Maintenance planners ordinarily identify job labor requirements in terms of total labor hours and the craft required to complete the job. Project management programs require that labor requirements be identified as elapsed time, resource type, and quantity of the resource. This distinction allows the software to determine the optimum resource level required to perform concurrent jobs on the critical and non-critical paths. A process called resource leveling is employed to delay the start time of non-critical jobs within float or slack to limit the peak requirements. Expand your idea of resources.
Most people think of a resource as the technical labor required, such as mechanics and electricians.
Inspectors, safety personnel, engineers, and operations personnel should also be included as a resource on jobs. Nonhuman resources in short supply, such as cranes, tools, and laser alignment instruments, should be considered as well. The process of load leveling will reveal any conflicts with these resources so the shutdown coordinator can deal with them ahead of time. Include operations activities. Maintenance people usually only think of the work that the maintenance department has to do during a shutdown.