Task Auto Assignment

This chapter covers the following topics:

Overview

This chapter explains the use of Oracle Project Manufacturing's Task Auto Assignment feature. Task Auto Assignment gives you a flexible way to specify how to track material and resource costs by tasks within your project rather than manually specifying tasks on your manufacturing transactions. Task Auto Assignment dynamically assigns tasks to manufacturing transactions based task assignment rules you define.

The Task Auto Assignment allows you to specify a set of rules for assigning tasks to inventory, WIP, and WIP material transactions. Based on these rules tasks are automatically assigned to project material and resource transactions.

Task Auto Assignment - Schematic diagram

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Task Auto Assignment has different criteria for creating rules. These are:

Material task assignment criteria:

Resource task assignment criteria:

WIP Material task assignment criteria:

For a given project, you can use any combination of the above mentioned criteria to define a rule for a particular task.

Whenever a project related material or resource transaction is recorded, Task Auto Assignment compares the conditions for that transaction with the pre-specified rules for the project and automatically assigns the task. For example, if you want to monitor the usage of certain critical raw material for a project, define a rule that links a task to that material. Wherever a transaction for this material occurs, it is charged to that task.

A similar rule on the resource side would assign a critical operation to a separate task in the project work breakdown structure.

A rule on the WIP material side would assign the issue of a common component to multiple parent assemblies.

The following sections explain how to use this feature, the benefits of the Task Auto Assignment feature and illustrate some examples where this feature could be effectively deployed.

Material Task Assignment

The Material tab region of the Task Auto Assignment window lets you associate a task with an item, procure flag, PO number, item category, and subinventory. Task Auto Assignment looks at the item, whether the item is procured, or the PO number, category, and subinventory of a material transaction and finds a rule that matches the transaction. It then assigns a task to the transaction.

If more than one rule matches the values of some of these fields, the Task Auto Assignment feature looks for the rule that corresponds to the highest-priority field, which is the field that appears on the left. For example, suppose you've defined two rules for Project P1:

Project Task Item PO Number Category Subinventory Procure
P1 T1 A 101 - - -
P1 T2 A - - Stores -

When you deliver PO#101 for item A into Stores, Task Auto Assignment matches the transaction with the first rule (and therefore assigns task T1 to the transaction). The reason it picks the first rule rather than the second, even though both contain matching fields, is because the PO number has a higher priority than Subinventory which is displayed on the left of the Subinventory column on the window. You can also define the priority of these fields. For more information, refer to the section on Defining the hierarchy of Task Assignment Criteria.

Resource Task Assignment

The Resource tab region of the Task Auto Assignment window enables you to associate a task with an operation code, job (or job prefix), assembly, and department. Task Auto Assignment looks at the values entered in these fields and finds a rule that matches a resource transaction. It then assigns the task to the transaction.

If more than one rule matches the values of some of these fields, Task Auto Assignment looks for the rule that corresponds to the highest-priority field, which is the field that appears on the left. For example, suppose you've defined two rules for Project P1:

Project Task Operation code Job Number / Prefix Assembly Department Code
P1 T1 Assembly R% - -
P1 T2 Assembly - - AS2

When you perform a resource transaction for job R222 for a resource belonging to AS2 department, Task Auto Assignment matches the transaction with the first rule (and therefore assigns task T1 to the transaction). The reason it picks the first rule rather than the second, even though both contain matching fields, is that Job Number has a higher priority than Department Code which is displayed on the left of the Department Code column on the window.

You can define the priority of these fields to suit their needs. For more information, refer to the section on Defining the hierarchy of Task Assignment Criteria.

WIP Material Task Assignment

The WIP Material tab region of the Task Auto Assignment window enables you to associate a task with a transaction type, assembly, component, item category, subinventory, WIP prefix, department, or operation. Task Auto Assignment looks at the values entered in these fields and finds a rule that matches a WIP material transaction. It then assigns the task to the transaction. If more than one rule matches the values of some of these fields, Task Auto Assignment looks for the rule that corresponds to the highest-priority field, which is the field that appears on the left. For example, suppose you've defined two rules for Project P1:

Project Task Transaction Type Assembly Component Subinventory
P1 T1 Issue SB27 CM20 -
P1 T2 Issue - CM20 Stores

When you perform a WIP Material Issue transaction for component CM20 to the Assembly 27 from the Subinventory Stores, Task Auto Assignment matches the transaction with the first rule (and therefore assigns task T1 to the transaction). The reason it picks the first rule rather than the second, even though both contain matching fields, is because Assembly has a higher priority than Component or Subinventory.

You can define the priority of these fields to suit their needs. For more information, refer to the section on Defining the Hierarchy of Task Assignment Criteria.

Defining the Hierarchy of Task Assignment Criteria

You can change the hierarchy of the task assignment criteria if the default hierarchy does not meet their requirements. The task assignment forms regenerate using the hierarchy you specified. The criteria with higher priority appears to the left of the ones with a lower priority.

Task Auto Assignment Program

Task Auto Assignment is intended to provide a flexible way to determine how you want to track the material (inventory) and resource (WIP) costs by different tasks. It enables you to define rules to associate different tasks for inventory, WIP, and WIP Material transactions. When the inventory and WIP transactions are being costed in the Oracle Inventory and WIP, the Task Auto Assignment assigns a task to the transaction based rules you define. When the transaction cost is transferred to Oracle Projects, the cost is collected under the desired task.

The following process diagram shows the Cost Collection flow of a transaction through the Cost Worker and Cost Collector.

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Related Topics

Oracle Project Manufacturing User's Guide

Benefits

The Task Auto Assignment feature provides you with greater control over how project work breakdown structures are linked to manufacturing activities. Some of the key benefits are listed here:

  1. Provides complete flexibility in defining project work breakdown structure.

Consider a simple bill of material that is intended to be manufactured as a project.

Bill of Material for a Project Item

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In order to achieve better cost control, it is identified that costs of items LongLT (a long lead time item) and item HiValue (expensive item) need to closely monitored. It is also necessary to track the costs of critical welding and prefabrication resources used in building the end assembly. In order to meet these objectives, a project work breakdown structure is prepared that tracks these costs under separate tasks. The work breakdown structure is shown in the figure above.

Proposed Project Work Breakdown Structure

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Without the Task Auto Assignment feature, it would not be possible to support such a project work breakdown structure. This is because the task number for manufacturing activities (requisitions/purchase orders and WIP jobs) would have been either:

In either case, the procurement and assembly activities of all the component items would have the same task as their parent. As a consequence, all the material and resource costs would be bundled up under one task and it would not be possible to monitor the costs of critical items and resources used in the project.

Task Assignment Without Task Auto Assignment

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For example, if Task 1 is assigned to the end assembly on a MDS (or MPS or Forecast), the same task would appear on all the transactions for items HiValue and LongLT and also on all the resource transactions required in building the end item.

You have greater flexibility in designing the work breakdown structure. Apart from separating the costs of items LongLT and HiValue under different tasks, the usage of critical welding resources (Task 3.1) and prefabrication resources (Task 3.2) can also be tracked. This is accomplished automatically and hence consistently for a given project.

It is evident from the example that task assignment with the Task Auto Assignment feature is not restricted by (and to) the product structure. You have the option of defining the work breakdown structure the way manufacturing activities are undertaken. This provides you with unlimited flexibility in defining their work breakdown structures.

  1. Allows cost collection on a much finer level.

Task Auto Assignment enables cost collection at a much finer level. Without Task Auto Assignment, task assignment (and cost collection) can happen only at the work order level. ALL the resource costs are charged to the task specified on the work order. With Task Auto Assignment, cost collection can be pushed down to the department level or even to the individual operation level. A comparison of the standard functionality and the additional functionality imparted by Task Auto Assignment is shown below.

Cost Collection Without Task Auto Assignment

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Cost Collection with Task Auto Assignment

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As indicated in the figure above, Task Auto Assignment gives you considerable flexibility in cost collection. You can choose the granularity of cost collection based on the specific requirements.

Examples

This section briefly describes some typical examples using the Task Auto Assignment feature. The given list is just an indicator of things that could be accomplished with the Task Auto Assignment feature.

Inventory Organizations as Project Expenditure Organizations

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The figure above shows an example where Inventory Organizations (INVORG1, INVORG2, etc.) have been modeled as Project Expenditure Organizations.

These Expenditure Organizations have been referenced on the Manufacturing departments. For example, MFGDEPT1 and MFGDEPT2 have been assigned the same Project Expenditure Organization INVORG1. Task Auto Assignment rules (TAA Rule1, TAA Rule2, etc.) have been setup such that resource costs incurred in each of the manufacturing departments are collected under a separate task. The disadvantage of this approach is you loose visibility of manufacturing department level costs in a Project Expenditure Organization. i.e. Costs in Project Expenditure Organization INVORG1 commingles the resource costs for MFGDEPT1, and MFGDEPT2 along with other expenditures (including material costs) for INVORG1.

Another approach shown in the figure models manufacturing departments as individual Project Expenditure Organizations. Here each Manufacturing Department represents one Project Expenditure Organization and there is no commingling of costs.

Manufacturing departments as Project Expenditure Organizations

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  1. Collect resource costs for a particular job or assembly.

    Another application of the Task Auto Assignment feature is seen in a case where you intend to monitor the resource usage for a particular assembly or a particular WIP job. You can assign a task assignment rule for this assembly or WIP job and can monitor the resource usage for that assembly or WIP job. If there is a need to control a specific resource for a job or an assembly, it can also be accomplished using Task Auto Assignment. You can associate only unreleased jobs with a resource task assignment rule.

  2. Collect resource costs for a specific group of WIP jobs.

    You can generate jobs in Oracle Work In Process with a particular prefix. Task Auto Assignment allows you to define resource task assignment rules with partial WIP job numbers as one of the criteria. This enables monitoring resource usage for a specific group of jobs that carry a certain prefix. This enables grouping of project costs for a specific work (e.g. rework, repair, etc.) under separate tasks automatically.

    Note: You can choose to enter any number of characters before entering the wildcard character (%). For example, if RW is the chosen prefix for rework type jobs, you can enter R% or RW% or RW100% as the task assignment criteria to refer to a specific group of jobs. The rule applies to a broader or narrower group of WIP jobs.

  3. Track procurement activity.

    A task assignment rule that uses Procure Flag as one of its conditions facilitates tracking of the procurement activity. When purchased material is received for a project, the value of the receipt (plus any applicable overheads) are charged to the task that corresponds to the rule. This helps to monitor the progress of project procurement activities. This can be used for monitoring procurement of project items that have a very long lead time or are very expensive.

    Tracking of procurement against a specific purchase order is accomplished by entering the PO Number as one of the task assignment criteria or by entering the task directly on the PO distribution line.

    You cannot enter partially received purchase orders as task assignment criteria.

  4. Track cost of critical items for a given project

    A task assignment rule that uses an item number as one of the criterion (with the PO field blank and the procure flag unchecked) can be used to track the cost of that item for a given project. This set of rules keeps a track of all the inventory transactions for that item and keeps an account of the value of material consumption for the project.

  5. Capture the cost of BOM in the Work Breakdown Structure

    The block diagram shows the work breakdown structure and how the costs are captured for various material and resource transactions in the system. The table below lists the rules setup using Task Auto Assignment. In this example, only Resource and WIP material rules have been used to achieve the cost allocation results as displayed in the work breakdown structure.

      Resource WIP Material
    Task Assembly Department Transaction Type Assembly Component
    1.1.3.1 - - Issue Main Controls Build -
    1.1.3.1 Main Controls Build - - - -
    1.1.3.2 - - Issue Sync Unit Build -
    1.1.3.2 Sync Unit Build - - - -
    1.1.3.3 Controls Build - - - -
    1.1.3.3 - - Issue Controls Build -
    1.1.3.3 - - Completion Main Controls Build -
    1.1.3.3 - - Completion Sync Unit -
    1.1.1 - - Issue Fan Build -
    1.1.1 Fan Build - - - -
    1.1.2 Turbine Build - - - -
    1.1.2 - - Issue Turbine Build -
    1.1.4 Transformer Build - - - -
    1.1.4 - - Issue Transformer Build -
    1.1.5 Test Unit Build - - - -
    1.1.5 - - Issue Test Unit Build -
    1.1.5 - - Completion Fan Build -
    1.1.5 - - Completion Turbine Build -
    1.1.5 - - Completion Transformer Build -
    1.2 Gearbox Build - - - -
    1.2 - - Completion Test Unit Build -
    1.2 - - Issues Gearbox Build -

Implementation Procedure

This section describes the basic steps involved in the implementation procedure of the Task Auto Assignment feature.

Set Project Control Level = Project

Set the Project Control Level organization parameter to Project. This enables you to have project-only identity to supply and demand orders. You can then use Task Auto Assignment to assign task for the transactions. Project Cost Collection should be enabled.

Define the Hierarchy

You need to define the hierarchy of material, resource, and WIP material task assignment criteria. You should ensure adequate security for this window.

Define the WIP job prefix (optional)

Define the profile option in WIP to generate WIP jobs with a certain prefix. This step is optional.

Create Project Work Breakdown Structure

You need to determine how you want to budget and track your project expenditures first. Then you create the work breakdown structure for your project.

Setup Project Parameters

You need to assign your project to a cost group, a default WIP accounting class, optionally a planning group, a default material task and a default resource task in the Project Parameter window. The window automatically creates a default material task assignment rule in the Material Assignment table using the default material task, and a default resource task assignment rule in the Resource Assignment table using the default resource task you specify in this window.

Enter Material Task Assignment Rules

Enter your task assignment rule(s) in the Material tab region of the Task Auto Assignment window. You should make sure that you enter all the rules before you start transactions.

If you desire to use PO numbers as a part of task assignment rules, you must create the corresponding purchase orders.

Enter Resource Task Assignment Rules

Enter your task assignment rule(s) in the Resource tab region of the Task Auto Assignment window. You should make sure that you enter all the rules before you start transactions.

Enter WIP Material Task Assignment Rules

Enter your task assignment rule(s) in the WIP Material alternate region of the Task Auto Assignment window. Make sure that you enter all the rules before you start transactions.

Note: If you desire to use WIP Job number as a part of the task assignment rule(s), the corresponding WIP job has to be created before it could be entered in this window.

Implementation Notes

The Task Auto Assignment feature brings a lot of flexibility in defining Project work breakdown structure and collection of manufacturing costs. Given below are some key aspects that you should be aware of while using the Task Auto Assignment feature.

Transactions Window Zone Field
All Project Inventory transactions View Material Transactions Transaction ID Task Number
Common Material Issue to Project WIP View Material Transactions Transaction ID Source Task Number
All Project Resource Transactions View Resource Transactions Project Task Number