Resource Leveling 101

What is Resource leveling?

Resource leveling is a method to flatten the schedule when resources are over allocated. One of the most common approach why leveling is applied is to find that resources are not over extended on activities.

There are two ways to perform resource leveling:

Approach 1: If a resource X is fit in to Task A and Task B for same progress period , then resource X has definitely over extend working hours more than fixed capacity. In this scenario if resource leveling is applied then default way leveling will be performed is impacting the Schedule Finish Dates.

Resource Conflict Example:

Ex.:  Resource “Barath” is having capacity of working 8h/d(Max Units) and when assigned to multi activities  with same period time then resource is over allocated or said to posses state called “resource Conflict”.

 Note: Before leveling what are all the parameters should i look at?

1. Early start and Finish of my activity
2. Late start and Finish of my activity.
3. Slack/Float existing.

Three parameters are considered main for any schedule which will give clear picture of schedule at completion and slack time.

Why should i look at these three parameters?

After leveling impact will be on schedule finish which may push my durations well behind from my planned one.

1.  If Early start/Finish is not noted it would be irreversible to bring back the dates to initial planned state after leveling.
2. If Late start/Finish is not monitored then it would be difficult to track float for each activity.

After Leveling:

How to avoid this?

To avoid this unrealistic scenario take care to mark “Preserver early start/finish” while leveling.

After preserving dates:

Exercise:

1. Try with fixing different capacity for a resource across time period. -> 1^st day have max capacity 2 units , 2^nd day fix 4 units max, 3^rd day -5 units max

     Result: What is the result of graph looking like? –Did leveling happen?

     2. For Activities try changing calendars.- From 5 day change to 7 day/6 day workweek type

Result: Does Linear Leveling happen? – If Not what is the reason it didn’t happen.

      3.       Manually change future buckets .Save changes. Now level it.

Result: What are the changes in Graph allocation?

    4.       Try fixing constraints on activity which needs to be levelled.

    5.       Manually re-alter the schedule so that activity which needs to be levelled goes to critical path.

       Result: Does Leveling happen? If it happened is there any changes to schedule finish of that activity

 bharath subramanian, certified implementation consultant