Project Management

Chapter 8 (Crashing)

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8-1

Project Crashing
Basic Concept
In last lecture, we studied on how to use
CPM and PERT to identify critical
path for a project problem
Now, the question is:
Question:
Can we cut short its
project completion
time?
If so, how!
Chapter 8 - Project Management

2
8-2

Project Crashing
Solution!
Yes, the project duration can be reduced
by assigning more resources to
project activities. But, doing this would
somehow increase our project cost!
How do we strike a balance?
Project

crashing is a method for

shortening project duration by reducing
one or more critical activities to a time
less than normal activity time.
3
8-3

Trade-off concept
Here, we adopt the Trade-off concept
We attempt to crash some critical
events by allocating more resources to
them, so that the time of one or more
critical activities is reduced to a time
that is less than the normal activity
time.
How to do that:
Question: What criteria should it be
based on when deciding to crashing
critical times?
4
8-4

Example crashing (1)

Max weeks can be crashed
Normal weeks
1

5 (1)

6(3)
3

The critical path is5(0)

1-2-3, the
completion time =11
How? Path: 1-2-3 = 5+6=11 weeks
Path: 1-3 = 5 weeks
Now, how many days can we crash
it?
5
8-5

Example crashing (1)

5 (1)
1

6(3)
3

5(0)

The maximum time that can be crashed for:

Path 1-2-3 = 1 + 3 = 4
Path 1-3 = 0
Should we use up all these 4 weeks?
6
8-6

Example crashing (1)

4(0)

5 (1)
1

3(0)
2

6(3)
3

5(0)

If we used all 4 days, then path 1-2-3 has

(5-1) + (6-3) = 7 completion weeks

Now, we need to check if the completion time for path 1-3 has lesser than 7
weeks (why?)
Now, path 1-3 has (5-0) = 5 weeks
Since path 1-3 still shorter than 7 weeks, we used up all 4 crashed weeks
Question: What if path 1-3 has, say 8 weeks completion time?
7
8-7

Example crashing (1)

Such as
5 (1)
1

6(3)
3

8(0)

Now, we cannot use all 4 days (Why?)

Because path 1-2-3 will not be critical path anymore as
path 1-3 would now has longest hour to finish
Rule: When a path is a critical path, it will not stay as a critical path
So, we can only reduce the path 1-2-3 completion time to the same time
as path 1-3. (HOW?)
8
8-8

Example crashing (1)

Solution:
5 (1)
1

6(3)
3

8(0)

We can only reduce total time for path 1-2-3 = path 1-3,
that is 8 weeks
If the cost for path 1-2 and path 2-3 is the same then
We can random pick them to crash so that its completion
Time is 8 weeks
9
8-9

Example crashing (1)

Solution:

4(0)
5 (1)

OR

8(0)
5 (1)

4(1)
6(3)

3(0)
6(3)
3

8(0)
Now, paths 1-2-3 and 1-3 are both critical paths 10
8-10

The Project Network

AOA Network for House Building
Project

Figure 8.6
Expanded Network for
Building a
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Hall Showing Concurrent

8-11

Project Crashing and Time-Cost

Trade-Off
Example Problem (1 of 5)

Figure 8.19 The Project Network for

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2010 Pearson a
Education,
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Building
House
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8-12

Project Crashing and Time-Cost

Trade-Off
Example Problem (3 of 5)

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Table 8.4

8-13

Project Crashing and Time-Cost

Trade-Off
Example Problem
(2&of
5) time have a
Crash cost
crash
linear relationship:

Total Crash Cost

$2000

Total Crash Time 5 weeks

$400 / wk

Figure
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Education, Inc. Publishing as
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Prentice Hall

8-14

Project Crashing and Time-Cost

Trade-Off
General Relationship of Time and
Cost (2 of 2)

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Prentice Hall

Figure 8.23
The Time-Cost
8-15

Project Crashing and Time-Cost

Trade-Off
Example Problem (4 of 5)

Figure 8.21 Network with Normal Activity Times and Weekly

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Crashing
Costs
Prentice Hall
8-16

Project Crashing and Time-Cost

Trade-Off
Example
Problem
(5 of the
5) critical path
As activities
are crashed,
may change and several paths may become
critical.

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Prentice Hall

Figure 8.22
Revised Network
with Activity 1
8-17

Project Crashing and Time-Cost

Trade-Off
Project Crashing with QM for
Windows

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Exhibit

8-18

Formulating as a Linear
Programming Model
AOA Network for House Building
Project

Figure 8.6
Expanded Network for
Building a
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as
House
Prentice
Hall Showing Concurrent

8-19

Formulating as a Linear
Programming Model
Example Problem Formulation and
Data (1 of 2)

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Prentice Hall

Figure
8.24
8-20

The CPM/PERT Network

Example Problem Formulation and
Data (2 of 2)
Minimize Z = x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7
subject to:
x2 - x1 12
x3 - x2 8
x4 - x2 4
x4 - x3 0
x5 - x4 4
x6 - x4 12
x6 - x5 4
x7 - x6 4
xi, Pearson
xj Education,
0
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8-21

The CPM/PERT Network

Formulating as a Linear
Programming Model

The objective is to minimize the project duration (critical

path time).
General linear programming model with AOA
convention:
Minimize Zi = xi
subject to:
xj - xi tij for all activities i j
xi, xj 0
Where:

xi = earliest event time of node i

xj = earliest event time of node j
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Inc. Publishing
as
t
=
time
of
activity
ij
ij
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8-22

Project Crashing with Linear

Programming
Example
Problem
Model
Minimize Z =
$400y12 + 500y
23 + 3000y24 + 200y45 +
Formulation
7000y46
+ 200y56 + 7000y67
subject to:
y12 5
y12 + x2 - x1 12
y23 3
y23 + x3 - x2 8
y24 1
y24 + x4 - x2 4
y34 0
y34 + x4 - x3 0
y45 3
y45 + x5 - x4 4
y46 3
y46 + x6 - x4 12
y56 3
y56 + x6 - x5 4
y67 1
x67 + x7 - x6 4
xi = earliest event time of node i
xj = earliest event time of node j
Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as
Prentice
Hallamount of time by which activity i
y =

x7 30
xi, yij 0
Objective is
to minimize
the cost of
crashing

j is crashed

8-23