RESOURCE LEVELLING

Notes by

PROF. DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

UET TAXILA
RESOURCES
 Any means to complete an activity e.g., capital,
people, machinery, plant or materials are called
Resources.

 Time is also a valuable resource.

 Plot of Resource requirements versus time is called

Resource profile or Resource Use Graph or
Histogram

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

RESOURCES

 Resource leveling is an attempt to assign

resources to project activities in a manner that
will improve productivity and efficiency.
 Resource Allocation
To assign required resources to activities, such
that available resources are not exceeded.
 Labor allocation is the assigning of labor to a
project in order to stabilize the work.

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

Typically Leveled Resource Histogram

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

Why should we level the work force ?

1. Fixed Crew Size: Obviously, if the schedule

demands more workers per day than are
available or we have workers standing
around without jobs, we have a problem.
2. Learning Curve: When a new hire is
trained, there is a loss of productivity. So, if
we can keep the trained people and reduce
the number of new hires, we should be
better off.
DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI
Why should we level the work force ?

3. Start-up Problems: Every project suffers from start-up problems of

some sort. At this time, the supervisors are very busy trying to get
everybody working in a productive manner. Therefore, if we can
start with a small crew and increase the size gradually, we will
eliminate some of the starting problems.

4. Completion Congestion: Most projects suffer from congestion

around project completion time because of reduced work areas.
Thus, if we can gradually reduce the crew size as we approach
project completion, we can improve productivity by reducing
congestion.

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

ASSUMPTIONS FOR RESOURCE LEVELLING

1. Any worker can do any activity

2. The number of worker–days (duration of an

activity x No. of workers assigned daily to
that activity) needed to complete an activity is
fixed.

3. An activity once started will continue.

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI
Trial and Error method of Resource Leveling

RULES

Rule 1: The CPM logic must be maintained.

Rule 2: Activities on the critical path(s) must
use a normal crew size.
Rule 3: The planned crew size must be between,
and including, the minimum and
normal crew size.
DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI
Trial and Error method of Resource Leveling

STEPS
STEP 1: Determine the “theoretical” minimum crew size for the
project that would be required if the allocation is perfectly
spread out over the project duration.
(Minimum Crew Size = Total Worker-days of the project / Project Duration)

STEP 2: Prepare a worksheet as shown in example. Fill it and put

brackets around the time frame, around which each activity can
take place (ES to LF).

STEP 3: Try different combinations of labor allocation to find the

best fit for the hierarchy of importance and rules given above
DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI
Trial and Error method of Resource Leveling

STEP 3: Check that

(a) All daily allocations are within the
minimum and maximum crew sizes.
(b) The network logic is maintained.
(c) The sum of the daily allocations
equals the total project labor requirement

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

EXAMPLE

Allocate the daily work force for the

network schedule shown in Figure
7.1a for a maximum crew size of
13 workers per day.

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI
DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI
Critical Activities

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

13 workers per day

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

13 workers per day (Histogram)

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

If there are limited Resources
available ?

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

12 workers per day

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

12 workers per day (Histogram)

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

11 workers per day

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

11 workers per day (Histogram)

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI

ASSIGNMENT – 06
(CHAPTER 7 – RESOURCE LEVELLING)

 PRACTICE PROBLEMS - (PAGE 130)

P1 TO P4

 SUPPLEMENTARY PROBLEMS - (PAGE 135)

S1 TO S4

DR. LIAQAT ALI QURESHI