Help scheduling tasks from both project start date and from later deliverable dates

Question

I am trying to set up a project scheduling template for a number of similar projects.
These projects will require initial work to be completed at the project start date, working through the critical path to an end date.
However.  Certain milestones/deliverables are required on specific dates in teh project (they are recievable by internal customers on firm dates).  I am having trouble scheduling my predecessors for these deliverables to occur as late as possible. 
I.e.  I want my procurement to start x-weeks (depending on the task) before the deliverable is due.
Trying to manually set the deliverable date and hoping project will work back and adjust the predecessors to fit isnt quite working... is this possible?
Im using MSP2010 standard

Answer 1

nategalambos,
Actually this is probably a very common scheduling scenario. Schedules often have interim milestones, sometimes with fixed dates.
Just-in-time scheduling has received a fair amount of press in the past but in my view it has some very real negative downsides. I believe the best plans have contingency built in to allow for unknown problems. For example, let's say you have a task that
must deliver an item on a particular date and in order to build that item you need to order material. You know the built and test time, it's all done by machine, takes 10 days, and doesn't vary from item to item. The lead time for the material is 6 weeks,
so you set up the schedule to place the material order 8 weeks before the delivery date. However, there is a problem, the vendor who supplies the material has a problem at his factory and the material is delayed such that it won't be delivered in 6 weeks but
instead it will take 8 weeks. Because you have not allowed for contingency in your plan, your delivery date is now in jeopardy.
But to answer your question, one way to set up the predecessor you want is as follows. Using my example above, the Place Order task, let's say the delivery date task is task ID 5 and is a milestone. The place order task could have a predecessor of 5SF-40d,
or 5FS-40d will also work if the place order task and the delivery date are both milestones.
Hope this helps.
You might also want to read Trevor's response to a related post on the following forum: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-project/field-for-start-based-on-as-soon-as-possible/45829d8b-b073-4fbf-8126-0bdac5c7684c
John