Optimal resource levelling using non-serial dynamic programming

A recurring problem in managing project activities is to minimize the deviation between the resource requirements and stated desirable levels. This paper presents a new optimizing approach for resource levelling based on non-serial dynamic programming. This approach permits a marked reduction of the complexity of the problem as it checks for only the feasible time subsets, which are far less numerous than feasible sequences. The model, which is applied to an activity-on-node network, requires as input the scheduling results provided by the critical path method. Applications of the model to two opposite cases are also described and the solutions compared with the ones achieved by the Burges and Killebrew heuristic. Computational results indicate that the procedure provides exact solutions for small to medium size problems, requiring only modest computing facilities.