Allocating Limited Resources for Megaprojects on Deadline

For much of her career, Oya Tukel, dean of NJIT’s Martin Tuchman School of Management and a professor of supply chain management, has researched problems in resource-constrained project scheduling that can cause significant delays, particularly for large, complex projects that require thousands of activities.

In developing a new product, think of how limited manpower and materials may negatively affect project scheduling and the production line, and, in turn, increase the time to reach the marketplace. In launching late, the product, along with the business behind it, may then face greater competition from other businesses with similar products and also miss the window of consumer interest.

Tukel has analyzed research findings since the 1950s concerning project management and scheduling, and the impact of limited resources across a range of industries. On the whole, she has found that resources have often been thought to be plentiful and available when they actually were not, and as a result, project managers have had to frequently abandon their production schedules.

Constrained resources are by definition not always available when needed. With human resources, for instance, while they are considered renewable — “Every day I’m here. I used my eight hours yesterday, but I have another eight hours today, so I’m a renewable resource,” said Tukel — project activities can compete for them and conflict can ensue. “Human resources cannot be allocated to tasks simultaneously, so we need to determine which project task gets priority and is scheduled first,” she noted.

“And then there are nonrenewable resources that you consume as the project progresses and you deplete eventually,” she added. Materials and money are prime examples.

To develop her own project scheduling algorithms, Tukel has reviewed commonly used project management software platforms, including Primavera and Microsoft Project. Her research yielded heuristic algorithms for creating feasible project schedules when there are tasks requiring resources that are limited. For instance, one algorithm involved analyzing the order of task implementation and predicting whether delaying specific tasks to reduce or resolve resource conflicts would negatively affect project completion and, if so, by how much time. Through this process, the algorithm also evaluated all possible scheduling solutions and ascertained which one resulted in the shortest delay to finishing a project.

Using universally accepted data in this area representing resource-limited projects that managers typically face in real life — such as new product development and construction and information systems projects — Tukel then tested her algorithm and compared its performance with that of other heuristics. She found her algorithm improved resource allocation, leading to projects finishing earlier.

Constrained resources are by definition not always available when needed.

Recently, she has moved beyond project scheduling and limited-resource allocation to research other areas of managing projects that include how a business’s culture and a project manager’s background affect performance — which subsequently can have an impact on overall project efficiency and performance. For her study, Tukel solicited Fortune 500 companies to allow her to interview their project managers responsible for leading large, complex projects. With permission granted by one well-known corporation, and collaborating with faculty at The University of Memphis, she has crafted an extensive survey with mostly open-ended questions. These inquiries concern the project managers’ job-related strengths, shortcomings and skills, as well as their career history and work engagement, and internal and external networking. She also includes scales rating vigor, dedication and absorption on the job.

To date, Tukel has recorded in-person interviews with approximately 20 of the company’s project managers. She has begun analyzing the responses to identify similar terms, shared traits and other commonalities. She looks to determine correlations between these data points and project-manager performance, and ultimately project performance.

Many of the project managers “indicated that not having an industry certification like PMP (Project Management Professional) is something that bothers them. They feel they are not as good as their colleagues that do,” she said of her early findings, noting that PMP certification, which is challenging and time-consuming, signifies possession of important competencies and a full body of knowledge in project management.

The results of her research on project-manager performance will be applicable to any project no matter the size, Tukel pointed out. She intends to report her discoveries both to the Fortune 500 company and in a paper to be submitted to a professional journal on project management.