Resource Leveling

Hi Mark,

I suggest to repeat this question in the Primavera discussion.

Maybe you will get an answer from P6 users though most of them do not level project resources. Steps are simple - define resource leveling priorities and run leveling. It is hard to say why this does not work for you. People may be of help if they will understand your actions first.

In Spider Project this problem does not exist but exporting and importing 28K schedule may become a problem. I expect that XER file created by P6 is huge and leveling will rquire much less time and resources than information exchange.

Best Regards,

Vladimir

I would suggest to start looking at the resource leveling options to make sure there are resources assigned to be leveled. If resources are loaded but none is selected as to be leveled no resource leveling will be executed.

Hi Mark

I use the leveling facility for Primavera P6 frequently but i have no experience in 28k activities schedules. It seams that you are expecting the activities itself to stretch or the crunch during resource leveling. I do not know this facility in P6. As and when you have resourced your schedule, the first question is " Do i want to level  all the resources or only a selected number of resourses."

Usually the resource with the most impact on the schedule in terms of duration is the one to start with. Say, on on steel construction job sufficient qualified welders is a constrained on the schedule. In this case you level only on the welders and the schedule itself shall stretch when the requirement of the welders resource is more then the limits set. Then there are many options in the resource leveling tab. I use the  leveling within the "free float ", seldom use "total float". The next item is to allocate leveling priorities to all the activities you whish to level.

One more suggestion, do the levelling in steps which you can manage. 

Regards Johannes

That resource allocations are feasible it does necessarily means you got a good plan. Even when you can hire infinite resources you must watch idle time if you cannot accommodate all resources to some productive work, the ideal target. Therefore you shall plan the resource availability as to reduce idle time, might be to reduce all or perhaps not all as to leave some buffer. These are decisions you as a manager and planner shall consider in order to make better schedules.

The following figures represent the same job, both are feasible schedules.

1. In the first one the availability of resource A is such that will yield 160 hours of idle resources. Of course they will hide, they will slow productivity, they will protect their job. If the resource A hourly rate, including labor burden is 50$/hour it means $8,000.00 will be spent on idle time.
2. In the second one  the availability of resource A is reduced but it is till possible without delaying total job duration. Such plan projects $0.00 spent on idle time.

Which one is a better plan, maybe option 2 if you do not have other jobs to assign resource A, and this you shall decide.

You shall also understand the limits of your software, some are incapable of responding to variable quantity and variable workloads that an experience Project Manager will assign even if the paper plan is incapable of doing it. They will move idle resources to other activities, increasing the number of workers on the activity for a limited time. They will move the paper schedule to the port-o-let for a better use of useless/idle paper. This will reduce idle time, will make for a more efficient use of resources, might reduce some activities durations and even might reduce total project duration. In jobs with hundreds of activities this is better done by a computer.

Learn to use the resource leveling tool to make better plans, not just feasible plans.