Leveling resources and alleviating congested areas of linear schedules.

Abstract

The fluctuations in the daily aggregate human resources and the overloading of workspaces have been two undesirable issues encountered by managers during construction, in particular on repetitive projects. The former imposes additional costs on the project resulting from idle workforce and release and rehire factors as well as leads to improper distribution of the contractor’s payments. The latter creates congestion that negatively affects labor productivity. However, these two issues could be mitigated through resource leveling and proper space planning during the early project phases. Few attempts were made to level resources in linear schedules by changing production rates or the slopes of linear lines. However, this has led in some instances to a decrease in productivity. Moreover, the existing leveling techniques did not account for congestion after leveling. Therefore, this research study presents an automated mathematical model targeted at generating a leveled-least congested linear schedule. Results revealed that the proposed model is effective and yields a more efficient resource and cost profiles under a less congested schedule. The study contribution lies in providing project planners and practitioners with a resource leveling tool that can be applied on linear schedules to account for congestion without altering production rates. It also adds to the literature through amending the traditional linear schedule to accurately represent two-dimensional workspaces and rapidly visualize conflict areas.