Learning Outcomes:

• Process of crashing a project

• Fast-tracking to shorten a project schedule
• Resource allocation, loading and leveling
• Trade-offs among project resources
• Use of resources in individual and multiple,
simultaneous projects
Introduction
No matter how good the Project Plan and how efficient
and productive the Project Team may be, Project
Managers will always be faced with limited time and
money, and a shortage of people, equipment and
materials
Scheduling problems become more complex when
multiple projects share common resources and the PM
must determine the best trade-offs
Crashing and fast-tracking are two ways of expediting
or shortening a project duration
Resource loading and leveling ensure the right amount
of resources are available during specific time periods
and allocating them at a constant rate over time
Crashing a project using the Critical Path Method
Stakeholders often want to shorten a project schedule
estimate
This can be achieved by compressing the duration of
activities on the critical path
 Recall that the critical path is the longest path through the
network diagram with the least amount of slack
 You first need to develop a good WBS and activity list before
developing the network diagram
 Duration of each activity on the critical path must be
estimated and all the durations added up to determine the
project schedule estimate
Activity duration can be shortened by allocating more
resources or by changing the scope of the activities
Crashing a project
A technique for making cost and schedule trade-offs
to obtain the greatest amount of schedule
compression for the least incremental cost
Main advantage – shortens the time to finish a project
Main disadvantage – increases total project costs
Standard practice and rule of thumb can be used for
estimating resource needs for normal progress
Crashing requires careful planning to ensure total
project length is actually reduced and to avoid
introducing new problems
Cost/time crashing method relies on the cheapest
option for reducing the duration
Other factors besides cost also need to be considered
Factors to consider when crashing
Timing of crashing
Crashing a critical activity early in the project may lead
to waste of money if
 Some other non-critical path becomes the new critical path
 Some other critical activity is finished early

It may be wise to crash early

 If later activities are likely to be delayed and therefore offset
any gains in time
 The PM wants to retain the option of crashing both early and

late activities
Impact of crashing on morale and motivation of
project team
Least-cost method used repeatedly to accelerate
progress may result in fatigue and resentment among
team members
If overtime pay is involved, other team members not
involved with the crashing may resent not having this
benefit
Can lead to tension in the entire team
Inherent risks in crashing need to be considered
Some activities are more riskier than others to crash
Risk management must be re-examined when crashing
Ways to crash a schedule
Change the way resources are applied to the project
Relieve employees of other responsibilities so they can
devote more hours each day to the project
Re-allocate resources from non-critical activities to
provide the extra help
 Check to see the critical path has not shifted to include the
non-critical activities
Add resources to provide additional staff, overtime,
additional equipment, vendor incentives to complete
sooner, or outsource
 Schedule overtime sparingly since it is not as productive as
regular work hours
Change the sequence of activities to allow overlap or
parallel activities, rather than sequential
This will increase the risk
Reconsider the accuracy of the estimates for activities
on the critical path
But don’t arbitrarily reduce the estimates to fit the
time available
Consider modifying the project objectives
Rethink the basic strategy to achieve the same
objectives
Reduce the project scope
Increase the budget or increase the time
Example of crashing using the CPM

Activity Time required Cost (RM) Crashing cost

(weeks) per week (RM)
Normal Crash Normal Crash

A 4 2 10,000 14,000 2000

B 6 5 30,000 42,500 12,500
C 2 1 8000 9500 1500
D 2 1 12,000 18,000 6000
E 7 5 40,000 52,000 6000
F 6 3 20,000 29,000 3000
Example
Only critical path activities are considered for crashing
Begin with the lowest weekly crashing costs
 Activity A at RM 2000 for a max of 2 weeks
 Activity C is lower at RM 1500 but is not on the critical path
 Next is Activity F at RM 3000 for a max of 3 weeks
Activities A, F, E, B can be crashed in that order
Total crashing course is RM 37,500, raising the budget from
RM 120,000 to RM 157,500
Corresponding schedule reduced from 23 to 15 weeks
 There is a possibility that this reduction may be unrealistic if
sufficient resources cannot be made available during the
crashing period
As an activity is crashed, a new critical path may develop so
that the actual schedule is not reduced as much as expected
CPM Crashing Costs
Fast-tracking - another technique for schedule shortening
Involves doing tasks in parallel that would normally be done in
sequence or in slight overlaps
Only possible if the project supports tasks being done in parallel
Requires closer coordination among those responsible for the
affected tasks but can result in huge time savings
Main disadvantage is that it increases the risk of rework, and
thus actually may lengthen the schedule
E.g. beginning construction work on a building before the
design is approved by relevant authorities
 Fast-tracking may reduce the project schedule up to 40 %
 However, overlapping design approval and construction is a
risky business
 Decision must be jointly made by all major stakeholders who
need to accept the risk that it may need to be demolished and
rebuilt if the design assumptions prove mistaken
 The resource allocation problem
Fundamental resources required for any project:
1. People
2. Money
3. Equipment
4. Facilities
5. Materials and Supplies
6. Information
7. Technology
Basic questions for the PM to answer:
1. What resources are needed to complete each task on the project?
2. Who and what from the list is already available?
Every project faces the reality of limited resources
 The strategy is to avoid both ‘over’ and ‘under’ allocation
Over allocation
 Allocating a rare resource with the assumption that it will be
easily available
 E.g. the unlimited time of the only subject matter expert in the
company
Under allocation
 Reassigning the team to other projects when they are not busy
so that they are unavailable when they are needed
 In the worst case, during project lulls, some team members may
get laid off, becoming permanently unavailable and taking
valuable project knowledge with them
For realistic and efficient allocation
 Avoid resource peaks and valleys
 Use a consistent set of people at a consistent rate on the project
 Every upswing in resource use has an additional cost, e.g.
procuring new equipment or transporting new team members to
the project site
Goal of resource allocation
Optimize the people and equipment assigned to the
project
To plan for consistent and continuous use of the fewest
resources
System-constrained project tasks
Task requiring a fixed amount of time and known
quantities of resources
E.g. heating a material for a production process
No trade-offs are possible
Just need to ensure required resources are available
when needed
Resource loading
The amount of work each team member or other resource
is assigned
Important team members may be overwhelmed with an
impossible workload
Others may be under-loaded
Histograms are often used to depict period by period
variations in resource loading
 Histograms can be very useful in identifying staffing
problems
 Over-allocation means more resources than are available
have been assigned to perform work at a given time
 Project Management software can automatically prepare a
resource-loading diagram
Sample histogram showing an over-allocated individual
Resource levelling
Many project schedules neglect to deal with
 Conflicting availability among resources
 Potential overuse of key resources
 Needs of other projects and priorities
Resource levelling
 A technique for resolving resource conflicts by delaying tasks
 A form of network analysis where resource management drives
scheduling decisions, i.e. start and finish dates of tasks
 Main purpose is to create a smoother distribution of tasks
 Assumes that it is most productive to have consistent, continuous
use of the fewest resources possible
 Avoids repeatedly adding and removing resources throughout the
project
 Adjusts the schedule to compensate for limitations on equipment
and people
Over-allocation and under-allocation can be remedied by
changing the schedule
Period by period variations in resource loading is minimized by
shifting tasks within their slack allowances
Project management software is useful for resource levelling
 Used to make changes to the schedule
 PM needs to be aware of all substantial changes to the schedule
Benefits of resource levelling
 Resources need less management when they are used on a more
constant basis
 Helps PMs use a JIT inventory type of policy for employing
subcontractors or other expensive resources
 Fewer problems for Project personnel and Accounting departments
 Improves morale of project team members by providing stability in
their jobs
Constrained resource scheduling
Heuristic methods
‘Rule of thumb’ estimates that have been found to work
reasonably well in similar situations
Used widely since
 They are the only feasible methods of solving the large, non-
linear complex problems of real world project management
 Schedules may not be optimal but are good enough for most

purposes
 Modern simulation techniques allow PMs to develop many

different schedules quickly and make a comparison

Optimizing methods
Linear programming and enumeration methods to find
an optimal solution to the constrained resource problem
Multi-project scheduling and resource allocation

Scheduling and allocating resources to multiple projects

is much more complicated than a single project
Most common approach is to treat several projects as
elements of a single large project
Another way is to consider all the projects as completely
independent
An efficient multi-project scheduling system is
definitely needed when there are many projects, each
with its own tasks, due dates and resource requirements
Parameters affected by project scheduling
Schedule slippage
 Most important of the criteria
 Amount of time after a project’s due date when the project is

actually delivered
Resource utilization
 Measure of effectiveness
 Particularly important to industrial organizations because of

the high cost of making resources available

Amount of in-process inventory
 The amount of work waiting to be processed because of the
shortage of some resource