Objectives of network analysis

Network analysis is a powerful tool for planning, scheduling, and control of project

It shows a simple way of the inter relationship of the various activities constituting a project

The main objective of the network analysis is the minimization of the total cost

It helps to minimize time of the completion of the projects

It avoids production delays, interruptions, and conflicts.

It provides work to be done in a project a comprehensive idea of the project.

It provides UpToDate information through frequent reporting

Network Tek nicks

Network Tek nicks were developed to facilitate planning scheduling the project in an integrated manor.

So that, those could be completed with in the constraints of desired time, cost, and performance.

2 most popular of this Teknik are the critical path method (cpm) and the program evaluation and revie
technic (pert).

Basic components of network analysis

Network

Network is a series of related activities which result in some product or services

Network diagram

It is a diagram which represents the activities and events of a network, their sequence and relationship.

It shows the activities and events of the project in a logical sequence

Activity

Activity is a task or an item of

An activity consumes resources like time, money,

An activity is represented by an arrow with an event (node) at the biggening and at the end indicate the
start and finish of the activities.

Events are denoted by circles, and the direction indicate the progress of the activity.

The initial and terminal nodes of the activities are also called tail and head events.

If an activity “B” can start immediately after an activity “A” then it is denoted by

“A” is called the immediate predecessor of “B”

And “B” is called the immediate successor of “A”

If “C” starts only after completing activities “A” and “B” then it is diagrammatically represented by.

Note

“A” is a predecessor of “B” is denoted by A>B

And “B” is a successor of “A” is denoted by B>A

Predecessor activity

An activity which must be completed before one or more other activities start is known as predecessor
activity

Successor activity

Activities that can’t be started until one or more of the other activities are completed but immediately
succeed them are called successor activity

events

An event represents start or end of an activity.

An event or node in a network diagram is a junction of 2 or more arrows representing activities

The event is commonly represented by circles in the network diagram

The event can be classified in to 2

Merge event

An event which represents the joint completion of more than one activity is known as merge event.

Burst event

An event represents the initiation or beginning of more than one activity is known as burst event.

Guide lines for construction of networks

Each activity is represented by only one arrow in network diagram.

The arrow represents an activity with the head indicating the direction of the progress in the project

A network should have only one initial and one terminal node.

The length of the arrow has no significance in network the diagram should flow from left to right

Arrow indicating activities should not be crossed

Arrows should be strait

Every activity should have a tail and head event

The events marking the start of activities are called tail

Events by those of marking the completion of activities are called head events
All activities proceeding an activity is to be completed in respects

i.e., a network should be developed on the bases of logical or technical dependencies dependences
between various activities of the project

dangling should be avoided

looping is to be avoided

events must be numbered systematically

no 2 activities can be identified by the same start and end events.

In such cases, a dummy activity can be introduced.

Dummy activity (redundant (

There is a need for dummy activity.

When the project contains group of 2 or more jobs which have common predecessor.

The time taken for the dummy activities is 0

The most important network technics are

Critical path method (CPM)

Program evaluation revie technic(pert)

Critical path method

CPM networks are activity-oriented diagram. It is a network technic involved in the preparation of the
network in the form of arrow diagram

It is analyzed to locate critical path

After preparing the network diagram, we can locate the various possible path from that, we can
determine the critical path.

Critical path analysis

Path

It refers to unbroken or continues chain of activity from start event to end event in the network diagram

Critical path

Critical path is the continues chain of critical activities in a network diagram

It is a longest path starting from first to the last event and it is shown by the thick line or double lines in
the network diagram

Critical activities

Activities lying on the critical path are called critical activities

An activity is said to be critical if a delay in its start will cause a further delay in the completion of the
entire project in other words activities with 0 floats are called critical activity

Length of the critical path

It is the sum of individual times of all critical activities laying on it defines the minimum time required to
complete the project

To determine the duration of the individual activities in CPM for activity times are to be computed

Earliest start time (Est)

It is the earliest time at which an activity can start

Earliest finish time

It is the earliest event time of tail end event (eft)

It is the earliest starting time + activity time

i.e., EST + activity duration

LST

it is the latest time by which an activity can be started without delaying the completion of the project

LST = lft – activity duration

Latest finish time (LFT)

It is the latest time by which an activity can be finished without delaying the completion of the project

Slack and float

The float (slack) or free time is the length of time in which a non-critical activity or an event can be
delayed or extended without delaying the total project completion time

Total float

Total float is the duration by which an activity can be delayed without delaying the project

Total float = LST – EST OR LFT – EFT

Free float

Free float = EST of successor – EFT of the present activity

Independent float

Independent float = free float – tail event slack

Pert assist a business manager in planning and controlling a project. So, it is a management technic it
allows a manager to calculate the expected total amount of time required for completing the entire
project at the stage of formulation and planning of the project.
At the same time, it helps to highlight the critical activities of the project

Identification of critical activities helps the manager either to allocate more resources for them or keep a
careful watch on such activities as the project progresses

Time estimates in PERT

Optimistic time estimate (TO)

It is the short possible time in which an activity can be completed under ideal conditions if everything
goes well.

Most likely time estimate ™

It refers to the estimate of the normal time that the activity would take

It is the model value

Pessimistic time estimate (TP)

It is the maximum time that an activity would take if everything goes wrong and abnormal situations are
prevailed.

Note, from the above 3-time estimates, the expected time of each activity could be calculated by using
formula TE=TO+4TM+TP/6

Steps i9 pert calculation

Step 1, locate activities and events of a project on the bases of this, a network diagram is to be drawn

Step 2, number all the events and activities.

Step 3, calculate TO TM and TP

Step 4, calculate expected time of each activity.

Step 5, by using expected time estimates of each activities find the earliest event time and latest event
time for each activity

Step 6, Calculate floats associated with each activity

Step 7, various time estimates for activities of the critical path to be added together

It will give total expected duration time.

Step 8, standard deviation, and variants for each activity can be found by the following formula

( )
2
2 TP−¿
σ =
6
Standard deviation

Sum of the variants of time estimates of all activities are the critical activities

Step 10, Calculate the standard normal variable (z)

 due date−expected date of completion
i.e., z=
σ
a project is represented by the network diagram shown below with following data

tasks a b C D e f g h i
TO 5 18 26 16 15 6 7 7 3
TP 10 22 40 20 25 12 12 9 5
TM 8 20 33 18 20 9 10 8 4
Determine the following: expected task time and their variants, earliest and latest expected time to each
event, and the critical path