CPM : Critical Path Method

PERT : Project Evaluation and Review Technique

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1. Introduction
Project is a purposeful combination of several interrelated activities
(or tasks) which must be executed in a certain order for its
completion.
Example: - Construction of a building, bridge, dam , etc.
- R & D project.
Project managing involves three basic functions , namely:
(i) Planning (II) Scheduling (III) controlling.
(I) and (II) are accomplished before the start of the actual project ,
(III) is undertaken during the execution of the project.
In fact, rescheduling may also take place during the execution of the
project based on periodical progress review and evaluations.

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1. Project Planning involves various aspects including the following:
Identification of all activities (tasks) to be performed; i.e, Developing
WBS (work breakdown structure) : breakdown the project into
clearly definable activities (tasks/jobs)
Identify activity orders (interdependence relationship) : Some of the
activities cannot be started before some other activities are completed.
This defines a precedence ordering among the activities.
Determination of the duration (time estimates) of each activity.

 A project is said to be completed if all of its component activities are

completed.
 Two categories of activities in a project: Critical & Slack Activities
- Critical Activities: any delay of completion time of which cause
the delay of completion time of the entire project.
- Slack Activities: Those activities that can be delayed to a some
extent without causing a delay in the whole project.
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2. Project Scheduling: Given the precedence order and duration of each
activity, a project scheduling deals with the following tasks:
Timetabling the start and finish time for each activity with the aim of
minimizing the completion time (duration) of the entire project.
Identifying the critical activities which require special attention.
Determination of slack activities and how far each of them can be
delayed without causing a delay on the whole project.
This entails determining the earliest start (ES) and latest start (LS) time
as well as earliest finish(EF) and latest finish(LF) time for each activity.

3. Project Controlling: This involves monitoring the project to find

deviations in actual progress from the scheduled plan and to apply
the corrective measures so as to achieve the targets.

 In this chapter, we discuss a network planning technique for

the second function (Project Scheduling)

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 2: Network Model of a Project
Given all the component activities a1, a2, …, am of a project, their
precedence order and duration, the project can be modeled by a
network (directed
• An arrow graph) asan
(arc) represents follows.
activity; and
• The nodes at the tail and head of the arrow marks the event
(specific point in time) at which the activity begins and ends,
respectively.
Hence, • arrow represents an activity
• node represents event of the begin or end of activities.
• activity duration will be the number stated on the arrow

A • Arrow from node i to j is denoted

i j
3 by the ordered pair (i, j ).

Representation of an activity A So, (i , j ) represents activity A

with duration 3 (units of time)

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• An activity a1 is called a predecessor of activity a2, If a1 must be
completed before a2 can start .

• An activity a1 is said to be an immediate predecessor of a2 , written as

a1  a2,
if a1 is a predecessor of a2 and there is no other activity b such
that a1  b  a2. (i.e, when a1 finished, a2 can be immediately started)
If so, we may also say that a2 is immediate successor of a1.
• If activity a1 is immediate predecessor of a2, this can be pictured as:
a1 a2
i j k

• Parallel activities: Some of the activities, say a1 and a2 , may have

no precedence order (can occur simultaneously). Such activities
may represented in any one of the following ways.
a1 a1 a1
Or Or
a2 a2
a2

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• If a set of activities, say a1, a2 and a3, are all immediate predecessors
of other activities, say a4 and a5, this can be pictured as:
a1
a4
a2
a5
a3
• A project network model has exactly one initial node and one end node

Example: Describe the following network representation of nine

activities a1, a2, …, a9:
a3 4
2 4 a8
a4 5
a1 4 a5 3
5
1 a6 4 6
a2 3
6 a9
a7 2
5 3
Path:
Longest path = Critical path, Critical activities
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• We may need a dummy arc (dummy activity) for modeling purpose.
• A dummy arc is only to show a precedence order and requires no
duration and resource.
For instance, suppose a1 is immediate predecessor of a2 and a4;and
a3 is immediate predecessor of a4 ,
then this can be pictured as;
a1 a2 d is dummy arc
d
(broken arrow)
a3 a4
• An arc (i,j) represents a unique activity. This may be enforced by a
dummy arc. For instance; suppose : a1  a2 , a3 ; and a2 , a3  a4.
Then, this can be pictured as:
a1 a2 a4

a3
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• In general, the following are 6 rules (guidelines) for constructing a
network representing interrelationship of activities in a project:
1. Event 1 (node 1) denote the start of the project. Every activity that
has no predecessor starts from event 1.
2. The network has only one end(final) node, say event n. Every
activity that has no successor ends at n.
3. An arc (arrow) (i,j), which starts at event (node) i and ends at
event j, represents one and only one activity.
4. For each activity (i,j) , i  j (Topologically ordered node numbers)
5. For a fixed j, all activities of the form (i,j) , i.e., all activities ending
at j, must be completed before event j is considered occurred
(accomplished)
6. Activity (j,k) can start as soon as event j has occurred.

• Remark: The last event n marks the completion of all activities of

the project (end of the project). The earliest occurrence time of
event n is the minimum duration of the project.
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Example: Consider a project, call it Proj 1, whose activities are given below:

Activity Imed. Pred Duration

Activity Imed. successor
a1 -- 9
a1 a3, a7
a2 -- 5
a2 a4, a5
a3 a1 3
a3 a6
a4 a2 8 
a4 a6
a5 a2 2
a5 a7
a6 a3 , a4 7
a6 ---
a7 a1, a5 8
a7 ---
 Network representation 3
2 a3 4
of Proj 1 is: 7
9 a6
a1
6
1 8
5 a4 8
a7
a2 2
3 a5 5

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 3: The Critical Path Method (CPM)
• The following are common terms and notations in a project network:
• Activity (i,j) means the activity (or job) represented by arc (i,j).
Convention: ij tij
i j
Event i Event j

• tij denotes duration (required time) to complete activity (i,j)

• Event i is said to be occurred (reached) if all activities ending at i
are finished (= activities that emanates from node i can be started)
• E(i) := Early occurrence of event i :– the earliest possible time at which
activities emanating from node i can be started
• ES(i,j) := Early Start of (i,j) :– the earliest time to start activity (i,j)
Note: ES(i,j) = E(i)
• EF(i,j) := Early Finish of (i,j) :– the earliest time to finish activity (i,j)
Note: EF(i,j) = ES(i,j) + tij = E(i) + tij
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• L(j) := Late occurrence of event j: Latest possible time at which activity
that begins at node j can be started, without delaying the
project
-So, every activity (i,j) should be finished latest by L(j) to avoid
delaying the project. )
Thus, LF(i,j), the latest finish time of (i,j) is L(j).
LS(i,j) := Late Start of (i,j) :– the latest possible time to start activity (i,j),
without delaying the project.
Note: LS(i,j) = LF(i,j)  tij = L(j)  tij.

• ST(i,j) := Slack Time of (i,j) :- the duration for which (i,j) can be delayed
without delaying the project.
Note: ST(i,j) = LS(i,j)  ES(i) = LF(i,j)  EF(i,j) = L(j) – E(i)  tij

• Activity (i,j) is said to be a - critical activity if ST(i,j) = 0.

- slack activity if ST(i,j) > 0;
• Critical path is a path formed by activities whose slack time is zero.
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. Thus, to identify critical activities, ES, LS, EF, LF and ST of each
activities, we need to know the Earliest occurrence E(i) and Latest
occurrence L(i) of each event.
• CPM determines E(i) and L(i) for each event. It has two parts:
 Forward pass determines E(i), early occurrence of each event i,

 Backward
• Forward Pass: pass determines L(j), late occurrence of each event j.
• Starting with E(1) = 0, we compute E(j) iteratively j = 2,3, . . . , n.
Notation: NB(j) := Set of all node i such that arc (i,j) is on the
network
(Read as set of ‘nodes before j’ )
Given E(i) for each i  NB(j) , note that
E(j) = max { E (i) + tij : iNB(j) }
because E(j) can occur only after all activities ending at node j
are completed . tij
E(i) i
j
tkj
E(k) k E(j)
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• Note that E(n) is the duration of the longest path in the network and
it marks the earliest time (minimum duration) to complete the project.
• The longest path is a critical path

Backward Pass: After forward is completed,

Let: NA(i) := Set of all node j such that arc (i,j) is on the network
(Read as set of ‘nodes after i’ )
• For each node i, L(i), is computed iteratively going back through the
network starting with L(n) := E(n) so that no delay on the project.
• Then, for i = n-1, n-2, …, 1, we should have
L(i) + tij ≤ L(j) for all j  NA(i).
L(j)
 L(i) ≤ L(j)  tij for all j  NA(i). j
tij

L(i) i
tik k
 L(i) = min { L(i) – tij : j  NA(i) } L(k)

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Algorithm CPM : Given a project network with nodes numbered 1, 2,
…,n:
I) Forward Pass: Initial : E(1) := 0 ;
Main Steps: For j =2 to n do
E(j) = max { E(i) + tij : i  NB(j) } ;
II) Bacward Pass: Initial: L(n) = E(n)
Main Steps: For i = n-1 down to 1 do
L(i) = min{ L(j) – tij : j NA( i ) } ;
III) Activity Scheduling and slack times:
Starting from i=1, for each activity (i,j)
- ES(i , j ) = E(i); EF(i , j ) = ES(i, j ) + tij ;
- LF(i ,j) = L(j), LS(i , j ) = LS(i, j )  tij ;
• ST(i , j ) = LS(i, j)  ES(i, j) = LF(i, j)  EF(i,j)
END

Note :- A critical path in the network is a longest path from node 1 to n

consisting of arcs (activities) with slack time 0.
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Exercise : Given the following network model of a project, determine
its minimum duration and ES, EF, LS, LF, ST of each activity;
- Also identify its critical activities.

10
2 5 8
7
3 6
8 4 5 3
1 7 8
4 12
6 2
14 8
3 6

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Further Reading :
Project Scheduling by PERT
• In PERT also the first step is to determine critical path.
• However, here the duration of activities are not certain but random variables.
• So in PERT we deal with consideration such as
• expected early start time of activities
• expected early finish time of activities,
• expected critical activities,
• expected minimum duration of the project; and
• the probability of completing the project “on time”.

END

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