Raymund,

the next step is project leveling because resources are always limited on Contractor side and the same crews will not be able to execute several activities in parallel. Contractors cannot afford to hire different numbers of people and machines each day or pay large money for resources idle time.

So there is a need to optimize resource requirements basing on the same information that people use for planning and scheduling (quantities, productivities, dependencies). If project model will answer to any what if question (like what if some resources will be added to certain crews, what if the project will use additional machine, etc.) then it is very useful decision making tool.

But if it is static (fixed durations that do not depend on productivity of assigned crews, resource constraints were not considered, etc.) then it is just the vision of the project planner and any changes that may be required are very time consuming (re-assigning resources, reconsidering fixed durations, etc.). In large models it is a huge work that is rarely done properly.

Raymund,

In long projects we use rolling wave planning.

The period of detailed planning is usually between 3 and 6 months.

But if we have all necessary data (that is rare) we create the detailed model of the whole project. It helps to plan required resources and costs.

Raymund,

in construction in most cases task duration depends on the number and productivity of assigned resources.

When resources are limited we don't know in advance who will do what. For example, we know that the task require an excavator to be done and task duration depends on assigned excavator productivity. If we have different excavators we don't know what excavators will be available at the moment when task execution can start. In this case we assign the role (skill) excavator and the software will select available machine and will calculate activity duration basing on the task volume of work and assigned excavator productivity.

This is how it works. We call it skill scheduling and it is used in detailed planning.

When we assign teams they may include roles (skills) though in most cases the teams (crews) consist of known resources that have certain productivities on assigned tasks.

Hi Raymund,

we are discussing creating and assigning resource teams that can include both specific resources and roles.

Assigned team productiviy may depend on the selection of specific resources that fit to assigned roles.

When the software calculates resource constrained schedule it selects specific resources that are available and have required skills and uses their productivities for calculating planned activity duration.

Hi Raymund,

your current statement means that all resources have the same planned productivity. It contradicts to your previous statement that

"In Construction, there are no standard productivity rate for each Resource with similar roles. Therefore, REsources has to be assigned individually and not by Team."

But you are not always right. It is not rare when construction companies use machines that can do the same work but with different productivity (like excavators with different volumes of their buckets). They can do the same role but activity duration depends on the resource assignment.

Hello Sir Vlad,

To be honest, in construction schedule never a specific resources are assigned individually to activities rather its the roles. So assigning resource to multiple activities will not be an issue.

Regards,