Scheduling hours over a fixed duration in MS-Project 2013

Question

I am new to Project and, rather than spending anymore time reading the web, I thought I'd appeal to some experts.

In our company we often schedule tasks similar to the made-up one just below.

We are redesigning the blue widget.

One of the tasks associated with this is creating a new drawing of the widget.

We estimate it will take a Jr. Mechanical Engineer (ME1) 10 hours and it will take a more experienced Sr. Mechanical Engineer (ME3) 2 hours. We assume/allow these hours to be spread out over the task's duration, which is 2 weeks.

How do I do this in Project '13?

I've already figured out how to enter their hourly rates.

The task should be set up in such a way that I can change the duration without impacting the 10 + 2 hours they are allowed to spend.

Keeping the 10 + 2 fixed is important because we want to use Project to estimate the task's cost.

Answer 1

Create the task initially as a Fixed Duration task where duration = 2 weeks. I would make sure the task is not effort driven. Using the task form, assign ME1 and enter 10 hours of work then assign ME3 and assign 2 hours of work. Assuming the standard 8 hours per day, Project will spread ME1 work out at one hour per day for the 10 days, Peak = 13% (rounded from 12.5) ME3 work will be spread at .2 hours per day - Peak = 3% . If you now want to keep those hours (10 and 2) stable if you change the duration, switch the task to Fixed work. If you change the duration in a fixed work task type, project will recalculate the peak units. However, be careful - Fixed Work task types are effort driven.Adding an additional resource will mean the 12 hours of work in total will be split among 3 resources and the duration will drop. If you need to add additional resource, add them in the Task form and manually enter their work estimate.