Leveling That Broke the Deadline
A construction-fitout project has a 30-week critical path. Two tasks - 'electrical rough-in' (6 weeks) and 'HVAC ducting' (5 weeks) - are both assigned to the same two-person crew and both sit on the critical path in overlapping weeks 8-14. The PM runs resource leveling to remove the overallocation, which pushes HVAC to weeks 15-19. A separate task, 'install ceiling grid,' has 4 weeks of total float and depends on both. The client has a contractual handover in week 30 with penalty clauses. A junior planner suggests simply crashing electrical rough-in by adding a third crew member to recover the lost time.
1. Explain what leveling did to the schedule and whether the 30-week handover is now at risk.
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Leveling resolved the crew overallocation by delaying HVAC, but because both tasks were on the critical path, delaying one extends the project. The overlap was 7 weeks of shared crew; serialising them adds roughly 5 weeks, pushing the critical path toward 35 weeks - past the week-30 handover and into penalty territory. Leveling prioritises resource feasibility over date, so this is expected behaviour, not a bug. The PM must now decide whether to accept the new date, re-sequence, or add resources. The ceiling-grid task's float may also be consumed, so the PM should re-run float analysis after leveling, not assume earlier float still exists.
2. Evaluate the junior planner's crashing suggestion.
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Crashing electrical rough-in by adding a third crew member only helps if the task is resource-limited and the work is divisible. Electrical rough-in on a fitout is often sequence-bound (you cannot have three crews in the same riser), so extra crew may add coordination cost with little gain. Crashing also costs money and can reduce quality. The PM should first check whether the task is genuinely compressible, get the crew lead's view, and compare crash cost against the penalty exposure. A cheaper option may be to overlap HVAC with a non-critical task or to level differently - e.g., split the crew so one person supports each task - rather than crash blindly. The right answer weighs cost, feasibility, and risk, not just the calendar.