Scribd
Upload
159 views

Resource Leveling & Resource Smoothing

The document compares and contrasts resource leveling and resource smoothing techniques for project scheduling. It provides an example project with 7 activities and limited resources, showing how resource leveling removes all conflicts by delaying activities, lengthening the project to 22 days. Resource smoothing removes 4 out of 6 conflicts without delaying the project end, but requires additional resources on two days. Resource leveling prioritizes removing all conflicts while resource smoothing aims to minimize impacts to the schedule duration.

Uploaded by

Kabeer Qureshi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
159 views

Resource Leveling & Resource Smoothing

The document compares and contrasts resource leveling and resource smoothing techniques for project scheduling. It provides an example project with 7 activities and limited resources, showing how resource leveling removes all conflicts by delaying activities, lengthening the project to 22 days. Resource smoothing removes 4 out of 6 conflicts without delaying the project end, but requires additional resources on two days. Resource leveling prioritizes removing all conflicts while resource smoothing aims to minimize impacts to the schedule duration.

Uploaded by

Kabeer Qureshi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 6

Resource Leveling and Resource

Smoothing Explained with An Example


Consider a project with 7 activities as shown in the table below. The predecessors of
each activity and the duration of the activities are given. The number of compressors
(consider it as a resource) required by each activity is also listed. The organization has
only 6 compressors available with them.

The first step is to draw the schedule network diagram and determine the critical path.
From the schedule network diagram, you can understand the critical path is A-B-C-E-G
and the total duration of the project is 20 days.

The problem with the critical path method is it does not consider the availability of
resources. So, now we need to check whether there are any resource conflicts in the
schedule created by the critical path method.

It will be easier if we present the schedule in the Gantt chart/ bar chart format to
understand the resource usage over time periods.

With the bar chart representation, it is easier for us to calculate the compressors
needed on each day. For example, we know that from day 1 to 3, only activity A is in
progress; so, we need 6 compressors on each of these days. However, from day 6 to 9,
activity C and activity D are running in parallel. So, you need 7 compressors (5 for
activity C and 2 for activity D) on each of these days.

Let us plot the resources required as a histogram.


By drawing a line to show the resource limit, we can clearly see the days on which the
resource conflict occurs. You can see that the schedule requires more compressors
than available on six days; Day 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12.

Now, let us see how the application of resource leveling and resource smoothing helps
to remove the resource conflicts on these six days.

Application of Resource Leveling to the


Sample Project
As we have seen earlier, resource leveling looks at removing all resource conflicts
without worrying too much about extending the project duration.

Let us look at the first conflict, which happens between activities C and D. To avoid the
conflict, we need to delay either activity C or activity D. Since activity C is on the critical
path, it is prudent to delay activity D.

We have to delay the activity D until activity C completes. This means, activity D has to
be shifted to start on Day 11. By doing this, the resources required on days 6 to 9
comes down to only 5 compressors. Since there is a float in activity D, everything looks
fine.

But, when we move an activity, we have to see how it affects the other successor
activities. In this case, since F depends on the completion of activity D, it also has to be
shifted.

(the light blue color bars show the original schedule based on CPM)

Now, you can see that there is no resource conflict from day 1 to day 14. But, there is a
conflict on days 15 and 16; activity E needs 4 compressors and activity F also needs 4
compressors.
So, we have to delay either activity E or activity F to avoid this conflict. Since activity F
is not on the critical path, let us delay this activity.

We have to delay it until the completion of activity E. It means activity F can start only
on day 20. However, it also leads to the shifting of activity G since activity F is its
predecessor.

Let us look at the final Gantt chart and the resource usage histogram.

It’s good. All resource conflicts are removed. Now, the maximum compressors required
is only six numbers on any day.

However, in the process, the project gets delayed by two days. The total duration of the
project is 22 days now.
The critical path also has changed. Activity F is part of the critical path now. So, the new
critical path is A-B-C-E-F-G.

Application of Resource Smoothing to the


Sample Project
Resource smoothing looks at removing as much resource conflicts as possible without
delaying the total project duration.

Let us again start to adjust the original CPM schedule to avoid resource peaks.

Activity D is shifted from day 6 to day 11. This removes the resource peaks from day 6
to 9.
However, there is still resource conflicts on day 15 and day 16. This conflict cannot be
removed without delaying the total project duration. So, resource smoothing will stop
here.

Out of the six days of conflict, resource smoothing managed to remove 4 days of
conflict. However, if the organization wants to stick to the original schedule, they should
bring additional resources on day 15 & day 16.

Conclusion
Resource leveling is a resource-limited scheduling technique, while resource smoothing
is a time-limited scheduling technique.

You could use either of them in your projects based on the requirements of your
organization.

You might also like