Graphical approach for manpower planning in infrastructure networks

Infrastructure networks such as highways and pipelines have recently been at the center of attention for contractors and owner organizations. Due to their large size and their repetitive/distributed nature, construction and/or maintenance operations for such networks become complex tasks that require huge resources, particularly manpower. In order to provide a transparent tool for quick manpower planning and sensitivity analysis, a graphical approach (using nomographs) is introduced in this paper. The nomographs encode the mathematical formulation, and the results of many optimization experiments, of a distributed model for scheduling large projects with multiple sites. Accordingly, the nomographs can be readily utilized by practitioners to estimate the manpower needed to meet a predefined deadline, under anticipated network-level risks due to unfavorable site conditions. Details on the development of the nomographs are presented in the paper along with an example to demonstrate their usefulness for supporting manpower planning decisions and for what-if analysis. The nomographs also present researchers with a simple yet powerful approach to make research results readily usable by practitioners.