Sistem Perencanaan dan

Pengendalian Proyek (SP3)

Fakultas Magister Teknik Tatap Muka Kode MK Disusun Oleh

12
Pascasarjana Sipil - MK MK21000 Budi Susetyo

Abstract Kompetensi
Pengertian Crashing Memahami konsep dasar dan latihan
tentang crashing
 Latihan Crashing

Pendahuluan

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

2 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id
 Crashing and Time/Cost Tradeoffs

The previous sections discussed the duration of activities as either fixed or random
numbers with known characteristics. However, activity durations can often vary
depending upon the type and amount of resources that are applied. Assigning more
workers to a particular activity will normally result in a shorter duration. Greater speed
may result in higher costs and lower quality, however. In this section, we shall consider
the impacts of time, cost and quality tradeoffs in activity durations. In this process, we
shall discuss the procedure of project crashing as described below.

A simple representation of the possible relationship between the duration of an activity

and its direct costs appears in Figure 1. Considering only this activity in isolation and
without reference to the project completion deadline, a manager would undoubtedly
choose a duration which implies minimum direct cost, represented by Dij and Cij in the
figure. Unfortunately, if each activity was scheduled for the duration that resulted in the
minimum direct cost in this way, the time to complete the entire project might be too long
and substantial penalties associated with the late project start-up might be incurred. This
is a small example of sub-optimization, in which a small component of a project is
optimized or improved to the detriment of the entire project performance. Avoiding this
problem of sub-optimization is a fundamental concern of project managers.

Figure 1. Illustration of a Linear Time/Cost Tradeoff for an Activity

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

3 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id
At the other extreme, a manager might choose to complete the activity in the minimum
possible time, Dcij, but at a higher cost Ccij. This minimum completion time is commonly
called the activity crash time. The linear relationship shown in the figure between these
two points implies that any intermediate duration could also be chosen. It is possible that
some intermediate point may represent the ideal or optimal trade-off between time and
cost for this activity.

What is the reason for an increase in direct cost as the activity duration is reduced? A
simple case arises in the use of overtime work. By scheduling weekend or evening work,
the completion time for an activity as measured in calendar days will be reduced.
However, premium wages must be paid for such overtime work, so the cost will increase.
Also, overtime work is more prone to accidents and quality problems that must be
corrected, so indirect costs may also increase. More generally, we might not expect a
linear relationship between duration and direct cost, but some convex function such as the
nonlinear curve or the step function shown in Figure 2. A linear function may be a good
approximation to the actual curve, however, and results in considerable analytical
simplicity.

Figure 2 Illustration of Non-linear Time/Cost Tradeoffs for an Activity

With a linear relationship between cost and duration, the critical path time/cost tradeoff
problem can be defined as a linear programming optimization problem. In particular, let
Rij represent the rate of change of cost as duration is decreased, illustrated by the absolute
value of the slope of the line in Figure 2. Then, the direct cost of completing an activity
is:

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

4 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id
(1)

where the lower case cij and dij represent the scheduled duration and resulting cost of the
activity ij. The actual duration of an activity must fall between the minimum cost time
(Dij) and the crash time (Dcij). Also, precedence constraints must be imposed as described
earlier for each activity. Finally, the required completion time for the project or,
alternatively, the costs associated with different completion times must be defined. Thus,
the entire scheduling problem is to minimize total cost (equal to the sum of the cij values
for all activities) subject to constraints arising from (1) the desired project duration, PD,
(2) the minimum and maximum activity duration possibilities, and (3) constraints
associated with the precedence or completion times of activities. Algebraically, this is:

(2)
)

subject to the constraints:

where the notation is defined above and the decision variables are the activity durations
dij and event times x(k). The appropriate schedules for different project durations can be
found by repeatedly solving this problem for different project durations PD. The entire
problem can be solved by linear programming or more efficient algorithms which take
advantage of the special network form of the problem constraints.

One solution to the time-cost tradeoff problem is of particular interest and deserves
mention here. 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 (Dcij). This minimum completion time for
the project can then be used in the time-cost scheduling problem described above to
determine the minimum project-crash cost. Note that the project crash cost is not found
by setting each activity to its crash duration and summing up the resulting costs; this
solution is called the all-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.

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

5 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id
Heuristic approaches are also possible to the time/cost tradeoff problem. In particular, a
simple approach is to first apply critical path scheduling with all activity durations
assumed to be at minimum cost (Dij). 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 in accordance with the unit change in cost for a reduction in the
activity duration. The heuristic solution proceeds by shortening activities in the order of
their lowest impact on costs. 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. By manual or automatic
adjustments of this kind, good but not necessarily optimal schedules can be identified.
Optimal or best schedules can only be assured by examining changes in combinations of
activities as well as changes to single activities. However, by alternating between
adjustments in particular activity durations (and their costs) and a critical path scheduling
procedure, a planner can fairly rapidly devise a shorter schedule to meet a particular
project deadline or, in the worst case, find that the deadline is impossible of
accomplishment.

This type of heuristic approach to time-cost tradeoffs is essential when the time-cost
tradeoffs for each activity are not known in advance or in the case of resource constraints
on the project. In these cases, heuristic explorations may be useful to determine if greater
effort should be spent on estimating time-cost tradeoffs or if additional resources should
be retained for the project. In many cases, the basic time/cost tradeoff might not be a
smooth curve as shown in Figure 1, but only a series of particular resource and schedule
combinations which produce particular durations. For example, a planner might have the
option of assigning either one or two crews to a particular activity; in this case, there are
only two possible durations of interest.

Example 1 : Time/Cost Trade-offs

The construction of a permanent transitway on an expressway median illustrates the possibilities

for time/cost trade-offs in construction work. One section of 10 miles of transitway was built in
1985 and 1986 to replace an existing contra-flow lane system (in which one lane in the
expressway was reversed each day to provide additional capacity in the peak flow direction).
Three engineers' estimates for work time were prepared:

 975 calendar day, based on 750 working days at 5 days/week and 8 hours/day of work
plus 30 days for bad weather, weekends and holidays.
 702 calendar days, based on 540 working days at 6 days/week and 10 hours/day of
work.
 360 calendar days, based on 7 days/week and 24 hours/day of work.

The savings from early completion due to operating savings in the contra-flow lane and
contract administration costs were estimated to be $5,000 per day.

In accepting bids for this construction work, the owner required both a dollar amount and
a completion date. The bidder's completion date was required to fall between 360 and 540
days. In evaluating contract bids, a $5,000 credit was allowed for each day less than 540
days that a bidder specified for completion. In the end, the successful bidder completed
the project in 270 days, receiving a bonus of 5,000*(540-270) = $450,000 in the

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

6 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id
$8,200,000 contract. However, the contractor experienced fifteen to thirty percent higher
costs to maintain the continuous work schedule.

Example 2: Time cost trade-offs and project crashing

As an example of time/cost trade-offs and project crashing, suppose that we needed to reduce
the project completion time for a seven activity product delivery project first analyzed in Section
10.3 as shown in 1. Table 1 gives information pertaining to possible reductions in time which
might be accomplished for the various activities. Using the minimum cost durations (as shown in
column 2 of Table 1), the critical path includes activities C,E,F,G plus a dummy activity X. The
project duration is 32 days in this case, and the project cost is $70,000.

TABLE 1 Activity Durations and Costs for a Seven Activity Project

Change in
Activity Minimum Cost Normal Duration Crash Cost Crash Duration Cost per Day

A 8 6 14 4 3
B 4 1 4 1 ---
C 8 8 24 4 4
D 10 5 24 3 7
E 10 9 18 5 2
F 20 12 36 6 2.7
G 10 3 18 2 8

Examining the unit change in cost, Rij shown in column 6 of Table 11-4, the lowest rate
of change occurs for activity E. Accordingly, a good heuristic strategy might be to begin
by crashing this activity. The result is that the duration of activity E goes from 9 days to 5
days and the total project cost increases by $8,000. After making this change, the project
duration drops to 28 days and two critical paths exist: (1) activities C,X,E,F and G, and
(2) activities C, D, F, and G.

Examining the unit changes in cost again, activity F has the lowest value of Rijj. Crashing
this activity results in an additional time savings of 6 days in the project duration, an
increase in project cost of $16,000, but no change in the critical paths. The activity on the
critical path with the next lowest unit change in cost is activity C. Crashing this activity to
its minimum completion time would reduce its duration by 4 days at a cost increase of
$16,000. However, this reduction does not result in a reduction in the duration of the
project by 4 days. After activity C is reduced to 7 days, then the alternate sequence of
activities A and B lie on the critical path and further reductions in the duration of activity
C alone do not result in project time savings. Accordingly, our heuristic corrections might
be limited to reducing activity C by only 1 day, thereby increasing costs by $4,000 and
reducing the project duration by 1 day.

At this point, our choices for reducing the project duration are fairly limited. We can
either reduce the duration of activity G or, alternatively, reduce activity C and either

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

7 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id
activity A or activity B by an identical amount. Inspection of Table 11-4 and Figure 10-4
suggest that reducing activity A and activity C is the best alternative. Accordingly, we can
shorten activity A to its crash duration (from 6 days to 4 days) and shorten the duration of
activity C (from 7 days to 5 days) at an additional cost of $6,000 + $8,000 = $14,000. The
result is a reduction in the project duration of 2 days.

Our last option for reducing the project duration is to crash activity G from 3 days to 2
days at an increase in cost of $8,000. No further reductions are possible in this time since
each activity along a critical path (comprised of activities A, B, E, F and G) are at
minimum durations. At this point, the project duration is 18 days and the project cost is
$120,000., representing a fifty percent reduction in project duration and a seventy percent
increase in cost. Note that not all the activities have been crashed. Activity C has been
reduced in duration to 5 days (rather than its 4 day crash duration), while activity D has
not been changed at all. If all activities had been crashed, the total project cost would
have been $138,000, representing a useless expenditure of $18,000. The change in project
cost with different project durations is shown graphically in Figure 11-5.

Figure 3 Project Cost Versus Time for a Seven Activity Project

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

8 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id
Example 2: Mathematical Formulation of Time-Cost Trade-offs

The same results obtained in the previous example could be obtained using a formal
optimization program and the data appearing in Tables 1. In this case, the heuristic approach
used above has obtained the optimal solution at each stage. Using Eq. (1), the linear
programming problem formulation would be:

Minimize z

= [8+3(6-dA)] + [4] + [8+4(8-dC)] + [10+7(5-dD)]

+ [10+2(9-dE)] + [20+2.7(9-dF)] + [10+2(3-dG)]

subject to the constraints

x(6) = PD x(0) + dA x(2)

x(0) + dC x(1)
x(1) x(3)
x(2) + dB x(4)
x(1) + dD x(4)
x(2) + dE x(4)
x(4) + dF x(5)
x(5) + dG x(6)
x(0) = 0
4 dA 6
1 dB 1
4 dC 8
3 dD 5
5 dE 9
6 dF 12
2 dG 3

which can be solved for different values of project duration PD using a linear
programming algorithm or a network flow algorithm. Note that even with only seven
activities, the resulting linear programming problem is fairly large.

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

9 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id
Daftar Pustaka

1. Hendricson, Project Management for Constrction, web version, 2003

2. Barrie, Donald. S dan Boyd C. Paulson, Manajemen Konstruksi Profesional,

terjemahan - Penerbit Erlangga , 1992.

2016 Manajemen Waktu Proyek Pusat Bahan Ajar dan eLearning

10 Budi Susetyo http://www.mercubuana.ac.id