Scheduling Projects with Repeating Activities

Abstract

Construction contractors are often faced with projects containing multiple units wherein activities repeat from unit to unit. These projects require schedules that ensure the uninterrupted usage of resources from an activity in one unit to a similar activity in the next unit. The critical path method (CPM) cannot assure this requirement because only technical precedence and resource availability constraints are explicitly shown in CPM networks. The repetitive scheduling method (RSM) described in this paper recognizes the technical constraints of CPM and also includes an additional resource continuity constraint to ensure continuous resource usage. RSM is a scheduling methodology that simplifies and generalizes various multiunit scheduling procedures previously proposed by several authors and it is known by a number of different names. It applies to both vertical and horizontal projects containing either discrete or continuous activities. An RSM schedule is presented graphically as an