FUOYE Journal of Engineering and Technology, Volume 2, Issue 1, March 2017 ISSN: 2579-0625 (Online), 2579-0617 (Paper)

Analysis of an Engineering Project Using

Program Evaluation and Review Technique
1*
Adetoye Aribisala, 1Adegboyega Otenaike, 1Olusegun Balogun and 2Lizzy Ofusori

1
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria
2
School of Management, IT and Governance, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
adetoye.aribisala@fuoye.edu.ng

Abstract— Between fifty to eighty percentof the projects known are not completed within the specified number of working days. Either the
contractor was assessed liquidated damages or time extensions were authorized, necessitating additional manpower and / or extended
working hours.The result in both cases was animmediate financial loss to the contractors; these losses were ultimately passed on to the
company in general, contributing to spiraling project costs.Therefore, this paper examines and analysis data related to the project of the
reactivation of line 1 for the production of iron ore concentrates of national Iron Ore Mining Company, Itakpe. Data collected involved the
optimistic time, most likely and pessimistic times of completion of critical activities making up the project. This data was analyzed using the
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), a MATLAB program was written to determine the critical path and the probability of project
completion at a simulated time. It was found out that the project should have been completed in an optimal time of between 110 and 120 days
as against the actual completion time of 180 days. The result of the simulated optimal completion time was compared to the actual completion
time. Management agreed to adopt the PERT technique in future project works in the organization.

Keywords—Project management, PERT, Completion Time, Activity, Planning and control.

————————————————————

1 INTRODUCTION

A
management consulting firm of Booz, Allen and Hamilton
challenging job that aproject manager can undertake
(Rafael Andrew and Albert Corominas, 1989). The project
is the management of a large-scale project that
was a development program of the Polaris missile which
requires coordinating several activities within and outside
had 250 prime contractors and over 9,000 subcontractors
the organization. A countless number of details may be
(Lockyer & James, 2005).
considered in planning how to coordinate these activities,
such as: developing a realistic schedule, and monitoring
Since that time, the use of PERT has found useful
the project’s process (Hillier, et al., 2016). Critical path
applications in the manufacturing industry, government,
method (CPM) was introduced to the construction
construction work, research management, product
industry around the year 1960 (Chris, 2009). The
development and information technology. Today, many
technique, being still new then, was not yet familiar with
firms and government agencies require that all skillful
most construction companies, particularly small and
engineers use PERT in the completion time analysis of
intermediate-sized organizations. These organizations still
engineering projects (Lockyer and James, 2005).
relied on the conventional bar graphs and progress charts
to form the basis of construction planning and control.
PERT is a network-based aid for planning and scheduling
many interrelated tasks in a large and complex project. It
The Texas Highway Department Standard Specifications
was one of the most complex tasks ever attempted at the
(2002) states that “prior to beginning construction
time of its emergence. Nowadays PERT techniques are
operations, the constructor shall submit to the Engineer a
routinely used in any large project such as software
chart or brief outlining the manner of prosecution of work
development, building construction, maintenance works,
that he intends to follow in order to complete the contract
etc. (Chinneck, 2009).
within the allotted time”(Texas Department of
Transportation, 2002). This chart or brief may be in letter
The major tools in project management are Program
form, a bar graph, critical path method or any suitable
Evaluation and Review Technique/Critical Path Method
form that will outline a workable sequence of operations
(PERT/CPM). They are networks that show precedence
as the contractor sees the job expected to be followed.
relations of activities in a project coupled with the activity
However, not one contractor elected the CPM option to
times. They are used to illustrate project completion times,
fulfill the requirements of this specification, even when
which is the longest path in the network. They are also
contracts in excess of fifteen million dollars were
used to find other related information about the activities,
involved.
such as slack time, earliest start and end time (Boushaala,
2014). All these analyses are made based on the infinite
The engineering application of Pert started in 1957 by the
resource assumption. Then, resource allocation of the
Navy Special Projects Office in cooperation with the
project is carried out. That is, finite resources are allocated
*Corresponding Author

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to the project activities whose time requirements are
calculated based on the infinite resource assumption.
In his work, Boushaala (2014) proposed a model known as
Petri Nets (PNs) which is a one-step approach for a
resource constrained project. This in no doubt improves
project management task. Liang, et al.(2000)also
introduced a project model, called Software Project
Evaluation and Review Model (SPREM), which extends
PERT/CPM’s notation to four types of vertices to express
the non-deterministic and iterative behaviors of software
engineering projects. They compared it with PNs and
discussed its analysis and behavioral properties. Even
with these newer models available, the PERT method was
used for this work because of its simplicity and easy
applicability to the study area in Nigeria.
2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
The planning unit of National Iron Ore Mining Company,
Itakpe has since noticed that projects being executed in the
plant are haphazardly done. Cost factors and delay time
are not taken into consideration. Activities are not being
scheduled, and even when they are, they are not being
followed. Cynthia(2000) in her article, said that most
organizations have experienced projects that did not end
on time, this she claimed is because executives do not have
access to the project plans and schedules in real time. A
project that is poorly planned and estimated is risky,
difficult, and can lead to project failure. Without a decent
plan and cost estimate, resources cannot be managed and
organized, risks cannot be mitigated, completion dates
and budgets cannot be forecasted, effective reporting
cannot take place, and the measures of success will be
flawed from the outset (Madsen, 2011).
Paul(2000) in his online article enumerated ten reasons
why projects fail. According to him, between 50-80% of
projects fail due to the lack of use of engineering principles
at thedesign stage. Consequently, it is the purpose of this
S/NoACTIVITY 1 2 3 4
A Material Supply CODE
Submission of indent for parts,
procurement and arrival of parts
1 on site A
Beneficiation
Connection of 200SG1 EW51
2 water pipe to the gutter B1
Replacement of pumps V belts
3 for G57PP05, G54PP01 B2
study to provide a simplified, but entirely comprehensive
PERT approach to project management in an effort to
acquaint the industry with a very valuable planning and
scheduling technique. A case study of the project of
revitalization of line 1 of the production of concentrate
was used to develop the PERT system.
3 METHODS AND MATERIALS
 A Gantt chart diagram of all activities planned for the
project of revitalization of line 1 was developed
 A comprehensive network diagram representing each
of the divisional activities of work items comprising
the project was developed
 A typical computer program was written in Matlab to
determine the critical path of the project and expected
project completion time was developed and
implemented
3.1 Activity/Gantt Chart
The Activity and Gantt chart is a chart showing the
activities and the time frame that is most likely
required to complete a given task. A screen shot of a
portion of the activity chart developed is illustrated in
Figure 1.
A total of forty-three activities were noted and codes were
assigned accordingly. The total time frame for the project
using the most-likely time probability variable was 105
days. The assumptions made in planning the Gantt chart
were:
 Some activities are dependent on other activities
being completed first.
 The dependent activities need to be completed first
in a sequence, with each activity being more-or-
less completed before the next activity can begin,
these dependent activities are known as sequential
activities
 Other activities are not dependent on completion of any
tasks. These are non-dependent or parallel tasks.
TIME FRAME (MEASURED IN DAYS)
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 104 105

4 Overhauling of all filtrate poumps B3

5 Changing of all water hoses B4
Sump pump motor and v belts to
6 be installed of F17PP11 B5
Tail cyclone flange bolts to be
7 provided and installed B6
scrapper to be fixed on G11Fr,
8 G12FR01, 02 and G13FR B7
metal dam on top of filter near
distributor box to be installed on
9 G12FR01 and G12FR02 B8
Tail cyclone discharge hose to
of filter unit to be fixed on
10 G13FR B9
Screen cloth to be changed on
11 all magnetic screens B10
Replacement of broken taper
42 lock E4
TESTING AND
43 COMMISSIONING F

Fig. 1.Activity/Gantt Chart (Time is measured in days)

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3.2 Network Diagram

In a PERT network diagram, each activity is represented where p1,p2….p6are the paths considered in succession
by an arrow that is called a branchor an arc. The  Normal deviate:
beginning and end of each activity are indicated by a
circle that is called anode. The term ‘event’is also used in
connection with the nodes. An event represents
Activity Optimistic time Most likely Pessimistic
thecompletion of the activities that lead into a node. The Code (a) days time (m) days Time (b) days
network diagram of the activities analyzed is as shown in
A 16 23 30
Figure 2.The network diagram is a simplified version of B1 1 2 3
what was obtainable in the field. B2 3 2 3
B3 6 8 10
B4 2 3 4
3.3 Analysis B5 1 3 5
B6 2 2 2
The optimistic time, most likely time and pessimistic B7 2 3 3
time estimates were obtained from available data and B8 2 3 5
B9 2 3 4
from theexperience of performing such activities. This B10 2 4 6
is shown in Figure 3: E4 2 2 2
F 0 0 0
The completion time for activity was calculated using the Fig. 3.Project Time Estimates
PERT analysis model (Cage & Ronald, 2002)
Where

Where completion time for activity = highest completion time

And are the optimistic time, pessimistic
time and most likely time for activity respectively.
And the variance for activity is given as
Corresponding variance of
 The normal deviate was read from Z tables of normal
distribution for the probability of completing the task
in an assumed time; this is given by:

Where when x = 0.5, the probability of task completion

becomes 100%. Therefore values were simulated
between -0.5 and +0.5
 The probability of task completion in an assumed
time becomes:

Fig. 2.Network Diagram Where value of z (read from tables)

4 RESULTS
Paths were divided into six as with the notation: Simulation results of the probable times of project
A to F completion are shown in Figures 4 to 7:
Each successive was broken down into paths
(p) as: In Figure 4, the completion time of 90 days was simulated.
The Normal deviate is given from eqn.4 as:

For A in the first summation and p = path

Where D = 90 days, T = 104.167 days and V = 14.75
Substituting this in the formula, Z = -3.689
3.3.1 Steps in the software calculation:
The value of Z is then read from tables of normal
 Each path completed time was summed up with their
distribution probabilities. Note: this table has been
corresponding variances
incorporated in the developed user interface.
 The highest completion time denoted as was
The value of Z read from tables gives -0.4999
taken as the critical path with its respective variance
The probability of task completion in 90 days is given
(note: this is not necessarily the highest variance)
from Eqn. 6 as:
 The was decided by the conditional
statement

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FUOYE Journal of Engineering and Technology, Volume 2, Issue 1, March 2017
Where q represents the value of Z read from normal
distribution probabilities table. The probability of task
completion in 90 days, therefore, becomes 0.01%
Fig. 4.Simulation of Probable Completion Time of 90 days
In Fig 5, the completion time of 100 days was simulated.
Following previous similar calculations from Fig 4, The
Normal deviate, in this case, was -1.08499. The probability
of project completion was found out to be 13.8963%.
In Fig 6, following the same trend in previous
Fig. 5.Simulation of Probable Completion Time of 100
days
computations, completion time of 110 days was
simulated. The Normal deviate was 1.51878. The
probability of project completion was found out to be
93.5591%.
Fig. 6.Simulation of Probable Completion Time of
110 days
In Figure 7, the completion time of 120 days was
simulated. The Normal deviate was 4.12256. The
probability of project completion was 99.9981%.
Fig. 7.Simulation of Probable Completion Time of
120 days
5 DISCUSSIONS OF RESULTS
From the result, the probability of completing the given
task is realizable and achievable starting from 110 days
FUOYEJET © 2017
engineering.fuoye.edu.ng/journal
ISSN: 2579-0625 (Online), 2579-0617 (Paper)
upwards. This can be deduced after simulations of several
completion periods (days). It is therefore asserted that the
completion time is directly proportional to the deviate and
the probability, i.e. the higher the completion time, the
higher the deviate and the higher the probability.
6 CONCLUSION
It was observed from the analyzed data that the actual
maximum completion time is 104.156 and the
Fig. 8.Probability of project completion vs. time
corresponding variance is 14.7485. Several probable days
of project completion were simulated and the
corresponding probabilities to complete the task were
found to be 10%, 14%, 94% and 100% for 90 days, 100
days, 110 days and 120 days respectively. Therefore the
higher the number of days (greater than 120 days), the
probability of completion will be a 100%. This shows that
the best result lies between 110 and 120 days. Comparing
the result to the actual completion time of 9 months (180
days), it can be seen that so much loss hours can be gained
by adhering to the use of PERT program for project
planning and control.
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