Abstract

Resource Allocation is without doubt one of the most important areas of concern to construction management. The two main problems of resource allocation of concern are resource levelling and resource scheduling. The normal convention is for, the resource scheduling problem to be solved using either heuristic methods or optimization techniques. Where heuristic methods are used, resource scheduling is always treated as a subsequent problem for the critical path analysis.

In this paper, the resource scheduling problem is handled using heuristics, where logic dependence and resource availability limits are considered after the time scheduling process. Both Resource Constrained and Time Constrained models are discussed.

Constant resource demand of activities is assumed, and the task once started will continue if the project is constrained by time and so cannot be interrupted. However where resource availability limits are reached and the task has Total Float it can be split in order to avoid overloading the resource.

Splitting however may have other consequences, so control of splitting is demonstrated. Several example projects are solved by different heuristic methods using different software. The results are compared with the latest heuristic models: current float technique and ranked positional weight method.