Scheduling

Chapter 8 – part 4
 Outline

▪ PERT

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 PERT
■ Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
■ Task time durations are treated as uncertain
■ A - optimistic time estimate
■ minimum time in which the task could be completed
■ everything has to go right
■ M - most likely task duration
■ task duration under “normal” working conditions
■ most frequent task duration based on past experience
■ B - pessimistic time estimate
■ time required under particularly “bad” circumstances
■ most difficult to estimate, includes unexpected delays
■ should be exceeded no more than 1% of the time
Discussion

▪ Job task durations are stochastic in reality

▪ Actual duration affected by
▪ Task complexity
▪ Learning curves
▪ What else?
CPM vs. PERT

▪ Difference in how “task duration” is treated

▪ CPM assumes time estimates are deterministic
▪ Obtain task duration from previous projects
▪ Suitable for “implementation”-type projects

▪ PERT treats durations as probabilistic

▪ PERT = CPM + probabilistic task times
▪ Better for “R&D” type projects
▪ Limited previous data to estimate time durations
▪ Captures schedule (and implicitly some cost) risk
A – M – B Time Estimates

Range of Possible Times

times

Time A
Assume a Beta-distribution
Time M

Time B
Beta - distribution
 Expected Time & Variance

▪ Mean expected Time (TE):

▪ Time Variance (TV):

▪ Early Finish (EF) and Late Finish (LF) computed as for CPM with TE
 Example: Solving the Network

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 The AON Network from the previous table

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 Calculating Activity Times

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 The Results

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 Critical Path and Time

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 Critical Path and Time Continued

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 Slack

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 Slack Values

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 Precedence Diagramming Restrictions

▪ Precedence diagramming is an AON network method that easily

allow for inserting leads and lags within the network
▪ With the insertions of the leads and lags restrictions, it is helpful to
layout a Gantt chart and to see what actually happening.

▪ Finish to start: FS
▪ Start to start: SS
▪ Finish to finish: FF
▪ Start to finish: SF

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 Precedence Diagramming Conventions

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 Microsoft Project

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 Gantt Chart

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 Activity on Node (AON) Network

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 Microsoft Project Calendar

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