The American University in Cairo

THE PROFESSIONAL PROGRAM IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

PRMG 020: MANAGEMENT OF PROJECT RESOURCES
Final Exam

QUESTION 1 (25%)
You are a site manager of a reputable firm. You are planning to complete a task
of 25,000 units within a 30-day contract period. Your main goals are to use
resources efficiently and to complete the task with a maximum delay of 7
working days.

Available Resources

Available Day Rate

Resource Productivity / crew
Crews (L.E./day/Crew)
Human
Can manage up to 3 Crews of
Resource 3 150
equipment
Crews
Equipment A crew produces [500 - 40 (N-l)]
Resource 7 units where (N) is the number of 850
Crews working equipment crews

[A] What is the cost of producing one unit if you managed to complete the task
exactly in the contract period?
[B] Suggest the optimum planning duration that corresponds to minimum direct
cost.
[C] Calculate the percentage of cost increase if this task is crashed to its minimum
duration.

QUESTION 2 (25%)
You are using the LOB technique to execute a major task of 100 identical houses.
Required rate of construction is 5 houses / week. To complete this task in one
house you need a total of 120 man-hours. Optimum gang size is 3 workers.
[A] Determine the number of gangs and the time required to complete the 100-house
task.
[B] To crash this task using the same number of gangs calculate in part [A], you
decided to work 11 hours/day 6 days/week. Extended work hours caused the hourly
productivity to drop by 10%. How many calendar days will this crashing approach
realize?
QUESTION 3 (25%)

A subcontractor is executing one of the major tasks of a 30 identical-house project.

The project is adopting the Line of Balance Scheduling Technique (LOBST) to
perform its tasks. Therefore, all subcontractors are required to use the Line of
Balance to harmonize with other project tasks. The subcontractor is given up to 90
working days to complete his task. Completing this task for the first house takes
one crew 200 man-hours. Considering the learning curve concept, we know that
man-hours required to complete the task will decrease by 12% over the previous
house's man-hours. However, the man-hours required for the task will not go
below the 100 limit (50% of the original man-hours).

- A week is 5-working days.

- A day is 8-working hours.
- Optimum execution crew size is 5 workers.
- Available human resources are 10 execution crews and 5 supervision crews.
- A supervision crew can supervise up to 4 execution crews.
- The rate of the execution crew is L.E. 10/man-hour.
- The rate of the supervision crew is L.E. 12.5/crew-hour.
- Head-Office indirect cost is L.E. 300/day.

[A] Determine the optimum plan (completion duration, number of used crews,
rate of construction and total corresponding cost)

[B] An alternative crashing plan is suggested with the following features:

- A day is 12-working hours.
- Productivity factor due to extra working hours equals 5/6.
- All other figures and conditions remain the same.
Determine all possible crashing durations that may be considered by the
subcontractor and their corresponding total costs.

[C] Starting with the duration corresponding to minimum cost calculated in part
[A] as the normal duration, the subcontractor is examining reducing the execution
duration. He decides to pay extra money to reduce the task's duration such that
cost per crashed day should not exceed L.E. 500. Determine the execution plan/s
satisfying his condition.
QUESTION 4 (25%)
You are the project manager of a subcontracting firm specialized in painting
works. You are required to allocate resources for painting works in four different
sites next December on a 7-working-day week basis.

A Summary of the Activities to be executed:

Total Quantity Earliest Start Latest Finish

Site
in m2 Date (8 a.m.) Date (4 p.m.)
A 6,000 12/01/2010 12/15/2010

B 3,600 12/05/2010 12/18/2010

C 6,500 12/09/2010 12/25/2010

D 5,800 12/13/2010 12/22/2010

Available Resources

Available Daily Productivity of a Daily Cost in

Resource Item
Units Resource Unit in m2 L.E./unit
Painting Crew I 1 500 900

Painting Crew II 1 400 760

Painting Crew III 1 300 600

700 [a supervisor can

Supervisor 6 100
supervise one site]

An engineer can supervise

Engineer 3 250
one or two sites

Although you should execute the four activities within their start and finish
dates, you are allowed to split activities. However, crews, supervisors and
engineers will be paid for any stoppage intervals during or between activities.
Two painting crews may be working simultaneously at the same site. To
supervise a site, you need a resident supervisor and an engineer. However, one
engineer may be simultaneously supervising two sites.
A] Determine the total optimum human resource costs of the painting
works at the four sites.
B] Draw a neat bar chart of the four activities showing the start and finish
dates that achieve the optimum human resource costs and allocate the
used painting crews on the bars.
C] Develop a table showing the working days of each painting crew,
supervisor and engineer.

(N.B. Using graphical methods may help you to reach the optimum solution.)

Good Luck
Prof. Dr . Ta r ek Sa k r