Resources to include people, equipment, machines, tools, facilities, and space. Among the people may be different types, such as painters, designers, cooks, computer programmers, and assembly workers.
The consideration of resources as another dimension (beyond the element of time) to planning and scheduling. In many projects, the amounts of the various types of resources available to perform the project activities are limited. Several activities may require the same resources at the same time, and there may not be sufficient resources available to satisfy all the demands. If sufficient resources are not available, some activities may have to be rescheduled for later time when the resources are available for them.
One way to consider resources is to take them into account when drawing the logical relationships among activities and the network diagram. In addition to showing the technical constraints amung activities, the network logic can also take into account resource constraints. The sequence of activities can be drawn to reflect the limited availability of a number of resources. If resources are to be considered in planning, it's necessary to indicate the amounts and types of resources needed to perform each activity. For this reason, a resource profile is often developed.
Resource leveling, or smoothing, is a method for developing a schedule attempts to minimize the fluctuations in requirements for resources. This method levels the resources that they are applied as uniformly as possible without extending the project schedule beyond the required completion time. Resource leveling attempts to establish a schedule in which resource use is made as level as possible without extending the project be on the required completion time. In resource leveling, the required project completion time is fixed, and the resources are buried in an attempt to eliminate fluctuation.
Resource limited scheduling is a method for developing the shortest schedule when the number or amount of available resources is fixed. This method is appropriate when the resources available for the project are limited and these resource limits cannot be exceeded. This method will extend the project completion time is necessary in order to keep within the resource limits. It is an iterative method in which resources are allocated to activities based on the least slack. The steps are repeated until all the resource constraints have been satisfied. In resource limited scheduling, the resources are fixed, and the project completion time is varied (extended) in order not to exceed the resource limits.
For large project that requires many different resources, each of which has a different limit of availability, resource limited scheduling can get very complicated. Various project management software packages are available that will assist with this process.
