| Abstract: | This paper is concerned with the estimation of the resource requirements to service multiple projects that use many types of resources. It reports on a systematic procedure to determine the low cost levels of these resources, focusing on the two following characteristics: (1) the comparative cost of standard time to overtime in the utilization of these resources for the economical completion of the projects, and (2) the impact of highly expensive equipment in the determination of the economic levels of the manpower resources that combine with the equipment to form a crew. A numerical example is also presented to illustrate the method. Resource planning is of particular interest in the area of multiproject scheduling, since most of the commonly utilized heuristic solution approaches focus on the allocation of a limited set of available resources. In the corporate strategic planning functions, resource planning is particularly important for capital investment, training and development, and procurement scheduling. |
