Basics Resource Leveling

Resource Leveling is one of the concepts that the planners get ask to perform it as part of the resource loading practice. The Process can be complicated and to achieve sensible results, more than one scenario needs to be analysed and demonstrated. Still the outcomes have to be reviewed and presented to the project management team, for making most appropriate decision based on the cost benefits of the scenarios. In this article, we will demonstrate some of the basics of Resource Leveling in Primavera.

Scenario 1: Simple Over-allocation

Let’s start with a project consisting of three activities. We have assigned a single resource with a Max Unit/Time of 8 hours/day. As shown in the initial setup, the resource is over-allocated by 16 hours/day (totaling 24 hours of demand against an 8-hour limit).

When we trigger the Level Resources function, P6 analyzes the availability. In this basic case, P6 shifts the activities regardless of whether logic exists between them, to eliminate the over-allocation by stacking them sequentially.

Scenario 2: Logic & Fixed Duration Conflicts

Now, let's complicate the math. We increase the budgeted units for Activity A1000 from 40 to 80 hours (requiring 16 hours/day) and add a predecessor to Activity A1020. The first week now faces a massive 24-hour demand per day.

After leveling this time, the over-allocation still exists. While it was reduced from 16 hours to 8 hours by shifting Activity A1020, the software hit a wall.

Decoding the Failure

Why did P6 fail to resolve the over-allocation? By reviewing the Leveling Log File, we see the technical hurdle: Activity A1000 could not be leveled.

Because the Max Unit/Time for the resource is 8h/day, but the fixed duration of Activity A1000 requires 16h/day to complete the 80 hours of work, P6 cannot mathematically eliminate the conflict.