Mumbai University > Civil Engineering > SEM 8 > Construction Management

Marks: 10M

The main objective of any organization is not to waste the resources.

The specified quantity of resources should be available at the desired moment, so that work is not held up and the resources should be utilized to its maximum possible capacity.

This is achieved by shifting the activities on non-critical paths by making use of the floats and an alternative schedule is generated by comparing the more important resources with the object of smoothing the demand on resources.

The float time of an activity enables the delay of that activity for some time and utilizes their resources for urgent activities

Hence, this can be understood as Resource Allocation.

Resource allocation is the scheduling of activities and the resources required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resource availability and project time.

The resource allocation procedure mainly consists of two activities: Resource Smoothing and Resource Leveling

Resource Smoothing:- If duration of completion of the project is the constraint, then resource smoothing should be applied without changing the total project duration. The periods of minimum demand for resources are located and the activities are shifted according to the float availability and the requirement of resources. Thus the intelligent utilization of floats can smoothen the demand of resources to the maximum possible extent. This type of resource allocation is called Resource Smoothing.

In the process of resource leveling, whenever the availability of resource becomes less than its maximum requirement, the only alternative is to delay the activity having larger float. In case, two or more activities require the same amount of resources, the activity with minimum duration is chosen for resource allocation. Resource leveling is done if the restriction is on the availability of resources.