Introducing Project Control - Resourcing and Procurement

A successful project execution requires that the right resources, services, and materials are available. With this scope item, project demands can be used to manage that, beginning from early planning stages, when some details are not yet known. You can then assign people to project demands to fill their timesheet, or trigger and monitor the procurement of services and materials.

This scope item enables you to plan, trigger, and monitor procurement of materials and services that are required for a successful project execution. This upfront procurement planning aligns with the work packages to ensure on-time delivery of the requested materials or services.

This scope item has native integration with procurement process.

The benefits are as follows:

• Plan procurement of material and services upfront and out of your project.
• Support the alignment of dates between projects and procurement.
• Monitor procurement from project perspective.
• You can select Demand Type for a demand category while creating a demand. You can select the Demand Type as Service or Service with Limit for demand category Services and Non-Stock Material or Non-Stock Material with Limit for demand category Materials.
• You can select an option to limit value in currency using the two new fields: Expected Value and Overall Limit for Service with Limit, or Non-Stock Material with Limit demand types.
• You can request a demand when a work package is set to released status. A new demand status, Request on Work Package Release, is introduced to facilitate this feature. This is applicable for the Manage Project Demand app.
• You can use a situation to get informed automatically when a project demand request fails when the work package is released and demand status is set as Request on Work Package Release. Using the notification displayed on the demand list page, we can navigate to the affected demand request and take appropriate action, such as manually requesting the demand. This is applicable for the Manage Project Demand app.
• You can use a situation to get informed automatically when a project demand close fails when the work package status is set to completed and demand status is not closed. Using the notification displayed on the demand list page, you can navigate to the affected demand request and take appropriate action, such as closing the demand. This is applicable to the Manage Project Demand app.

A Demand represents a certain need at a certain time and location.

A demand enables you to plan, trigger and monitor the procurement of materials and services for your projects and work packages. Prior the actual procurement, demands can be defined as a part of project planning activities. These demands can then be used to trigger and monitor subsequent procurement of material and services.

Demand Categories:

The demands are grouped into two main categories:

• Service Demand - includes services.

• Material Demand - includes non-stock materials.

• Resource Demand

Note

The demand category Resource Demand with the demand type Direct Staffing is made available in the Manage Project Demand app. With a resource demand of this type, you can plan project demands for human resources by WBS element, cost center, and activity type. Once a demand has been defined, you can assign resources to it directly within the demand, and monitor the actual efforts recorded during project execution.

Note

All the demand categories (material demands, service demands, resource demands) which belong to a project or WBS element are available as a consolidated list in the All Demands tab in the Manage Project Demand app.

Account Assignment in Projects:

A demand is not a separate cost object or a separate structure element in the project structure. This is an assignment to a project or work package. When a demand is requested, account assignment of the purchase requisition item to the respective work package is carried out automatically.

Purchasing Processes:

A purchase requisition item can be created to trigger external procurement of materials or services. The purchase requisition data is then used to create one or more purchase orders. The purchase requisition item number that is mapped to each requested or closed demand of a project or work package is displayed in the Manage Project Demand app. It can be used for monitoring the procurement in the Manage Project Procurement app.

Demand Handling for Non-stock Material and External Services:

When a demand for non-stock materials and external services is requested, based on the demand category (material or service), a corresponding purchase requisition item is created for further purchasing processes.

Create a Demand:

Every demand is distinguished with a unique identifier. Based on the selected project or work package, demand start date, demand end date and plant for service demand and demand date and plant is automatically updated for material demand from the assigned work package. A demand ID is generated which is unique to a work package ID.

To define a demand in Created state, only the work package and Demand ID are mandatory. This enables creation of demands early in the project planning phase. Additional fields like planned delivery time and other procurement related information become mandatory when you want to request a demand (trigger procurement). When a material number is entered, certain values under Procurement section are auto populated like valuation price, planned delivery time (in days).

Note

Net Demand Value is calculated using the valuation price per unit and the demand quantity.

Upon entering all the details, you can save the demand. However, if you do not save the demand, all your entries are automatically saved and is available in a draft version with the initial status Created. You can access the draft demand from the list of demands, and subsequently save the changes to trigger the procurement

Copy a Demand:

You can create a new demand by copying an existing demand. When you copy an existing demand, the ID of the new demand is automatically generated by the system. It derives the following values from the existing demand: project or work package details, plant, material, material group. However, the follow-on documents (purchase requisition) are not copied. You can edit the details based on your requirements and set the demand status accordingly.

Demand start date and demand end dates are populated based on the assigned project or work package dates.

Edit a Demand:

You can edit a demand in Created status from the corresponding object page.

Note

You cannot edit a demand which is in Requested status.

Close a Demand:

You can close one or multiple demands which are in Created or Requested status from the demand list page.

Note

On closing a demand in Requested status, the corresponding purchase requisition item is also marked for closing in purchasing.

Delete a Demand:

You can delete one or multiple demands which are in Created status from the demand list page.

You cannot delete a demand which is in Requested or Closed status.