Resource Constraints on Projects

The networking of a project which demonstrates the activities within the project, stating its earliest and latest starting & finishing time along with its duration. The critical path of a project is the activities which have no slack or flexibility, the remaining activities can be delayed and not effect the project duration time as they don't negatively impact the delivery of the project.

While completing a network activity graph and selecting the project critical path, it doesn't take into account the the resource usage and the availability of such resources within the organisation. Resource smoothing is the ability to ensure the the activities within the project are such that the requirements for the resources don't exceed the resource limits. If resources aren't enough to meet the requirement within the project, the latest start of some activities must be delayed which will impact the duration of the project as a whole - this is resource-constrained scheduling. By failing to schedule limited resources appropriately it will result in cost and timing issues within the project which is difficult to fix when the project is in full flow.

The most common resources which are assumed to be available at the level required by the project are: people, material & equipment.   

A resource constrained project is one that simply assumes the required resources available cant be exceeded as the level of available resources are limited. This means that the project may need to be delayed but only delayed by the minimum amount of time. This time depends on the level of slack available within non-critical activities to reduce the demand on resources. The PM must juggle to alter the prioritize and allocate resources without increase the duration of the project or exceed the availability of resources. The parrell method is used to minimise the delay of the project delivery. The process begins at the beginning of the time & follows a 3 rules: minimise slack, smallest duration and lowest activity number. 

With the use of Microsoft Project, the software will identify and solve issues with a resource constrained project - the use of technology assists the PM with the execution of the project without using valuable time to complete this manually. The resource based scheduling reduces slack by implementing the slack time into the project resulting in a reducing project flexibility & creates more critical activities. 

With the timing of the project altered by implementing any available slack into the delivery of activities based on the availability of required resources, the project budget will be impacted as the project duration may be delayed due to the availability of resources.

The NCH is an example of an organisation that was in need of completing a leveling of the project schedule to incorporate any slack into the project to reduce the length. It never realised the resource constraints within the project which have resulted in the construction of the NCH being delayed with the current standing of the site one GIANT hole in the ground, awaiting a state of the art facilitate at a current price of €1.7 billion - with the price to the Irish tax payers expected to increase. Without a leveling the project bill continues to increase and this impacts the roll-up budget. 


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