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Unit 11: Resource Allocation
Notes
Notes The parallel method schedules resources to various activities through leveling and
smoothing. The log presented above shows how this was accomplished in the above
problem by delaying and reducing the slack on activities 3, 5, and 6.
Now, list the order in which you scheduled the activities of the project. Which activities of the
schedule are now critical?
The order is (2, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6) and the critical activities are 2, 3, 5, and 6 as these are the activities with
the least or negative slack.
Finally, recompute the slack for each activity given the new schedule. What is the slack for
activity 1, 4, 5?
For this, see the answer to the second question. The slack for 1 = (0), 4 = (2), and 5 = (0).
11.3.2 Computerized Resource Scheduling
The resource scheduling examples that we solved above used the manual approach. For large
networks, however, this is not a feasible approach. Fortunately, all the better quality computer
packages for project management, besides network analysis, also feature the ability to schedule
activities taking into account resource constraints. Thus for most people engaged in project
management today, a computerized approach is preferred. While a full description of the way in
which current packages perform resource scheduling is beyond the scope of this topic, these
packages commonly use the serial scheduling and parallel scheduling algorithms. The basic
features of both these algorithms were described earlier in this lesson, even though the computer
packages use more sophisticated versions of these algorithms. Given the nature of the resource
constraints, each method may produce a feasible schedule; however, the schedules need not
necessarily be the same. Furthermore, if the same problem is solved by two different project
management packages, different schedules may be generated. A computer demonstration of
resource constrained scheduling is also presented in your textbook.
11.3.3 Benefits of Resource Scheduling
The process of scheduling resources before the project begins provides the following benefits:
1. If project delay is unacceptable, it allows sufficient time for considering alternatives such
as cost-time trade-offs and changing of priorities.
2. Provides information to prepare time-phased work package budgets with dates.
3. Enables project managers to determine the amount of flexibility they have over certain
resources.
Self Assessment
Fill in the blanks:
7. …………………………, also called resource loading, is concerned with assigning the
required number of those resources identified in the previous step to each activity identified
in the plan.
8. The most important resources that project managers have to plan and manage on day-to-
day basis are people, machines, materials, and ……………………..
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