Operations Research

Project Scheduling

Desmond Ighravwe (PhD)

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Presentation Contents
1. Introduction
• Learning Objectives
• Background to Project management
• Steps for project management

2. Fundamentals of Project Management

• Project scheduling
• Types of Scheduling

3. Schedule Presentation
• Gantt Chart
• CPM
• PERT
 Learning Objectives

i. Help students become better project managers

ii. To understand the purpose of a schedule

iii. To gain a greater understanding of schedule in manufacturing and service

systems

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 Overview

• A project is a collection of tasks that must be completed in minimum time or

at the minimal cost.

Objectives of Project Scheduling

• Investigating the results of possible delays in activity’s completion time.

• Progress control.

• Smoothing out resource allocation over the duration of the project.

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 Tasks Designate

• Tasks are called activities.

• Estimated completion time (and sometime costs are associated with each
activity).

• Activity completion time is related to the amount of resources committed to

it.

• The degree of activity details depends on the application and the level of
specificity of data.
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Basics of Project Scheduling

i. Create deliverables based project schedules.

ii. Determine the appropriate level of details.

iii. Implement a regular status update and reporting process.

iv. Regularly review and update the schedule.

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Deliverables-based schedules

• Deliverables vs. Activities

• Deliverables are products produced by a project – all projects have

deliverables.

• Deliverables are tangible.

• Activities are performed by team member(s) in order to create a

deliverable

• Activities consist of one or more tasks.

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Milestone

• Milestones are any significant events in a project.

• They should represent major segment of work.

• Milestone chart is the skeleton for the project schedule which senior managers

should know.
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3. SCHEDULE PRESENTATION
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A. Gantt chart

The most widely used management tool for project scheduling and control

Particularly useful to manage critical and scarce resources.

Possible to schedule activities by either early-start or late-start logic.

Then a range of schedules can be generated using a combination of these two.

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Each activity is represented by a bar; the position and length of the bar

reflects the start date, duration and end date of the activity.

Disadvantage: Does not show inter-relationships among activities- network

techniques are often used in parallel to compensate it.

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Vertical axis: Activity or jobs
Gantt chart Horizontal axis: Time

Activity 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A A A
B B B B
C
D
E
F F F F

Horizontal bar denotes the length of time for each activity

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Gantt Chart: Two Approaches

Early start approach

Each activity is initiated as early as possible without violating the precedence.

Late start approach

Each activity is delayed as much as possible as long as the finish time of the

project is not compromised.

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Example 1
Activity Immediate Duration (weeks)
predecessors
A - 5
B - 3
C A 8
D A,B 7
E - 7
F C,D,E 4
G F 5
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Early start
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1. Early start
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A A A A A A
B B B B
C
D
E E E E E E E E
F
g
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2. Early start
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A A A A A A
B B B B
C C C C C C C C C
D D D D D D D D
E E E E E E E E
F
g
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3. Early start
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A A A A A A
B B B B
C C C C C C C C C
D D D D D D D
E E E E E E E E
F F F F F
g G G G G G
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Late start
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1. Late start
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A
B
C
D
E
F
g G G G G G
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2. Late start
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A
B
C
D
E
F F F F F
g G G G G G
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3. Late start
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A
B
C C C C C C C C C
D D D D D D D D
E E E E E E E E
F F F F F
g G G G G G
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4. Late start
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A
B B B B
C C C C C C C C C
D D D D D D D D
E E E E E E E E
F F F F F
G G G G G G
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5. Late start
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A A A A A A
B B B B
C C C C C C C C C
D D D D D D D D
E E E E E E E E
F F F F F
G G G G G G

Activity A is required by both C &D

You have to follow the earlier one
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Difference between the two Gantt charts
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
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A A A A A A

B B B B

C C C C C C C C C

D D D D D D D

E E E E E E E E

F F F F F

G G G G G G

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A A A A A A
B B B B
C C C C C C C C C
D D D D D D D D
E E E E E E E E
F F F F F
G G G G G G
 Difference between the two Gantt charts 26
Total slack (float) of activity is the difference between the start (or the end

time of an activity on the two schedules)

A(0) B(3) C (0) D(1) E (6) F (0) G (0)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
A A A A A A
B B B B
C C C C C C C C C
D D D D D D D D
E E E E E E E E
F F F F F
g G G G G G
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B. Critical path method (CPM)

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Critical Path Method (CPM) can help you keep your projects on track.
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Critical path schedules will:

• Help you identify the activities that must be completed on time in order to
complete the whole project on time.
• Show you which tasks can be delayed and for how long without impacting the
overall project schedule.
• Calculate the minimum amount of time it will take to complete the project.

• Tell you the earliest and latest dates each activity can start on in order to
maintain the schedule.
 Terminologies
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1. Early start (ES) is the earliest date a task can start

2. Early finish (EF) is the earliest date a task can be completed

3. Latest start (LS) is the latest date a task can start without delaying the
project end date

4. Latest finish (LF) is the latest date a task can finish within delaying the
project end date
Critical Path Method has four key elements:
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1. Critical Path Analysis

2. Float Determination

3. Early Start & Early Finish Calculation

4. Late Start & Late Finish Calculation

Finding Critical Path
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The critical path is the sequence of activities with the longest duration.
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A delay in any of these activities will result in a delay for the whole project.

Below are some critical path examples to help you understand the key
elements
The duration of each activity is listed above each node in the diagram.
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For each path, add the duration of each node to determine it's total duration.
The critical path is the one with the longest duration.

There are three paths through this project...

Start – Activity 1- Activity 3- Activity 4- Finish = 3+7+2 =12

Critical path
Start – Activity 2- Activity 3- Activity 4- Finish = 5+7+2 =14

Start – Activity 2- Activity 5- Finish = 5+4 = 9

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THANK YOU
FOR
LISTENING

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