IE4248

Project Planning & Control

Introduction

Project Crashing
 Course Outline
Course Component Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7
Wk Begin 27-Jan 03-Feb 10-Feb 17-Feb 24-Feb 03-Mar 10-Mar

Online
Feb Bank
Lecture 1 No Lecture 1 PM Roles & Assessment 1 Managing & No Lecture 1
Holiday PERT
Mon 17.00 - 18.00 Project Scope 25% Budgeting

Lecture 2 Course
Project Project No Lecture 2 Goldratt &
Tues 17.00-18.00 Overview & Planning Scheduling
Selection Crashing Levelling
Introduction

Network PERT/CPM
Video Tutorials Introduction Project Project
Diagrams & Activity
Released to MS Project Selection Crashing
CPM Sequencing
 Class Update
• This weeks Reading
– Chapter 6 Project Management in Practice
– “Planning For Crises in Project Management”

• This weeks Tutorial (Crashing) is now on Brightspace

• Online Assessment 2 24th March (25%)

Project Crashing & Resource
Allocation
Chapter 6
 Recap

Up to now you have learned about:

• Definition and constraints of a project
• Project Selection Techniques:
• PM Roles & Responsibilities
• Project Organisational Structure & Project Plan
• Developing a Work/Cost break down structure (WBS)
• Network Diagraming (AOA and AON Networks)
• Critical Path Analysis (CPM)
• Budgeting
 Overview
Todays Lecture
– Introduce Resourcing , Monitoring and control
– Project Crashing
– Crashing Examples
 Physical & Human Resources
Projects compete for resources.

Physical resources
– Materials, machine, chemicals, services, etc
Human resources
– People, labour, competencies

• Resources are either consumed or non-consumed.

– Consumed resources imply that specific quantities are allocated and used during
the project such as materials or energy.
– Non-consumed resources imply that resource which are no longer required or
currently not required will be available for other projects, such as skilled workers,
machines and specialist competencies.

• In either case PMs need to optimise the use of resources, which means
management of limitations and trade offs (time, cost, performance etc).
 Crashing
• We evaluated project duration CPM. We will
extend this to consider use of limited
resources.
– Crashing the project is to expedite by leveraging
extra resources.
– Crashing requires available resources (beyond the
standard) and therefore additional cost.
 Crashing Objective
• The objective of crashing is to reduce the critical path
duration whilst minimising the impact on project costs.

• Project schedules can be crashed by:

– More working hours
– More people
– Better equipment
– Better people
– Different methods

• Trade off the extra costs of crashing the project against

the gains of completing under schedule.
 Crashing Questions
1. How much is the normal activity going to cost?
2. How long is it going to take?
3. What is the minimum possible time in which the
activity can be completed?
4. How much will it cost to complete the crashing?
5. What are the indirect costs of the project?
6. How will these change if the project is crashed?
 Crashing CPM Example
• Normal Duration Estimates
• Normal Costs Can be crashed but
• Crash Duration Estimates not in per day
• Crash Costs segments
• Crash Cost Per Day

Activity Predecessor Normal Duration Crash Duration Normal Crash Cost Cost per Day
s (Days) (Days) Cost

a - 6 5 60 90 30/d
b - 7 4 50 150 33/d
c a 6 4* 100 160 60*
d a 7 7 30 30 NA
e b 5 4 70 85 15/d
f c 9 7 40 120 40/d
g d,e 7 4 50 230 60/d
 Example Network
Critical Path = 21 days

Total cost = $400

(sum of all normal costs)

Can it be done in 20 days? What should we do?

 Crashing from 21 to 20 days
• Always start with the critical path activities (in the example this is a,c,f)
• Work on the most cost effective option first (a is the least cost option at 30/d)

Activity Predecessor Normal Duration Crash Duration Normal Crash Cost Cost per Day
s (Days) (Days) Cost

a - 6 5 60 90 30/d
b - 7 4 50 150 33/d
c a 6 4* 100 160 60*
d a 7 7 30 30 NA
e b 5 4 70 85 15/d
f c 9 7 40 120 40/d
g d,e 7 4 50 230 60/d

Note. When we crash activity “a” by 1 day it cannot be crashed any further as
it has reached its crashing contraint. We have reduced the critical path to 20
days. The cost of the project has increased to $430.
 Check the other paths
Activity a is crashed from
Critical Path = 20 days
6 days to 5
Critical Path = 21 days

5 days

a, d, g Path = 20 days
a, d, g Path = 19 days

b, e, g Path = 19 days

Note. Other paths have not

become critical or inhibited the
crash from 21 to 20 days.
 Crashing from 21 to 19 days
• We need to gain 2 days, we could take a and f at a cost of 40 + 30 = $70 or we
could take c at a cost of $60.

Activity Predecessor Normal Duration Crash Duration Normal Crash Cost Cost per Day
s (Days) (Days) Cost

a - 6 5 60 90 30/d
b - 7 4 50 150 33/d
c a 6 4* 100 160 60*
d a 7 7 30 30 NA
e b 5 4 70 85 15/d
f c 9 7 40 120 40/d
g d,e 7 4 50 230 60/d
 Check the other paths
Activity c is crashed from
a, c, f Path = 19 days
6 days to 4
4 days Critical Path = 21 days

Critical Path = 20 days

b, e, g Path = 19 days

Note. Crashing c is not helpful

because path a-d-g becomes
critical and inhibits the total
duration to 20 days
 Crashing from 21 to 19 days
• Alternatively take a and f at a cost of 40 + 30 = $70

Activity Predecessor Normal Duration Crash Duration Normal Crash Cost Cost per Day
s (Days) (Days) Cost

a - 6 5 60 90 30/d
b - 7 4 50 150 33/d
c a 6 4* 100 160 NA
d a 7 7 30 30 NA
e b 5 4 70 85 15/d
f c 9 7 40 120 40/d
g d,e 7 4 50 230 60/d
 Check the other paths
Activity a is crashed from 6 days
a, c, f Path = 19 days
to 5 days and f is crashed from 9
to 8 days Critical Path = 21 days
8 days

5 days

Critical
a, d, gPath
Path==20
19days
days

b, e, g Path = 19 days
b, e, g Path = 19 days

Note. Crashing a and f is

helpful and the project is
The cost of crashing a and f is 40 + 30 = $70 so the total crashed from 21 days to 19.
Project cost is $470. This also means that the whole
network has become critical.
Activity Normal Crash
Duration Duration

How far can we go?

(Days) (Days)

a 6 5
b 7 4
c 6 4*
d 7 7 f=7
c=4
e 5 4 a, c, f Path = 16
19 days
c is fully f is fully
f 9 7 crashed at 4 crashed at 7
g 7 4 days days
a is fully
crashed at 5
days5 days
d is not
crashable at 7
g=4
days g is fully
b=4 crashed at 4
e=4 days
a, d, g Path = 16
19 days

b,b,e,e,g gPath
Path= =1219 days
16days
b, e, g Path = 16 days

Note. The shortest duration is

16 days. Crashing b and e is
pointless because it will not
help the project.
 Cost vs. Duration
Crash cost for
a + c + f + g = 30 + 60 + 80
+ 180 = $350

Fully crash activity a, Total project = 400 + 350 =

c, f and g $750
Crash activity a, c, f
and g
Crash activity a, c
and g
Crash activity a and f
Crash activity a
 Video
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm7iBOKOc1M