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4.4 Resource Allocation

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11 views19 pages

4.4 Resource Allocation

Uploaded by

gauraav12
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Resource

Allocation

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Objectives
• Nature of Resources
• Identifying Resource Requirements
• Scheduling Resources
• Resource Scheduling Techniques

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Schedules
• Activity schedule - indicating start
and completion dates for each
activity
• Resource schedule - indicating
dates when resources needed +
level of resources
• Cost schedule showing
accumulative expenditure
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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Nature of Resources
• These include
– labour
– equipment (e.g. workstations)
– materials
– space
– services
• Time: elapsed time can often be
reduced by adding more staff
• Money: used to buy the other
resources
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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Identifying Resource
Requirements
• The first step in producing a resource
allocation plan is to list the resources.
– Activity Specific Resources
– Resources not specific to activity
• Project Manager (Part of Project Infrastructure)
• Office Space

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Resource allocation
• Identify the resources needed for
each activity
• Identify resource types - individuals
are interchangeable within the group
(e.g. ‘VB programmers’ as opposed
to ‘software developers’)
• Allocate resource types to activities
and examine the resource histogram.
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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Resource histogram:
systems analysts
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STAFF REQD.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
WEEK 8
©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Resource clashes
can be resolved by:
– delaying one of the activities
• taking advantage of float to change start date
• delaying start of one activity until finish of the
other activity that resource is being used on -
puts back project completion

– moving resource from a non-critical


activity
– bringing in additional resource - increases
costs
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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Resource optimization
Resource leveling. A technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based
on resource constraints with the goal of balancing the demand for resources with
the available supply. Resource leveling can be used when shared or critically
required resources are available only at certain times or in limited quantities, or
are over- allocated, such as when a resource has been assigned to two or more
activities during the same time period (Refer Figure on next slide), or there is a
need to keep resource usage at a constant level. Resource leveling can often cause
the original critical path to change. Available float is used for leveling resources.
Consequently, the critical path through the project schedule may change.

Resource smoothing. A technique that adjusts the activities of a schedule model


such that the requirements for resources on the project do not exceed certain
predefined resource limits. In resource smoothing, as opposed to resource
leveling, the project’s critical path is not changed, and the completion date may
not be delayed. In other words, activities may only be delayed within their free
and total float. Resource smoothing may not be able to optimize all resources.

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Resource Leveling

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Resource Leveling and
Resource smoothing

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Prioritizing activities
There are two main ways of doing this:
• Total float priority – those with the
smallest float have the highest
priority
• Ordered list priority – this takes
account of the duration of the activity
as well as the float – see notes of this
slide.
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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Critical path
• Scheduling resources can create new
dependencies between activities –
• It is best not to add dependencies to the
activity network to reflect resource
constraints
– Makes network very messy
– A resource constraint may disappear during
the project, but link remains on network
• Amend dates on schedule to reflect
resource constraints
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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Allocating individuals to
activities
The initial ‘resource types’ for a task
have to be replaced by actual
individuals.
Factors to be considered:
• Availability
• Criticality
• Risk
• Training
• Team building – and motivation
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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Cost schedules

Cost schedules can now be


produced:
Costs include:
• Staff costs
• Overheads
• Usage charges

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Cost profile

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Accumulative costs

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005
Balancing concerns

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©The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005

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