PS.1642 Successful Use of Priority-Driven Resource Leveling in P6

2014 AACE® INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL PAPER
PS.1642
Successful Use of Priority-Driven

Resource Leveling in P6
Greg M. Hall
Abstract–Using real-life examples, this paper outlines the use of resource leveling to make a
“self-healing” CPM schedule that enhances, rather than reduces, management’s involvement in
making key resource deployment decisions.
While accounting for resource limitations on a project is universally accepted, this is usually
done by adding relationships. The resource leveling tool in P6 is “voodoo” to most schedulers
due to inexperienced schedulers’ misuse of the tool; P6’s lesser functionality compared to P3;
and the inability of popular schedule analyzing tools to deal with the resulting ‘phantom float’
phenomenon. Some have even asserted that a leveled schedule is not truly CPM.
But “scheduling” is not an objective in itself; rather, it must support operations by building the
best electronic model of reality. From this paper, the reader will be armed with how to use P6
as a powerful tool taking full advantage of resource leveling; how to show the longest path
through a leveled schedule; and how to quickly make a ‘full logic’ copy of a leveled schedule
with accurate float values.
PS.1642.1
Copyright © AACE® International.
This paper may not be reproduced or republished without expressed written consent from AACE® International
Table of Contents
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 1
List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. 2
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3
Why Level at All? ......................................................................................................................... 3
Preparation for Proper Resource Leveling .................................................................................. 4
A Priority-Driven Resource Leveled Schedule is a CPM Schedule .............................................. 5
Why Leveling Has Not Been Accepted Into the Mainstream ..................................................... 6
Why Not Just Add the Resource-Driven Logic Ties? ................................................................... 7
Framework for Priority-Driven Resource Leveling ...................................................................... 8
Mechanics of Priority-Driven Resource Leveling ........................................................................ 9
“Hard Tying” Procedure to Communicate Leveling Results with Logic ...................................... 13
Communicating with Clients and Stakeholders .......................................................................... 18
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 18
References ................................................................................................................................... 19
List of Figures
Figure 1 – Priority-Driven Leveling Procedure ............................................................................ 9

Figure 2 – Leveling Options and Resource Selection .................................................................. 11
Figure 3 – Procedure for Identifying Critical Path in Leveled Schedules .................................... 12
Figure 4 – Relationship-Driven versus Leveling Driven Activity .................................................. 13
Figure 5 – Resource-Driven Logic Procedure .............................................................................. 14
Figure 6 – Concrete Crew Activities ............................................................................................ 15
Figure 7 – Assignment of Crew 2 ................................................................................................ 15
Figure 8 – All Crew IDs Assigned ................................................................................................. 16
Figure 9 – Verification of Crew Assignments .............................................................................. 16
Figure 10 – Leveled Schedule after Addition of Resource-Driven Logic ..................................... 17
PS.1642.2
Introduction
Proper resource management is critical to project success. Those involved with the creation of
the Critical Path Method recognized the importance of ensuring sufficient labor and equipment
was available to perform the work, and recognized that CPM did not inherently provide a
scheduler with a way to account for that limitation:
”While resource leveling techniques have been available since the early 1960’s, for many
years they were largely ignored in CPM applications. A schedule based on Early Start
dates for each activity was generally issued. Such a schedule is almost always an
uneconomic schedule and is often a completely impossible schedule.” [Fondahl, p.5]
“Resource leveling” encompasses a broad range of techniques to ensure a CPM schedule isn’t
overcommitting the labor and equipment needed for all of the scheduled tasks. The
predominant leveling method is to add relationships between activities to represent the order
of resource deployment. Were construction a more predictable and unchanging enterprise, this
method would ensure a realistic and manageable schedule. Unfortunately, the ever-changing
nature of construction, as well as the constant effort by field management to ‘find a better
way’, means that adding resource-driven logic to a schedule often results in a mismatch
between the model and reality, and field management will quickly notice that mismatch and
lose faith in the schedule [O’Brien and Plotnick, p. 425]
Most professional CPM software can bypass resource-driven or “soft” logic by applying a
resource leveling algorithm after the forward and backward pass. But few schedulers use this
feature for more than “what-if” analysis.
This paper describes a Priority-Driven Resource Leveling program that has enabled construction
projects to take advantage of the flexibility and superiority of a properly leveled schedule
without losing track of the path of activities that truly control project completion. A Priority-
Driven Resource Leveled schedule represents Management’s strategy for the project and shows
a realistic completion. Following this program, resource-driven logic can also be incorporated to
produce a schedule with identical start and finish dates but also true values for Total Float and
Critical Path.
Why Level at All?
Field or Operations Management personnel care about results, not the CPM method chosen
when managing the work. They want a schedule that shows when work should occur; that
verifies their strategic decisions are the correct ones; and that can quantify time impacts of
delaying events.
The increase in these delaying events, and the combination of growing project size and
reduction of project delivery time has turned development, statusing, and refinement of that
PS.1642.3
schedule into a harrowing experience. The most common question in today’s construction
world seems to be: “How are we going to get back on schedule?”
Resource leveling has cut down on this pressure by reducing the manhours spent modifying
schedules in response to changes. It also enables quick and easy exploration of the effects of
adding or decreasing resources.
Additionally, the answer to that “back on schedule” question may be as simple—and

inexpensive—as a mitigation through resequencing operations. Mitigation is often an automatic
byproduct of leveling, a process of “self-healing”.[Nosbisch and Winter, P. 30] For example,
Management may plan to start a crew on Unit A, then employ it on Unit B, then C, then D. A
delay to Unit A would, in a resource-leveled schedule, be “self-healed” as Unit B automatically
resequences to go first.
Another common response to delay is to add resources. Acceleration of leveled schedules can
be as simple as increasing the Max Units/Time of critical resources and recalculating.
Preparation for Proper Resource Leveling
Most of the literature available discussing the use of Resource Leveling without the addition of
resource-driven logic discusses improving the leveling algorithm of scheduling software.
Kyunghwan Kim’s Virginia Tech work involved evaluation of three different algorithms for use in
his Resource Constrained Scheduling (RCS) technique [Kim, p.104]. Dr. Robert Richards later
performed an informative study of a number of available RCS engines and the differences
produced by their algorithms in calculating identical network/resource restriction
combinations. He discussed the benefit of maintaining a pool of scheduling engines to
determine an optimal sequence [Richards, Page 11]. Both Kim and Richards approached the
issue proposing algorithms that improve upon Primavera P3’s default of Late Start, Total Float
leveling precedence settings.
These are worthwhile explorations. When yesterday’s ideal resource sequence is today’s out-
of-sequence work, project staffs don’t have the time to keep up. [Nosbisch and Winter, p.24]
However, time spent around the people managing construction work shows that the industry is
a long way off from a “Kasparov/Deep Blue moment”: no automatic calculation can yet take the
place of well-informed decisions by experienced managers. Efficiencies are not to be gained
from replacing the people making these decisions, but rather from the translation of these
decisions into the schedule.
Rather than Field Management relying on resource leveling to calculate the optimum sequence
of activities that compete for the same resource, resource leveling should be thought of as an
efficient and adaptable way to dictate Field Management’s optimum sequence to P6. The
software then either confirms that the perceived optimum sequence is achievable, or it reveals
flaws in that sequence which the Superintendents can then correct.
PS.1642.4
In other words, there is no “automatic” component to well-managed “automatic leveling”.

Instead, the feature should be used as a way to avoid the tedium of assigning and removing
resource-driven logic ties as the strategy changes.
A Priority-Driven Resource Leveled Schedule is a Critical Path Method Schedule
On-project misunderstandings about the proper use of leveling can result in an out-of-hand
rejection of a leveled schedule on the basis that it is not a “CPM Schedule”, which, after all, is
required by most Prosecution and Progress specifications.
The Critical Path Method (CPM) has been around for over half a century, and while everyone
shares the same general understanding of its principles and components, there is no single
authoritative definition of the Critical Path Method. AACE, along with reputable sources and
trade organizations, generally agree that all CPM schedules as a minimum contain a network of
activities, connected by relationships, which graphically shows the order of operations and
whose start and finish dates can be mathematically calculated. [Sears, Sears, and Clough, P. 63]
Beyond that, fundamental debates about “what CPM is” have always existed. From its creation
until the mid-1990s when Primavera effectively decided the matter, the industry was split
between using the Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM) and Precedence Diagramming Method
(PDM) for drawing networks and classifying activities. In other words, there was a nearly forty
year debate on even the basic “look” of CPM.
As AACE states in the Recommended Practice Identifying the Critical Path, a “resource critical
path” that results from deferral of work activities to ensure resource limitations are not
exceeded, and achieved by either the addition of resource-driven logic or by automatic
resource leveling, is a legitimate concept. [AACE RP No. 49R-06, P.2]
In other words, the concept of further calculations, after the basic forward pass and backward
pass, to account for the effect resources have on the time it takes to complete a project are
recognized in the industry, as is the fact that once these additional calculations are made, a
classic zero-float critical path no longer exists.
But such a schedule is still a CPM schedule. A properly leveled schedule still follows a sequence
that represents Management’s desired strategy. Most projects, knowingly or in serendipitous
ignorance, express that desired strategy by the addition of resource-driven logic. With or
without those additional relationships, the resulting schedule, based on optimum resource
flow, is the best schedule possible.
PS.1642.5
Why Leveling Has Not Been Accepted Into the Mainstream
Software-based resource leveling is a practice that many schedulers dismiss because it’s usually
deployed in an entry-level manner, with the scheduler exerting no control over the resulting
leveled sequence of operations.
If control is exerted, and the resulting sequence is exactly what the scheduler and Project
Management want, schedule reviewers may still reject a leveled schedule. While this out-of-
hand rejection sometimes is the result of a lack of knowledge (and thus trust) where leveling is
concerned, usually it is because resource leveling complicates a reviewer’s analysis.
Below are a number of reasons why resource leveling is not a widely-accepted mainstream
technique, followed by how the obstacles to a wider understanding can be overcome.
Phantom Float: Resource leveling’s adjustment of early start and finish of all activities, coupled
with a subsequent backward pass that has nothing to follow but the “true” logic, creates
erroneous float. John Fondahl’s “Warehouse Example” describes the creation of Phantom Float
via Early Date adjustments to account for resource limitations coupled with no means of
accommodating those adjustments on the backward pass. [Fondahl, P. 6]
Phantom Float confuses schedule soundness checks such as of the US Government’s Defense
Contract Management Agency (DCMA) 14-Point Analysis criteria. The DCMA criteria enable a
quick assessment of schedule quality and structural integrity, and can be performed
automatically with software such as Acumen Fuse. [Patterson, P.3] But if a schedule has been
resource leveled, five of the 14 points will return erroneous results and the schedule will likely
‘fail’ those criteria.
In deference to the fact that automated review is an integral part of the industry that’s here to
stay, Section V of this document includes a process for identifying and adding in the resource-
driven logic needed to generate representative float values. The process requires an investment
of time, but one small enough to fit into a monthly update routine.
Orthodoxy: A number of academic and professional resources describe the finer points of CPM
scheduling, but nothing takes the place of on-the-job experience. Therefore industry ‘Best
Practice’ has a huge amount of practical, hands-on experience backing it up.
But when each new scheduler learns scheduling by absorbing the knowledge of their supervisor
and peers, thinking ‘outside the box’ becomes risky. Innovation then is confined to academia or
a handful of people who have the gravitas and corporate leeway to break new ground.
Deciding to follow a technique that one may not have used in the past—such as resource
leveling—is a decision with heavy ramifications. A bad decision during Baseline development
follows the scheduler through the life of a project. Therefore many will not try resource
leveling, fearing that if it doesn’t work, they’re stuck with a “lemon” for years.
PS.1642.6
Lack of Experience and Reference Material: Most experienced schedulers have at least “played”
with resource leveling. Few schedulers have experience in managing a schedule through
leveling.
At first, controlled leveling is difficult. Mistakes are hard to diagnose, and most schedulers don’t
have a supervisor or colleague with experience in controlled leveling themselves. So, when they
can’t determine where the error is, they give up and go back to adding resource-driven
relationships.
There is also a lack of training material available to those who wish to learn the technique.
While Google links to several well-written articles about leveling basics, none of them mention
that an Activity Code can be used as a leveling priority by P6. The “Activity Leveling Priority”
field is mentioned, but it does not provide the detail needed for true controlled leveling. Even
the P6 Professional Users Guide (Pages 328-332) does not discuss Activity Code-based leveling
priority.
Sections III and IV of this paper are intended to address this void. They contain step-by-step
instructions for how to level a project without losing the control Field Management must exert
on the sequence of operations. Hopefully it also serves as a catalyst for other improvements in
explaining controlled resource leveling.
Section IV of this paper further adds to the “reference pool” by showing how to identify a
critical path in a leveled project. This path can be solidified through the addition of resource-
driven logic to make a true zero-float critical path.
Time Constraints: Today’s faster project deliveries give both contractors and clients less time to
understand what truly makes the schedule “tick”. Without the clear communication of
precedence that resource-driven logic provides, reviewers are forced to determine for
themselves what led to the start and finish dates of activities. Reviewers aren’t only responsible
for one project; the success of ‘automatic review’ software is due to the very limited time a
reviewer has to dedicate to any one schedule.
The first steps of the “hard-tying” method outlined in Section V of this paper can also be used
by a reviewer to determine if a contractor’s leveled schedule was created with intelligence or
just a blind reliance on the software to push resources around.
Why Not Just Add the Resource-Driven Logic Ties?
Every properly-made schedule represents the ideal match of sequence and existing project
conditions. But that schedule is a house of cards: all it takes is a differing site condition, or a
restriction to access, or even weather that affects some operations but not others, to render
this perfectly-matched schedule imperfect. [Kim, p.3]
PS.1642.7
When job conditions change, the schedule must change with it. True, physics-based logic
cannot change, but soft/resource-driven logic can. Project Management, unable to violate the
laws of physics, must respond to change by shifting their deployment of resources. In a
traditional logic-only schedule, this means the deletion of old resource-driven logic and the
addition of new resource-driven logic. It’s a tedious process, but a tried-and-true process we’re
all familiar with. And on a typical project schedule of thousands of activities, it can’t be done in
an afternoon. [Nosbisch and Winter, p.29]
An evaluation of one local resource-leveled project showed the Baseline Schedule contained
1,621 activities and 2,822 “true” logic relationships. After the project team added the logic
needed to account for resource limitations, the relationship count jumped to 3,427.
This project was heavily delayed, rendering the original sequence unbuildable, and delays
worsened over time. As a result, over the course of 2012 and 2013, the ideal sequence for the
work changed monthly. Each change in strategy exposed the schedulers to a monthly deletion,
and re-tying, of 600-plus relationships. When the project team switched to a Priority-Driven
Leveling approach, resequencing only required a little over an hour of data entry.
The Job Team could therefore evaluate multiple ‘what-if’ scenarios in response to Client
requests to weigh different acceleration options.
Today’s construction market is dominated by delivery of projects in reduced timeframes, often

under design-build contracts, frequently executed simultaneously with adjacent contractors.
Unpredictability is at levels generally not seen twenty years ago. “Major overhaul” of resource-
driven logic used to be expected once or twice over the life of a project. Now, it’s often a
monthly necessity.
With a Priority-Driven Resource Leveling approach, replanning is a matter of changing a

prioritization assignment. Acceleration is a matter of changing a resource’s “max units/time”
setting in P6. And the “major overhaul” of resource-driven logic for a schedule of a few
thousand activities can be done in an afternoon.
Framework for Priority-Driven Resource Leveling
Priority-Driven Resource Leveling should only be performed on projects where it will save work.
To determine whether or not a project is a good candidate for this approach, consider the
following factors:
 Probability of Changes: If there is low risk to the original plan being affected by changes
or delays, resource leveling will not be worth the trouble. Look for underground utilities;
limited knowledge of subsurface or as-built conditions; interdependence with
prior/third party work; or projects where design and construction overlap.
PS.1642.8
 There is open, nonlinear access to work areas. Projects that require a set sequence of
operations will not benefit from resource leveling. Tunnels and single-span bridges
generally don’t allow much variety in sequencing and make poor candidates.
 The project is managed with a crew-based mentality. If the project labor pool is fluid—in
other words, the concept of ‘crew’ breaks down and manpower is not distributed evenly
from day to day—controlled leveling is not a good fit.
Mechanics of Priority-Driven Resource Leveling
The Priority-Driven Leveling Methodology follows this flow chart below. Operations
Management is responsible for the orange tasks, while the schedulers are responsible for the
green.
Resource / Strategic Operations
Staffing Strategy Sequence by Management
by Operations Operations Rethinks/Adjusts
Management Management Strategy
NO
Create Assign Priorities Do Results

Load Resources Perform Leveling
Resources/ Set to Key / Leveled Match Finalize Schedule
into Activities Calculation
Max Units/Time Activities Strategy?
YES
Establish Leveling
Priority Activity
Code
Figure 1 – Priority-Driven Leveling Procedure
Setup and Loading: Upfront resource/staffing strategy includes key decisions such as: is the
basis for resource loading and leveling the crew, manhour, or some other unit? Which
resources should be loaded and tracked? Which should be leveled?
During this stage, the scheduler prepares an Activity Code for use in leveling. Global activity
codes that all jobs can use works best, since leveling is a process best confined to a job-by-job
basis unless projects truly do share mutual resources. Four codes allow for a “Plan A” sequence
along with “Plans B, C, and D”.
The simplest controlled leveling jobs use the crew day as the basic leveling unit. Each primary
resource is loaded with a default Units Per Time of 1.0. Some Clients or Project Managers prefer
manhours to be the basis of loading. In such cases, think in terms of an average crew size: a
five-person crew working a ten-hour shift would be loaded with a Default Units per Time of
50.0, with the Max Units/Time set at multiples of 50.
If an activity's duration default is set to Fixed Duration and Units/Time, duration adjustments
don’t have an ill effect. In cost-loaded schedules where activities are better set to Fixed
PS.1642.9
Duration and Units, regularly open the resource assignments screen, add in a units/time
column, and correct any labor resource assignment that deviates from the rest.
Prioritization: Strategy is the responsibility of Operations Management. Linear Schedules are an

excellent strategic tool for infrastructure work. Field Superintendents and Construction
Managers mark up the prior Linear Schedule, or summary bar chart, or even make a rough
narrative to adjust strategy. The scheduler then assigns Activity Code values to activities using
this information.
This assignment was faster back in the days of P3, when direct entry of code values was
permitted. P6 requires the user to pick a value from a list. Some schedulers frustrated by this
use excel export and import to assign values to activities.
To keep the task practical, only assign priorities to, and level on, the key/critical resources that
have the biggest influence on the destiny of the project. [Sears, Sears, and Clough, p. 186]
These are the resources to be leveled, and while the usage profiles of all resources should be
evaluated before deciding a schedule is complete, minor gaps or over-use of noncritical
resources can be considered a field problem to be ironed out in the weekly and daily
superintendents’ schedules.
Initial Leveling: The next step is to perform the initial leveling run. As seen in the screenshot
below, the Activity Code used for leveling priority must be added in the Leveling command pop-
up. The preservation of Early and Late Dates is an important step to understanding the leveling
calculation’s effect on start and finish, especially after the loss of the P3 Leveling Report in the
switch to P6.
PS.1642.10
Figure 2 – Leveling Options and Resource Selection
In this example, there are only four ‘critical’ crews out of the over twenty used in the schedule.
The rest are trades with an “as needed” role in the project.
Max Units/Time in this example is based on crew-hours per day, which was Field Management’s
preference. In this case, there are three “Elec” crews, and one each of the others. The
acceleration option of adding crews is evaluated by adjusting the Max Units/Time and re-
leveling (after taking a snapshot through Maintain Baselines to allow a head-to-head
comparison with current strategy).
Primavera's idealization of “all-enterprise” resources complicates this. Because each project has
its own ideal resource commitment, and leveling across projects isn’t always an option (a crew
in the Tar Sands of Alberta can’t just “hop over” to St. John’s for a couple of days), projects
must often use a unique set of resources. Project A in the Tar Sands may need five carpenter
crews for the strategy to work, while Project B in St. John’s is most efficient with two; both
projects’ needs cannot be met with a single Max Units/Time.
Evaluation of Results: After leveling, activities should be grouped by Primary Resource, then
sorted by the Priority Code. The scheduler then compares the order of calculated start and
finish dates to the prioritization to identify conflicts between as-leveled dates and field
management's preferred sequence.
Often a predecessor viewed as 'Law' in P6 is dismissed as an easily-bypassed problem by the

field. Sometimes P6 reveals an important predecessor such as a permit or design approval that
PS.1642.11
Management has forgotten about. In such cases, Project Management either adjusts their
strategy or instructs the scheduler to remove a relationship that does not physically exist in the
field. After adjustments the process is repeated until Management’s strategy and the schedule
match.
Identifying the Critical Path: Once final leveling is complete, the project’s critical path is more
accurately described as belonging to a ‘critical resource’ and not a ‘critical series of tasks’. P6 at
this point is more likely to show a critical path consisting of only the last few activities driving
project completion. At the first start date driven by resource limitations, the backward pass
loses track of the ‘zero’ float chain of activities.
A quick check of the Relationships activity detail shows there is no driving predecessor to the
activity where the ‘float chain’ is lost, and its Finish will be later than its Early Finish.
Identifying the true resource-driven critical path is a simple matter, albeit a manual one. The
methodology consists of:
Identify “Resource
Precedessor” and
click GoTo
NO
Select Finish Mark Activity: “On Is there a driving Filter by Marker,

Milestone Longest Path” Predecessor? Print
There are no
predecessors
YES
Select Driving
Predecessor and
click GoTo
Figure 3 – Procedure for Identifying Critical Path in Leveled Schedules
In this method, the scheduler determines if a critical activity is driven by relationship or by a

resource restriction. Start at the completion milestone. Since a milestone cannot have
resources, its Finish Date will be driven by a relationship.
By selecting the driving predecessor, and clicking the GoTo button in the Relationships Activity
Details, the scheduler can then evaluate what drives the predecessor to the milestone. One of
two things will be true: It will either have a Driving predecessor, or it won’t because its start
was adjusted via leveling.
PS.1642.12
Figure 4 – Relationship-Driven (Left) versus Leveling-Driven (Right) Activity
The activity on the left of Figure 4 has a driving predecessor. That predecessor is in the same
work area (S08) and uses a different Primary Resource, further confirmation the relationship is
‘True’ Logic. The activity can be marked (using a User Defined Field) as critical, and so can the
predecessor.
On the right side of Figure 4 is an activity that does not have a driving predecessor. It has been
deferred until after the prior activity using the same Primary Resource (Removals) has finished.
If the activities are grouped by Primary Resource and sorted by either Start or Finish, the Finish
date of the previous activity will match the Start date of the selected activity. Weekends and
holidays complicate this matching process, so a calendar on the wall above the monitor helps.
Each driving (either by logic or by resource) predecessor can then be evaluated and marked via
User Defined Field. Once predecessors are traced back to the Data Date, a filter on that UDF will
show a contiguous start-to-finish critical path.
“Hard Tying” Procedure to Communicate Leveling Results with Logic
Once Field management has found the best balance of their original strategy and the project's
restrictions, the schedule serves their purpose. While the people managing the work may have
some interest in float, they are mostly concerned with end date and resource usage. The
schedule in this leveled condition serves them well in both respects.
Float-focused schedulers will likely refuse to recognize a schedule without resource-driven logic
expressed as physical relationships. Common ground can therefore be reached by finding an
efficient way to add in the resource-driven relationships that faithfully mimic the leveling
calculation—and thus Field Management's desired sequence.
After a couple of iterations, schedulers with between a month and a year of P6 experience were
able to use the method to “hard-tie” a schedule at a rate of around an four hundred activities
per hour. If forty percent of a 4000 activity street reconstruction project’s activities are driven
by a critical resource, this translates to roughly a half-day per monthly submission.
If resources are limited to one crew, hard-tying is as simple as grouping by Primary Resource,
sorting by Start or Finish date, and executing the Link Activities command. Resources are
PS.1642.13
generally not held to one crew, however. Therefore a “Crew ID” (based on an integer Activity
User Defined Field) must be assigned to activities using the following procedure:
Shift-Select all
Group by Primary Match next
Assign Crew IDs to Assign Identical Activities with
Resource, Sort by Leveled Start Date Sort by Crew ID
Earliest Activities Crew ID to match same Crew ID,
Start Date to Finish Date
Link Activities
Repeat until end of resource’s activities
Figure 5 – Resource-Driven Logic Procedure
After this procedure is completed for all leveled resources, P6 will calculate the same start and
dates regardless of whether F9 was pressed or Shift-F9. Because activity dates in the leveled
and hard-tied copy match, and are controlled by identical real-world factors, this method is not
a “one schedule for us, one for the owner” system.
Capture a copy of your work at each step using the Maintain Baselines or Export feature of P6.
One missed or extra logic tie can affect the whole operation. If a mistake is made in assigning
Crew IDs, It’s easier to restore to before the prior step and repeat it.
Preparation: To ensure the hard-tied schedule matches the leveled working schedule, either
use the Maintain Baselines and Assign Baselines command, or use a Global Change to write
start and finish dates to a User Defined Field. This will facilitate comparing the “before” and
“after” schedules.
An Integer Activity UDF is preferable to an Activity Code since it is editable in the Activity Table
and values don't need to be pre-defined. And yes, if only P6’s leveling calculation recognized
UDFs for priority, it would speed the process up immensely.
In Figure 6 below, the activities are grouped by Primary Resource and sorted by Start Date. The
Max Units/Time for this resource is based on two crews.
PS.1642.14
Figure 6 – Concrete Crew activities sorted by Start Date with UDF Crew ID Column
Assigning Crew IDs: This is the most manual step in the process. What the scheduler looks for in
this step is a match between completion dates and subsequent start dates.
In Figure 7 below, the first two activities started on 10 July. They are given a Crew ID of 1 and 2,
respectively. The third activity shown, L-WB Canopy Base Concrete S04, starts on 30 July and
has no driving predecessors. It could not have been driven by the Crew 1 Activity and its 7
August Finish date, so it was driven by the 29 July Finish Date of the Crew 2 Activity.
Figure 7 – Assignment of Crew 2 to 3rd Activity Listed
The following activity, L-EB-Canopy Base Concrete – S05 begins on 08-Aug-14, the day after the
completion of Crew 1 activity L-EB-Station Prep/Ductbank/Footings. It would thus receive the
same Crew ID, 1.
Following this line of reasoning, Crew IDs are assigned to the remaining activities.
PS.1642.15
Figure 8 – All Crew IDs Assigned
Confirmation of Crew ID Assignments: While it's tempting to just jump into the hard-tie step
after all the Crew assignment work, the quickest way to introduce error into the system is to fail
to check your work.
Group by Primary Resource, then Crew ID, and finally sort by Start date.
Figure 9 – Verification of Crew Assignments before Addition of Resource-Driven Logic
If the crew assignment was properly performed, no activities within the same crew ID should
overlap. There will be gaps, where activities are still driven by a true logic tie and not by leveling
(see the last Crew 1 activity in Figure 9 above), but that's ok. Our schedulers have taken to
copying the Activity Table at this point, pasting the data into Excel, and running a formula with
conditional formatting to quickly identify and tag overlaps.
PS.1642.16
Linking Activities: The final step is to shift-select every activity within each Resource/Crew
grouping. Use the Link Activities command to add a series of Finish-to-Start relationships
representing Resource-driven logic.
Sometimes a FS relationship already exists. In that case, P6 will add in a FF tie that, while
cluttering things, won't hurt the calculations. Regardless, our schedulers look to avoid this
double-logic by either being more selective with the Link Activities command, or by deleting the
superfluous logic afterward.
Add all resource-driven logic before performing a scheduling calculation. Scheduling a partially
tied network usually has disastrous results.
After scheduling, compare the resulting start and finish dates to the ones captured in Step 1
(made easier with excel) to ensure the “before” and “after” schedules are identical.
Figure 10 – Leveled Schedule after Addition of Resource-Driven Logic
Crew 2, which had been driving the end date all along, shows as being on the critical path after
the addition of resource-driven logic. Additionally, a comparison with Figure 6 above shows all
start and finish dates are equal to the dates derived from the leveling calculation.
The non-driving relationships in Crew 1 (between L-EB-Station Barrier Wall Concrete S05 and L-
EB-Barrier Infill Concrete S05, for example) result from a relationship, not shown, to an activity
which does not utilize this resource—in this case, some structural steel work that must be
completed prior to the Infill Concrete. Thus, the addition of the resource-driven tie ended up
being unneccessary—but it is still done to show every resource-driven tie, which in turn gives
more accurate float values for noncritical work.
PS.1642.17
One additional note: for in-progress schedules, out-of-sequence can complicate properly hard-
tying partially complete activities. But since almost all out-of-sequence logic (not resulting from
erroneous ties) is resource driven, very little of it should appear in a leveled schedule.
Communicating with Clients and Stakeholders
The hard-tying procedure in the prior Section ensures all resource-driven logic is shown as
physical relationships. While this eliminates phantom float concerns and delivers customer
service to reviewers looking for accurate float values, it also complicates communication.
There is currently no way in p6 to differentiate between a “true” logic tie and a resource-driven
or “preferential” tie. A reviewer or stakeholder is confronted with researching each non-
intuitive relationship to determine if it is resource management or an error. Resource-driven
logic also causes out-of-sequence progress. The extra relationships can cause friction between
contractor and client. In addition, monthly update schedules, if they are adjusted to
accommodate the inevitable ebb and flow of progress on the job, feature a large number of
logic changes month-to-month which complicates the review process and hinders
communication.
This challenge must be faced in two ways: first, an up-front discussion of “true” versus
resource-driven logic will lay the groundwork for a reviewer and a Client to understand why a
foundation in Process Area A is a predecessor to a foundation in Process Area Z. A print-out of
the schedule grouped by Primary Resource and a Crew ID User Defined Field can serve as a
‘Rosetta Stone’ for a reviewer to use in determining if a logic tie is due exclusively to resource
management. Second, both a leveled and hard-tied copy of each schedule should be made
available to the reviewer. A side-by-side comparison of the two projects will reveal which ties
are resource-driven.
Conclusion
P6 contains powerful and flexible functionality for a project management team to use in
ensuring resource realities are built into CPM schedules. Unfortunately, that same power and
flexibility makes it too easy for a casual user to let the program turn a schedule into an
inexplicable series of activities with no flow or continuity. The resulting production of poor-
quality schedules has led many to shun the tool entirely.
However, with a disciplined system where resource sequence is dictated to the software, rather
than the other way around, resource leveling can be harnessed to create a schedule that
accounts for resource limitations, is logical, and, most importantly, is easy to modify in
response to changing project conditions. Such a schedule often provides its creator with a feel
for how much a delay can be mitigated without expensive acceleration measures, and enables a
quick ‘what-if’ evaluation of the effect of changing staff and craft levels.
PS.1642.18
For resource leveling to be more widely accepted, the leveling approach must be well
communicated with all stakeholders in a project. Hopefully this paper can facilitate some of
that communication, and free up scheduling experts for more fruitful pursuits.
References
1. Carson, Christopher W. et. al., 2010, AACE International Recommended Practice No. 49R-06,
Identifying the Critical Path, AACE International, Morgantown, WV
2. Fondahl, John W., 1990, The Development of the Construction Engineer: Past Progress and
Future Problems Fifth Annual Peurifoy Construction Research Award Address, Presented at
the ASCE Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA
3. Kim, Kyunghwan, 2003, A Resource-constrained CPM (RCPM) Scheduling and Control
Technique with Multiple Calendars, Dissertation for the Requirements of Doctor of
Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Civil
Engineering, Blacksburg, VA
4. Nosbisch, Michael R. and Winter, Ronald M., 2006, Managing Resource Leveling, Cost
Engineering, Volume 48/No. 7, AACE International, Morgantown, WV
5. O’Brien, James J., and Plotnick, Fredric L., 2010, CPM In Construction Management,
Seventh Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY
6. Patterson, Dan, 2010, Taming an Unruly Schedule Using the DCMA 14-Point Assessment,
Deltek Acumen White Paper, www.projectacumen.com
7. Richards, Robert, 2008, Advanced Scheduling Technology for Shorter Resource-Constrained
Project Durations, AACE International Transactions, AACE International, Morgantown, WV
8. Sears, S. Keoki, Sears, Glenn A., and Clough, Richard H., 2008, Construction Project
Management, A Practical Guide to Field Construction Management, Fifth Edition, John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ
Greg M. Hall
Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc.
greg.hall@kiewit.com
PS.1642.19

PS.1642 Successful Use of Priority-Driven Resource Leveling in P6

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PS.1642 Successful Use of Priority-Driven Resource Leveling in P6

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2014 AACE® INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL PAPER

Successful Use of Priority-Driven

Figure 1 – Priority-Driven Leveling Procedure ............................................................................ 9

Why Level at All?

Additionally, the answer to that “back on schedule” question may be as simple—and

Preparation for Proper Resource Leveling

In other words, there is no “automatic” component to well-managed “automatic leveling”.

A Priority-Driven Resource Leveled Schedule is a Critical Path Method Schedule

Why Leveling Has Not Been Accepted Into the Mainstream

Why Not Just Add the Resource-Driven Logic Ties?

Today’s construction market is dominated by delivery of projects in reduced timeframes, often

With a Priority-Driven Resource Leveling approach, replanning is a matter of changing a

Framework for Priority-Driven Resource Leveling

Mechanics of Priority-Driven Resource Leveling

Create Assign Priorities Do Results

Figure 1 – Priority-Driven Leveling Procedure

Prioritization: Strategy is the responsibility of Operations Management. Linear Schedules are an

Figure 2 – Leveling Options and Resource Selection

Often a predecessor viewed as 'Law' in P6 is dismissed as an easily-bypassed problem by the

Select Finish Mark Activity: “On Is there a driving Filter by Marker,

Figure 3 – Procedure for Identifying Critical Path in Leveled Schedules

In this method, the scheduler determines if a critical activity is driven by relationship or by a

Figure 4 – Relationship-Driven (Left) versus Leveling-Driven (Right) Activity

“Hard Tying” Procedure to Communicate Leveling Results with Logic

Repeat until end of resource’s activities

Figure 5 – Resource-Driven Logic Procedure

Figure 7 – Assignment of Crew 2 to 3rd Activity Listed

Figure 8 – All Crew IDs Assigned

Figure 9 – Verification of Crew Assignments before Addition of Resource-Driven Logic

Figure 10 – Leveled Schedule after Addition of Resource-Driven Logic

Communicating with Clients and Stakeholders

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