Question

Why do resources need to be considered when scheduling and how can resource leveling keep a project on schedule?

Answer 1

The role of resources is of prime importance during scheduling. Resources are constrained during the execution of the project. Scheduling sequence and dependent relationships of activities should be established based on resource constraints that take into account the availability of a limited quantity of resources. While we develop a schedule, though activities can be performed concurrently, they have to be performed in a restricted sequence because of resource availability constraints. e.g. If an activity required 10 days to completing by working of 10 people, however, if only 5 people are available, it will require 20 days to complete.

Hence, resources need to be considered when scheduling.

Resource leveling is a method for developing a schedule that minimizes the fluctuations in requirements for resources and levels the resources so that they are applied as uniformly as possible without extending the project schedule beyond its required completion time. Here, activities are delayed within their available slack. Resource leveling helps to deploy resources in a uniformly staggered manner. e.g. If on the first 2 days 2 people are required to work on an activity, and then there is a slack of 2 days, from the next day onwards only 1 person is required. Then the period for 1st activity is charged from 2 days to 4 days and only 1 person is deployed for 4 days to complete this activity. Thus there is no abrupt increase or reduction in resource mobilization which helps in reducing uncertainty during execution. Thus it helps keep a project on schedule.