Schedula Anima: Dynamic Visualization of Gantt Charts and Resource Usage Graphs in Project Scheduling

Scheduling is essential in managing projects. ‘Schedula Anima’ is a new software designed to provide a comprehensive view of schedules between early and late dates for construction project managers. Capturing the dynamic nature of projects, it offers improved visualization through an animation process that creates incremental frames of bar charts and the corresponding resource graphs. As activity delays are simulated, it is observed that delays earlier in the schedule have more significant effects on project completion. A new prioritization method is introduced to evaluate the ease of rescheduling activities. A metric for monitoring resource usage float is presented, and the search space for resource utilization is delineated. As resource smoothing is studied in the resource usage graph and the time domain, a correlation is discovered between resource smoothness and the float consumption rate. It is shown that the schedule and resource usage graph comprises five sub-areas representing different risk exposures. Animation also improves communication in project teams and is beneficial in education. Finally, it is discovered that the permutations of activities in the simulation form a group. Enhancing our perception of resource utilization and the management of delays, ‘Schedula Anima’ brings a renewed perspective to project scheduling.

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