prc-1 finishes startup at the beginning of phase 2 and enters sustainment as shown below.
Since Prc-2 must exist before Prc-1 can enters startup; look carefully at the startup and sustainment for Prc-2. Prc-2 completes startup and enters sustainment before Prc-1 enters startup. Prc-3 does the same before Prc-2 as the map shows Prc-3 must exist before Prc-2.

Note all nodes dispose at the point the capability ends, in this case at the end of phase 3.
However if phase 3 was the last phase in the model these resources would not be disposed, as disposal is triggered by a capability ceasing to be active at a point other than the end of the programme.

Selecting the Optimise button on the Realisor functions will take you to the Option Summary screen. This allows you to create options and set which Qualities are active during which phases (the programme phases should have already been defined in the programme overview tab – note that if an ‘accurate’ end date is required, please input this as an end date for the phase as entering simply 3 months etc may result in some rounding of dates).

You are able to create multiple options to allow you to compare different scenarios. You are able to edit the title and Description of the options. Once the options have been created, you can set the Quality level of Initiative Performance for each of the Initiatives for the phases. Consider the model shown to the left.

 

If you select Basic Quality during Phase 2, the Capability Cap 2 will be delivered during phase 2. Delivery will need to have been completed before the start of Phase 2, so that the capability is active and being sustained throughout Phase 2. The capability can be seen as being active by the marker on the capability.

In this example CAP-2 will have finished being delivered by  2012 Q1, and will enter sustainment and deliver benefit from the start of  Q1 through to the end of Q3. During that time it will consume the sustainment resources.  In Q4 CAP-2 is disposed as you no longer have the initiative at that basic quality, and benefit stops flowing.

To see how resource scheduling works in Realisor, please click here.