Resource scheduling

Planning & Scheduling

Planning
- process of selecting one method and order of work
to be used on project from among all various methods
and sequences possible
- what, how, who, when, what sequence
Scheduling
- process of determining the timing and sequence of
operations in the project and their assembly to meet
the overall completion time
- when in time frame
 Purpose of scheduling
- Simplifies project plan
- Validates time objectives
- Optimizes resource employed
- Forecasts input resources and predicts output
- Evaluates implications of scheduling
constraints
 Scheduling constraints
- Time objectives of project
- Milestones specified
- Availability of resources and restrictions on
their use
- Terms of the labour employed
- Degree of uncertainty, where applicable
 Activity prioritization

- Prohibitive time frames

- Restricted time frames
- After hour construction
- Restricted construction effort
- Minimum operational requirement
- Work space and distance requirement
 Resource types
- Component
entities making end products: materials, plant
- Production
elements used to assemble, install etc.: manpower,
equipment
- Dependent
application of production resources to component
resources yield: time & expenditure as dependent
resources
Resource constraints

Single resource Multiple resources

Single project Single project

Single resource Multiple resources

Multiple projects Multiple projects
 Basics
- Schedule in realistic manner
- Maintain continuity of work
- Activities in Series vs activities in parallel
- Avoid splitting of activities, uneconomical
shifting of resources and frequent changes in
work groups
- Consume free float in preference to
interference float
 Priority rules
- Minimum float
- Minimum LFT
- Greatest resource demand
- Greatest resource utilization
- Shortest imminent operations
- Most jobs possible
- Largest work content
- Random activity selection
 Re-scheduling to solve resource conflict

Assumptions
- if project can be delayed, maximum
allowable delay is known
- resource requirements for each activity is
known and is assumed to be constant over
activity duration
- resource availability levels, either on relative
or on absolute basis are known
 Resource aggregation
• Estimating requirement of a resource on daily
basis.
• Easier to work with bar chart
 Example

Activity Dur Pre EST EFT LST LFT Res

A 4 0 4 0 4 2
B 2 0 2 7 9 2
C 2 A 4 6 8 10 4
D 4 A 4 8 4 8 6
E 1 B 2 3 9 10 1
F 2 D 8 10 8 10 2
 Resource aggregation
 Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Activity                     
A 2 2 2 2            
D         6 6 6 6    
F                 2 2
B ES 2 2                
C ES         4 4        
E ES     1              
B LS               2 2  
C LS                 4 4
E LS                   1
ESRR 4 4 3 2 10 10 6 6 2 2
LSRR 2 2 2 2 6 6 6 8 8 7
 Resource requirement

dau 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

cum ESRR 4 8 11 13 23 33 39 45 47 49

cum LSRR 2 4 6 8 14 20 26 34 42 49

SQ ESRR 16 16 9 4 100 100 36 36 4 4 162.5

SQ LSRR 4 4 4 4 36 36 36 64 64 49 150.5
 Resource histogram
12
ESRR
10 LSRR

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 Cumulative requirement
60

50

40

30 cum ESRR
cum LSRR

20

10

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 Critical resource

• Compute cumulative requirement of a resource

• Plot cumulative requirement for early and late schedules
• Compute area under cumulative resource requirement curves for early
and late requirement
• Float factor
• = (Area under late schedule requirement curve) / (Area under early
schedule requirement curve)
•  
• If Float factor > 0.8, resource is critical
•  
• Area under cumulative curve = Sum (cum requirement) 1 to n-1 + 1/2(cum
requirement of last period)
 Float factor computations

A late 180.5
A early 247.5

Float factor = A late / A early = 0.73

 Evaluation

Dur Successors Predecessors

R1 R2 EST EFT LST LFT
A 3 C, D 3 2
B 5 G 2 4
C 6 I A 3 1
D 2 E, F A 4 3
E 3 J D 2 0
F 3 H D 1 1
G 4 H B 3 1
H 5 G, F 2 2
I 4 J C 3 2
J 2 K I, E 4 1
K 3 J 5 4
 Leveling
- Rescheduling in order to resolve resource
conflict
- Smoothing: primary objective is to minimize
peaks and fluctuations in requirements and
resource supply
- Allocation: primary objective is to ensure that
requirements do not exceed known levels of
supply
 Leveling procedures
- Heuristic
- Leveling criteria: factor that establishes when
activities are ready for leveling
- clock oriented or logic oriented
- Leveling parameters: variables which enter
into leveling
- Priority rules:
- Network delays
 Leveling heuristics
- Based on clock / logic criteria, select activities
- Selected activities are said to be in the queue
- If queue has more than two activities, queue is ranked
according to priority rules
- Activity selected scheduled in best-fit position
- If no feasible position within activity span, then
project is extended or least-cost overrun position is
elected
 Linear scheduling methods
- Location time chart
time chainage chart
vertical production method
- Uses time as one axis and some measure
of production as the vertical axis
- Buffers can be provided
 Line of balance
- Attempt to provide continuous work
- Parallel scheduling (natural rhythm of work)
or
- resource scheduling (optimum gang size
method)
 Networks
Diagramming
- AOL
- AON
Analysis
- CPM
- DCPM
- PERT
- GERT
- VERT
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