Determination of early warning time window for bottleneck resource buffer

As an advanced warning system, resource buffer can notify the use of resources and provide added protection to critical chain activities. However, most of the existing studies in the literature focus on locating actual time buffers at various locations. In this study, we locate bottleneck resource buffers along the critical chain and determines optimal time windows for the first time. Drawing on the theory of constraints, we take into account factors such as bottleneck resource sensitivity, the idle cost, the start time flexibility and the work flow on the critical chain, and develop a quantitative model for the optimal time window determination of resource buffer. The proposed method is tested and compared with the currently widely adopted buffer management method. Results of the computational experiment of the proposed method demonstrates its relative dominance over the predominant buffer management approach in terms of overall completion time, project cost, the probability of delay and the average buffer consumption ratio.