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resources

Linking resources to activities: Resource availability and resource demand

Activities require renewable resources during their execution which are limited on a periodic basis (see “Resource types: Renewable and consumable resources”). In practice, activities need resources during their execution that are often limited in availability. In this article, the connection between the resource requirements of activities and the limited availability of these resources is discussed along the following topics:

The cost of a project activity: Calculating the activity and/or resource costs

The calculation of costs is an important aspect of project scheduling and control. In this section, two main types of costs are discussed, each consisting of two subtypes. The total activity cost consists of the sum of all subtype costs, as will be explained in this article. The two main types are as follows:

Resource types: Renewable and consumable resources

In the PERT/CPM scheduling techniques (see “The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT): Incorporating activity time variability in a project schedule” and “The Critical Path Method (CPM): Incorporating activity time/cost trade-offs in a project schedule”), project activities are characterized by their estimated duration(s) and project networks are constructed by adding precedence relations between these activities. It is therefore implicitly assumed that these activities do not require resources during their execution (or alternatively, the assumption is that the resources are unlimited in availability). In practice, activities need resources during their execution that are often limited in availability. These resources have been classified in two basic categories, as follows:

  • Renewable resources
  • Consumable resources
After the presentation of the two commonly used resource types, some special cases are briefly presented.

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