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Resource Management
Resource levelling is a technique in project
management that overlooks resource allocation and resolves possible conflict
arising from over-allocation. This will benefit the organization without having
to face conflicts and not being able to deliver on time. Resource levelling is
considered one of the key elements to resource management in the organization.
An organization starts to face problems if resources are not allocated properly
i.e., some resource may be over-allocated whilst others will be
under-allocated. Both will bring about a financial risk to the organization.
Resource levelling helps an organization to
make use of the available resources to the maximum. The idea behind resource
levelling is to reduce wastage of resources i.e., to stop over-allocation of
resources.
By resource conflicts, there are numerous
disadvantages suffered by the organization, such as:
· Delay
in certain tasks being completed
· Difficulty
in assigning a different resource
· Unable
to change task dependencies
· To
remove certain tasks
· To
add more tasks
· Overall
delays and budget overruns of projects
Resource levelling Techniques
Critical path is a common type of technique
used by project managers when it comes to resource levelling. The critical path
represents for both the longest and shortest time duration paths in the network
diagram to complete the project. However, apart from the widely used critical
path concept, project managers use fast tracking and crashing if things get out
of hand.
Fast
Tracking: This performs critical path tasks. This buys time. The
prominent feature of this technique is that although the work is completed for
the moment, possibility of rework is higher.
Crashing: This
refers to assigning resources in addition to existing resources to get work
done faster, associated with additional cost such as labour, equipment, etc.