Chapter - Four

Project-Scheduling
 Project Scheduling
• In chapter 2, the AOA and AON networks were presented,
also the time and cost of individual activities based were
calculated. Yet, however, we do not know how long is the
total project duration.
• Also, we need to evaluate the early and late times at which
activities start and finish. In addition, since real-life projects
involve hundreds of activities, it is important to identify the
group of critical activities so that special care is taken to
make sure they are not delayed.
• All these statements are the basic objectives of the
scheduling process, which adds a time dimension to the
planning process. In other words, we can briefly state that:
Scheduling = Planning + Time.
 Cont…
• Scheduling is the determination of the timing of the activities
comprising the project to enable managers to execute the project in
a timely manner.
• The project scheduling is sued for:
- Knowing the activities timing and the project completion time.
- Having resources available on site in the correct time.
- Making correction actions if schedule shows that the plan will result
in late completion.
- Assessing the value of penalties on project late completion.
- Determining the project cash flow.
- Evaluating the effect of change orders on the project completion
time.
- Determining the value of project delay and the responsible parties.
• The outcome indicates the time period in which the
activity should be scheduled.
❖some of the tools or techniques of project
management:
• Bar charts and Milestone charts.
• Net work diagrams.
 2.1 Bar chart
• Developed in 1917 by Henry Gantt, bar charts are
depictions of when activities are scheduled.
• Within the industry, they are the most often used
scheduling visualization tools because of their
simplicity and unsurpassed visual clarity; anyone
can read and prepare them.
• The greatest weakness of bar chart is too simple.
• A bar chart does not show logical dependency
among activities and does not support manual
project progress measurement.
• Although the status of an activity is easily
determined, the status of a project is very unclear.
• Thus, the bar chart only gives unclear projections, a
false sense of security, and is completely ineffective
for project shortening, resource management, and
most other project management methods.
• Bar charts are still used because of their ease of
creation and understanding.
 2.2 Net work diagrams
• Net work Method CPM/ PERT, Precedence Diagram
Method (PDM) & GERT
• Network diagram is an outcome of the improvements
in the milestone charts.
• The network technique is a major advance in
management science.
• The network techniques are called by various names
such as PERT, CPM, UNETICS, LESS, TOPS and SCANS.
• However, these and other systems have emerged from
the two major network systems such as PERT, CPM.
❖The most widely known techniques
used by project management teams are :
• Critical Path Method (CPM)
• Program Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT)
• Graphical Evaluation and Review
Technique (GERT).
 Critical Path Method (CPM)
• CPM – Critical Path Analysis is a commonly used for
those projects which are repetitive in nature &
where one has prior experience of handling similar
projects.
• The most common mathematical technique is the
Critical Path Method (CPM).
• The CPM is used to predict project duration by
analyzing which sequence of activities, or path, has
the least amount of scheduling flexibility.
 Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
• PERT – Program Evaluation & Review Technique is
generally used for those projects where time required
to complete various activities are not known as a
priori.
• Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is
used when there is a high level of uncertainty about
how long it will take to perform a given task.
• In PERT, network logic is used by applying the critical
path method to a weighted average duration estimate.
• Although very similar, there is one significant
difference between PERT and CPM.
• CPM uses the most likely estimate instead of the
expected value of the estimate that PERT uses.
• PERT time estimating requires the following three
estimates for each activity.
• TM = most likely time
• TO = optimistic time
• TP = pessimistic time
• To determine the expected activity time you must
insert the previous estimates into the PERT
weighted average formula, which is optimistic (TO)
+ 4 x most likely (TM) + pessimistic (TP) all divided
by 6.
❖Three time estimates are required to compute the
an activity’s duration distribution:
• pessimistic time (tp ) - the time the activity would
take if things did not go well
• most likely time (tm ) - the consensus best estimate
of the activity’s duration
• Optimistic time (to ) - the time the activity would
take if things did go well
➢Mean (expected time): te = tp + 4 tm + to
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 Distinction between PERT and CPM
❖These techniques were developed by two groups almost
simultaneously.
1) CPM was developed by E. I. Du Pont de Nemours &
Company as an application to construction projects
and was later extended to a more advanced status by
Mauchly Associates.
2) PERT was developed by the U.S. Navy by a consulting
firm for scheduling the research and development
activities for the Polaris missile program.
• Although PERT and CPM were developed
independently, they are similar in principle.
• Today, PERT and CPM actually comprise one technique
and the differences, if any, are only historical.
 For PERT
1. PERT is used for non-repetitive jobs like planning the
assembly of the space.
2. it is a probabilistic model.
3. It is event-oriented as the results of analysis are
expressed in terms of events or distinct points in time
indicative of progress.
4. It is applied mainly for planning and scheduling
research programmes.
5. PERT incorporates statistical analysis and thereby
determines the probabilities concerning
the time by which each activity or entire project would
be completed.
6. PERT serves as useful control device as it assists
management in controlling a project by calling
attention to such delays
 For CPM
1. CPM is used for repetitive job like building a house
2. It is a deterministic model.
3. It is activity-oriented as the result or calculations are
considered in terms of activities or operations of the
project.
4. It is applied mainly for construction and business
problems.
5. CPM does not incorporate statistical analysis in
determining time estimates, because time is
precise and known.
6. It is difficult to use CPM as a control device for the
simple reason that one must repeat the entire
evaluation of the project each time the changes are
introduced into the network.
2.3 Network Diagram Analysis
(Determination of EST, LST, EFT, LFT & Critical path)
Determination of the Critical Path
• The PERT/CPM critical path procedure summarized
as follows :
Step 1 Develop a list of activities that make up the
project.
Step 2 Determine the immediate predecessor
activities for each activity listed in the project;
Step 3 Estimate the completion time for each activity.
Step 4 Draw a network depicting the activities and
immediate predecessors listed in Steps 1&2.
Step 5 Using the network and the activity time estimates,
determine the earliest start and finish times for each
activity by making a forward pass through the network.
• The earliest finish time for the last activity in the project
identifies the total time required to complete the project;
Step 6 Using the project completion time identified in Step 5 as
the latest finish time for the last activity, make a backward
pass through the network to identify the latest start and
finish times for each activity
Step 7 Use the difference between the latest start time and
the earliest start time for each activity to identify the slack
time available for the activity.
Step 8 Find the activities with zero slack; these are the critical
path activities.
Step 9 Use the information from Steps 5&6 to develop the
activity schedule for the project.
 Forward Pass Computation:
• It is the process of tracing the network from START
to END.
• It gives the earliest start & earliest finish times for
each activity.
• Earliest event time (Ej): The time that event j will
occur if the preceding activities are started as early
as possible.
• Ej is the max. of the sums Ei + tij involving each
immediately precedent event i & intervening event
ij.
 Backward Pass Computation:
• It is the process of tracing the network starting
from LAST node & moving backward.
• Latest event time (Lj): The latest time that event i
can occur without delaying completion of beyond
its earliest time.
• Li is the min. of the differences Li - tij involving each
immediately precedent event j & intervening event
ij.
 Example
• Earliest event time & Latest event time:
• In accordance with Zero Slack Convention, if no
schedule date for completion of the project is
specified, then we take L=E for the terminal event
of the project.
• It is a convention to keep the earliest allowance
time of the START event as zero.
• Flexibility of non critical in case of event is known
as slack & in case of activity is term as
float.(Though some writers have used these terms
interchangeably).
• The critical path can be identified by determining the
following four parameters for each activity:
• EST - earliest start time: the earliest time at which the
activity can start given that all its precedent activities
must be completed first = Ei
• EFT - earliest finish time, equal to the earliest start time
for the activity plus the time required to complete the
activity = EST(i-j) + tij
• LFT - latest finish time: the latest time at which the
activity can be completed without delaying (beyond its
targeted completion time) the project = Lj
• LST - latest start time, equal to the latest finish time
minus the time required to complete the activity =
LFT(i-j) - tij
 Example
• The specific activities that make up the expansion
project, together with information on immediate
predecessor and completion time, are listed in the
following table.
❖We are now asked to answer the following
questions:
1) What is the total completion time of the project?
2) What are the scheduled start and completion time
for each activity?
3) Which activities are critical and must be completed
exactly as scheduled in order to keep the project on
schedule?
• How long can the non-critical activities to be
delayed before they cause a delay in the
completion time for the project?
• To solve the problem, we need first construct the
network according to the problem specification.
• Starting at the network’s source node (node 1) we will
have to compute the earliest start time and the
earliest finish time for each activity in the network.
Let’s assume that
ES = earliest start time for a particular activity
EF = earliest finish time for a particular activity
t = expected completion time for the activity
• The earliest finish time can be calculated by the
following expression for a given activity:
EF = ES + t
• For example, for activity A ES = 0 and t = 5; thus the
earliest finish time for activity A is :
EF = 0+5 = 5.
• We will write ES and EF directly on the network in
brackets. Using activity A as an example, we have
• Since activities leaving a node cannot be started
until all immediate proceeding activities have been
completed, the following rule determines the
earliest start time for activities.
Earliest Start Time Rule
• The earliest start time for an activity leaving a
particular node is equal to the largest of the
earliest finish time for all activities entering the
node.
• Using this rule, the earliest start and finish times for
each activity are written onto the network, which
now looks as follows:
• As has demonstrated, proceeding in a forward pass
through the network, we can establish the earliest
start time and then the earliest finish time for each
activity.
• This process gives the earliest completion time of
the entire project, which is the earliest finish time
for the last activity.
• In the case of the shopping centre, the total time
required for project completion is 26 weeks.
• We now continue the algorithm for finding the
critical path by making a backward pass
calculation.
• Starting at the sink node (node 7) and using a
latest finish time of 26 weeks for activity I, we
trace back through the network, computing a
latest start time and latest finish time for each
activity. Let
LS = latest start time for a particular activity
LF = latest finish time for a particular activity
• The latest start time is given by the following
expression:
LS = LF - t
• The latest start and finish times are also to be
displayed on the network, but we will put them within
a pair of round brackets.
• The following rule determines the latest finish time for
any activity in the network.
Latest Finish Time Rule
• The latest finish time for an activity entering a
particular node is equal to the smallest of the latest
start times for all activities leaving the node.
• The PERT/CPM network with both [ES, EF] and (LS, LF)
for the example is shown below.
• From the above diagram, we find the amount of
slack or free time associated with each of the
activities.
• Slack is defined as the length of time an activity
can be delayed without affecting the total time
required to complete the project.
• Activities with zero slack are the critical path
activities.
• The amount of slack is computed as follows:
Slack (float) = LS - ES = LF - EF = LF – ES-t
• According to the finished PERT/CPM network, we
arrive at the following table of information (the
project schedule) for the shopping centre project.
❖We can now answer the questions we were asked
before:
1) What is the total completion time of the project?
• The project can be completed in 26 weeks if the
individual activities are completed on schedule.
2) What are the scheduled start and completion time for
each activity?
3) Which activities are critical and must be completed
exactly as scheduled in order to keep the project on
schedule?
A, E, F, G, and I are the critical path activities.
4) How long can the non-critical activities to be delayed
before they cause a delay in the completion time for
the project?
• Table above shows the slack time associated with each
activity.
 Characteristics of critical path
• The duration of project is fixed by the time taken to
complete the path through the network with the
greatest total duration.
• This path is known as critical path & activities on it are
known as critical activities.
• An activity is said to be critical if a delay in its start will
cause a delay in the completion date of the entire
project.
• A non-critical activity is an activity that has time to
spare (known as slack or float time) within the entire
project.
• A critical path is a sequence of connected critical
activities that leads from the source node to the sink
node.
• The critical path is the path through the project
network in which none of the activities have float
(total float is zero).
• A delay in the critical path delays the project.
• Similarly, to accelerate the project it is necessary to
reduce the total time required for the activities in the
critical path.
• Dummy Activity may or may not lie on critical path.
• It is the critical paths that determine the project
completion time.
• Changing time of the non-critical activities within the
permissible range will not affect the project
completion time; but changing time of the critical
activities may cause the project completion time to
change.
 SLACK OR FREE TIME OR FLOAT
• Slack is the length of time an activity can be delayed
without affecting the completion date for the entire
project.
❖Slack can be calculated on activity on arrow by using
one of the following methods:
• Slack= LF- EF
• Slack= LS-ES
• Slack= LF – ES-t
• The total float time for an activity is the time between
its earliest and latest start time, or between its earliest
and latest finish time.
• It is the amount of time that an activity can be delayed
past its earliest start or earliest finish without delaying
the project.
 Project Crashing (Shortening Project Duration)
• There are usually compelling reasons to complete the
project earlier than the originally estimated duration
of critical path computed on the normal basis of a new
project.
• The minimum time to complete a project is called the
project-crash time.
• This minimum completion time can be found by
applying critical path scheduling with all activity
durations set to their minimum values.
• This minimum completion time for the project can
then be used to determine the project-crash cost.
• Since there are some activities not on the critical path
that can be assigned longer duration without delaying
the project, it is advantageous to change the all-crash
schedule and thereby reduce costs.
• Heuristic approaches are used to solve the
time/cost tradeoff problem such as the cost slope
method used.
• In particular, a simple approach is to first apply
critical path scheduling with all activity durations
assumed to be at minimum cost.
• Next, the planner can examine activities on the
critical path and reduce the scheduled duration of
activities which have the lowest resulting
increase in costs.
• In essence, the planner develops a list of
activities on the critical path ranked with their
cost slopes.
• The solution proceeds by shortening activities in
the order of their lowest cost slopes.
• As the duration of activities on the shortest path
are shortened, the project duration is also
reduced.
• Eventually, another path becomes critical, and a
new list of activities on the critical path must be
prepared.
• Using this way, good but not necessarily optimal
schedules can be identified.
 Project crashing steps
❖The procedure for shortening project duration can be
summarized in the following steps:
1. Draw the project network.
2. Perform CPM calculations and identify the critical
path, use normal durations and costs for all activities.
3. Compute the cost slope for each activity from the
following equation:
• Cost slope = crash cost – normal cost / normal
duration – crash duration
4. Start by shortening the activity duration on the critical
path which has the least cost slope and not been
shortened to its crash duration.
5. Reduce the duration of the critical activities with least
cost slope until its crash duration is reached or until the
critical path changes.
6. When multiple critical paths are involved, the
activity(ies) to shorten is determined by
comparing the cost slope of the activity which lies
on all critical paths (if any), with the sum of cost
slope for a group of activities, each one of them lies
on one of the critical paths.
7. Having shortened a critical path, you should adjust
activities timings, and floats.
8. The cost increase due to activity shortening is
calculated as the cost slope multiplied by the time
of time units shortened.
9. Continue until no further shortening is possible,
and then the crash point is reached.
10. The results may be represented graphically by
plotting project completion time against cumulative
cost increase. This is the project direct-cost / time
relationship. By adding the project indirect cost to
this curve to obtain the project time / cost curve.
This curve gives the optimum duration and the
corresponding minimum cost.
 Example:
❖A project consisting of 8 activities are described in the
following table.
• The cost for completion of these 8 activities is £5800
excluding the site overhead.
• The overhead cost of general site activities is
£160/day.
❖We are asked to:
1) Calculate the normal completion of the project, its
cost, and the critical path;
2) Calculate and plot on a graph paper the cost/time
function for the project and state:
• The minimum cost and the associated time
• The shortest time and the associated cost.
• We first set-up the network according to the
description of the project.
• Then using the PERT/CPM scheduling technique
discussed earlier, we establish the ES, EF, LS, LF
times and the critical activities.
• These are shown in the following network and
table.
• The above shows that the normal completion time is
20 days and the critical activities are B(1-3) and F(3-6).
• The cost of completing the project at normal speed is
£5800 + 20 × £160 = £9000
❖Now, we wish to speed up the project so that the
project will cost the least.
• The rule is to speed up firstly the critical activity that
cost the least to do so.
• Obviously, the activity to speed up is B, which costs
£90 for speeding up one day.
• According to the project description, the activity B can
be shortened by 8-4=4 days.
• The total cost in this case is
£8920 - 2 × £160 + 2 × (£200 + £50 + £40) = £9180
• 13 days is the minimum completion time for the
project because no further time reduction is
available on the critical path 1-2-5-6.
• For the purpose of plotting the required cost/time
graph, we summarize in the following table the
completion times and costs of the project.
• It is evident that the minimum cost for completing
the project is £8790 in 17 days, and that the
minimum possible completion time is 13 days
costing £9180.
 PERT- ThreePointEstimates
Assumptionsin PERT:
1. Theactivitydurationsareindependent.i.e.thedurationofonedoesn’t
affectanother.

2. The activitydurationsfollowBeta–
distribution. Therefore,inPERTanalysis

Activity Mean Time Estimate, te = (a + 4m + b)/6

Activity Standard Deviation, e = (b – a) /6

Activity Variance Estimate, 2e = (b – a)2 /36

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 PERT- TimeEstimates
Application of te and 2 :

▪ Use of te and 2e allows one to make probabilistic estimates of completion

dates.
❖ By summing the te’s of the activities on the critical path youcanestimate
thedurationof theentireproject.
❖ By summing the Variance (2 ) of the activities on thecritical path, you
can estimate the total variance of the criticalpathandmakeone-sided
intervalestimatesofproject completiontimes.

60
 PERT- TimeEstimates
Example1. If the optimistic time,the mostlikely timeandpessimistic
timeofcompletingaproject are8days,10daysand24days,
respectively, find the expectedtimethatthe projectcanbe
completed.
Activitymeantime= 8 workdays + 4 X 10workdays + 24workdays
6
= 12days
Theansweris 12days.
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 PERT - ExampleNetworkFlow
Diagram
Example 2. Find the critical path and the expected time of
completion of a project given the following network diagram and
three probabilistic duration of activities.

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 PERT - ExampleNetwork
FlowDiagram
a m b te e ES LS EF LF
1-2 10 12 14 12 2/3 0 2 12 14
1-3 9 11 13 11 2/3 0 0 11 11
2-4 1 3 11 4 5/3 12 14 16 18
2-5 1 8 9 7 4/3 12 24 19 31
3-4 1 7 13 7 6/3 11 11 18 18
3-6 5 10 15 10 5/3 11 32 21 42
4-5 8 13 18 13 5/3 18 18 31 31
4-6 1 7 19 8 9/3 18 34 26 42
5-6 6 10 20 11 7/3 31 31 42 42
6-7 6 10 14 10 4/3 42 42 52 52

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 PERT– NetworkDiagramwith
Critical Path
ES|LS|EF|LF
t2-5=7
12|24|19|31
t1-2=12 2 5 t5-6=11
t4-5=13
0|2|12|14 t2-4=4 18|18|31|31 31|31|42|42
t4-6=8
12|14|16|18
4 18|34 |26|42
1 7
t3-4=7
t1-3=11 11|11|18|18
6 t6-7=10
0|0|11|11
3 42|42|52|52
t3-6=10
11|32|21|42

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 PERT–Analysis Procedure
1. Draw the project network.
2. Compute the expected duration of each activity, te
3. Analyze the paths through the network (ES/EF/LS/LF) and
find the critical path.
The length of the critical path is the mean of the project
duration probability distribution which is assumed to be
normal.
4. Find the standard deviation of the project duration probability
distribution by adding the variances of the critical activities
(all of the activities that make up the critical path) and taking
the square root of that sum.
 cp =  e12 + e22 + ...+ en2

5. Probability computations can now be made using the

normal distribution table.
 6
PERTAnalysis- Examples 6

Example 1. A 40km asphalt road project has an expected

completion time of 40 weeks, with a standard deviation of
5 weeks.Whatis the probability of finishing the projectin
50weeksor less?
Solution: Assume project completion time follows
a normal distribution.
 PERTAnalysis- Examples
Example 2: Given the following critical path of a project, find the
probability that the project be completed in less than 60days
a m b te e ( e)2
1-3 9 11 13 11 2/3 4/9
3-4 1 7 13 7 6/3 36/9
4-5 8 13 18 13 5/3 25/9
5-6 6 10 20 11 7/3 49/9
6-7 6 10 14 10 4/3 16/9
The sum of te’s (Expected time of completing the project) = 52 days
Variance = 130/9 = 14.4
Std Dev = 3.8
The probability that the Project duration is less than 60 days = P(X<60)
Same as the Probability that Z < (60-52)/3.8 = 2.1
Therefore: P(X<60) = Pr(Z<2.1) = 0.98214 or 98.2% (from z-Table)
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