What is the difference between resource leveling and resource allocation

What else do I need? Search APM. Home Resources Find a Resource Difference between 'resource smoothing' and 'resource levelling'. Posted in Project controls. Join APM. Sign up to the APM Newsletter. You have to allocate resources to each of your operations or projects so they can proceed. However, you may discover that your allocation is uneven. Some areas may require more resources than you have available, while other areas may require fewer resources than you thought they would.

You need to resolve the disparities through resource leveling. Learn how resource allocation can cause conflicts with resource leveling. You have to determine the amount of labor, equipment, money and time required for any project. Whether you are ramping up production in anticipation of a major new customer or introducing a new product to the market, you have to make sure you have allocated enough resources to meet the goals of that project.

Determine how much labor and equipment you will need, as well as cash for vendors, subcontractors and supplies for things like shipping. In a more complex organization, resources could be allocated across multiple, concurrent construction projects thus requiring the process of resource leveling to be performed at the firm level. Resource leveling techniques are closely related to critical path method calculations. For that reason, total float, activity sequences, and the network diagram logic affect the required resource quantities per time.

The critical path is a common type of technique used by project managers when it comes to resource-leveling. The critical path represents for both the longest and shortest time duration paths in the network diagram to finish the project. However, apart from the widely used critical path method concept, project managers use fast-tracking and crashing if things get out of hand. Fast tracking: This performs critical path activities. This buys time. The prominent feature of this technique is that although the work is finished for the moment, the possibility of rework is higher.

Crashing: It refers to assign more resources to the existing resources to get construction works done faster, associated with the additional cost such as labor, equipment, etc. What Is Resource Allocation? What is Resource Leveling? Resource leveling Techniques The critical path is a common type of technique used by project managers when it comes to resource-leveling.