NETWORK ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION
Any project involves planning, scheduling, and controlling a number of interrelated activities
with the use of limited resources namely; men, machines, materials, money and time. A project
may be extremely large and complex such as construction of a house, a high way, establishing a
new plantation etc It requires that managers must have a dynamic planning and scheduling
system to produce the best possible results and also to react immediately to the changing
conditions and make necessary changes in the plan and schedule.

A convenient analytical and visual technique of CPM and PERT prove extremely valuable in
assisting the managers in managing the project.

CPM stands for Critical Path Method which was developed by DuPont Company and applied
first to the construction projects in the chemical industry

PERT stands for Project Evaluation and Review Technique developed during the 1950’s. The
technique was developed and used in conjunction with the planning and designing of the Polaris
missiles project.
Though both PERT and CPM technique have similarities in terms of concepts, their basic
difference is ; CPM has single time estimate and PERT has three time estimates for activities and
uses probability theory to fine the chance of reaching the schedule time.

COMPONENTS OF PERT AND CPM

PERT / CPM networks contain two major components which are;
(i) Activities
(ii) Events

(i) Activity represents an action (job or task) and consumption of resources (time, money
energy) required to complete a portion of a project. Activity is represented by an arrow.
(ii) An event represents the start and end of an activity and as such consumes no time. This
means an event is a specific instance of time that denotes the start or end of an activity. An event
cannot be realized if the activities proceeding it has not been completed. An event is a signal for
dependent succeeding activities to begin. An even is represented by an arrow.
 (iii) Preceding and succeeding activities: Activities performed before a given event are
known as preceding activities while activities performed after a given event are
known as succeeding activities.
(iv) Dummy activity: An imaginary activity which does not consume any resource or
time is called a dummy activity. Dummy activities are simply used to represent a
connection between events in order to maintain a logic in the network. It is
represented by a dotted line in a network.

RULES FOR CONSTRUCTING A NETWORK

(i) No single activity can be represented more than once in a network. The length of
an arrow has no significant.
(ii) Event number 1 is the Start event and the event with the largest number is the end
event. Before an activity can be undertaken all activities preceding it must be
completed. That is the activities must follow a logical sequence or
interrelationship.
(iii) Use circles to represent event.
(iv) Use arrows to represent activities and number them with letters of the alphabet at
the top.
(v) The time taken to perform each activity should be indicated below the arrow.

In other to construct a network diagram, we must know the sequency

requirement for each activity as well as the estimated time to perform each activity.
CRITICAL PATH
This consist of the sequence of those events and associated activities that requires the maximum
time in the completion of a project. It is that path which takes the longest time in completing the
project. It is known as critical because it controls the completion date of the project. The length
of this path defines the minimum time required to complete the project.

CRITICAL/ bottle-neck activities

These are the activities associated with the critical path. Any delay in the execution of one or
more of these set of activities will lead to a delay in the completion date of a project. When
project dates are delayed, there is a high probability of project cost increasing. Therefore, critical
activities require special attention from the project team or project manager in order to avoid
incurring additional cost.

Application exercise 1
The schedule below shows the sequence of activities for a house construction.

Name of Starting predecessors Time/Duration(days)

activitie &
s finishing Description of Activity
activities
A (1,2) Prepare the house plan - 4
B (2,3) Construct the house A 58
C (3,4) Fitting the doors/windows B 2
D (3.5) Wiring the house B 2
E (4,6) Paint the house C 1
F (5, 6) Polish the doors/windows D 1

You are expected to construct the network diagram for the project.
The network diagram in the figure above shows the precedence relationship between the
activities. Activity A (preparation of house plan), has a start event 1 as well as an ending event
2. Activity B (Construction of house) begins at event 2 and ends at event 3.The activity B
cannot start until activity A has been completed. Activities C and D cannot begin until activity B
has been completed, but they can be performed concurrently or simultaneously. Similarly,
activities E and F can start only after completion of activities C and D respectively. Both
activities E and F finish at the end of Event 6.

SLACK/ FLOAT

This represents the difference in time between the required completion date of a project and the
length of any path. In other words, slack refers to the number of times an activity can be delayed
without delaying the overall completion date of a project. Slack maybe be positive or negative.
Positive slacks represent idle time and resources, while negative slacks occurs when the project
requires more time and resources than was budgeted. Since delay is not tolerated along the
critical path, critical activities have zero slack value .

CRITICAL PATH METHOD (CPM)

The critical path method is a planning tool used by project managers to execute projects on
schedule and on budget.

The CPM as a project management tool looks at two items. The first item CPM looks at is
how long your project will take to complete, or the end date. The second is what activities have
to be completed on time or the project will take longer to complete. Those activities that must be
completed on time are considered to be critical activities. Critical path is the sequence of
activities that allows the fastest completion of a project.
 Determination of the critical path

Step 1

The first step in determining a project's critical path is determining the list of activities that it will
take to complete the project.

For this example, we'll use a widget(softwear application component) manufacturing process:

Activity Description Predecessor Duration

A Product design
B Prototype
C Tool up line
D Order parts
E Receive parts
F Production Analysis
G Production
H Distribution

Step 2

The second step is to determine the sequence of the activities and the predecessor activities. A
predecessor is an activity that has to occur before the current activity.

Activity Description Predecessor Duration

A Product design none
B Prototype A
C Tool up line B
D Order parts B
E Receive parts D
F Production Analysis C
G Production E, F
H Distribution G

Step 3

Add the durations to the activities. The duration an activity will take determines if this is a
critical activity or not.

Activity Description Predecessor Duration

A Product design none 3
B Prototype A 1
C Tool up line B 2
D Order parts B 1
E Receive parts D 1
F Production Analysis C 2
G Production E, F 6
H Distribution G 1

Step 4

Draw the network diagram. Here, the network diagram is drawn using activity on the node Using
activity on the node will allow for a quick interpretation of the activities and their relationships.

Step 5

Identify the paths.

For this example, there are two paths: Path 1 is highlighted in yellow and is A-B-C-F-G-H and
Path 2, highlighted in blue, is A-B-D-E-G-H.
 Step 6
Determining critical path. Since there are two paths, how does the project manager know which
one is the critical path? Here is where duration will be applied. Now he will have to add the
durations for the paths as follows
Path 1; A-B-C-F-G-H= 3+1+2+2+6+1=15
Path 2: A-B-D-E-G-H= 3+1+1+1+6+1 =13

N.B Path 1 is the critical path because it is the path with the longest duration of 15.

TIME CONCEPTS IN NETWORK MODELS

1. The Earliest start time (EST) This represent the earliest possible time that an activity
can begin on the assumption that all preceding activities start at their earliest possible
time. Whenever an activity has two or more possible earliest start time, the earliest start
time for that activity is the longest of the possible start time.
2. Earliest Finish Time (EFT) : This represent the sum of the earliest start time and the
estimated time necessary to perform the activity.
3. Latest Start Time (LST) : This represent the difference between the latest finish time
and the estimated time for an activity to be performed
4. Latest Finish Time ( LFT) : This represent the latest possible time an activity can be
completed without delaying the project beyond the deadline.
 ESTIMATING TIME ELEMENTS, A LONG NETWORK PATHS

I. EST and EFT (Earliest start time and Earliest Finish Time)

The EST and the EFT of each activity on a network diagram can be estimated base on the
following procedures:

(a) Set the earliest start time of the starting activity to be equal to zero (0) and add the
estimated time to perform each of the activities to get their earliest finish time (EFT)
(b) For any activity for which all of its immediate preceding activities have EST and EFT
values, the earliest start time of such an activity will be equal to the largest of the Earliest
Finish time value of its immediate preceding activities. This is to ensure that all
preceding activities are completed before the start of succeeding activities
(c) In a similar way, we shall work out the LFT and the LST values for the various activities
on the network diagram. The procedure is that we start at the end of the network diagram
and set the LFT equal to the earliest finished time of the project.
After doing that, subtract the estimated time to perform various activities from their
LFT to obtain their LST. For any activity for which all its immediate succeeding activity
has LST and LFT values, the LFT of such activity should be equal to the smallest of the
LST values of the immediate succeeding activity.
The process of determining the EST and EFT is known as Roll forward
method or The Forward Flow Method. While the process of
determining the LST and LFT is known as the Backward Flow Method.

COMPUTING (CALCULATION) slacks

(S=LST-EST)
 Recall that the difference in time between the required completion date of the overall
project and the length of any path is known as slack. Often, the completion date of the project is
determined from the length of the critical path. This implies that the slacks of the various
activities will be positive except along the critical path where it is zero (0) The slack value for
any activity can be estimated can be estimated by taking the difference between the LST and the
LST. It should be noted that, apart from critical activities, the rest of the project activities can be
delayed beyond their EST with little or no effects on the duration of the project.

With reference to exercise 2 establish the EST, EFT, LST, and LFT of the various
activities with the slack value.

MAKING ADJUSTMENTS ON A PROJECT.

Once the critical path of a project has been established and the slack with respect to each activity
worked out, some adjustments can be made in relation to utilization of resources. Some of such
adjustments may include;

a. Elimination, if possible, of some activities

b. Improvement, if possible, on the timing of critical activities
c. Bringing in additional resources
d. Transferring resources from activities with positive slacks to those with zero(0) slacks