Universidade do Minho

Programa Doutoral

Project Management Group Assignment (due date - May 03)

The critical path method is a very important tool in project management. It can be used in
projects that can be decomposed into a set of activities with deterministic processing times
and precedence constraints between the activities.
Precedence constraints impose that the starting time of a given activity has to happen later
than the completion time of all its precedent activities.
Consider the project with the activities and the precedence constraints as follows:

Activity Processing time Precedent activities

0 4 –
1 6 0
2 7 1,4
3 2 2,5
4 9 0,7
5 4 4,8
6 5 –
7 6 6
8 4 7,10
9 2 8,11
10 8 6
11 7 7,10

In the critical path method the graph of the project can be represented in two different al-
ternative ways: in one, the activities of the project are represented by arcs of the graph, while,
in the other, they are represented by vertices. In this work, we will consider the latter represen-
tation.
The graph associated to this project is:
 

4  6  7  2 
0  1  2  3 

9  4 
ini  4  5  fim 

5  6  4  2 
6  7  8  9 

8 7
10  11 
 The critical path corresponds to the longest path between the vertex that represents the
beginning (início) of the project and the vertex that represents the end (fim) of the project.
The activities belonging to the longest path (which may not be unique) are critical, in the
sense that, if they have any delay, there will be a delay in the execution time of the entire project.
Therefore, those activities should be followed and controlled more carefully.
In the instance under study, the critical path corresponds to activities 6, 7, 4, 2 e 3, with a
total duration of 29 U.T. (units of time), which is also the smallest time needed to complete the
execution of the entire project.
In this work, each group should consider an instance in which the activities of the project are
determined in the way shown at the end of the text.

PART I

Build a mathematical programming with decision variables t i , ∀i , representing the start time
of activity i and with an objective function aiming at minimizing the total time to complete the
execution of the project obeying all the precedence constraints.

1. Present the network that represents the project.

2. Present the mathematical programming model for this problem. Identify clearly the
meaning of the constraints and the objective function of the problem. Add any detailed
explanation that you find necessary.

3. Present the input file submitted to lpsolve to find the optimal solution.

4. Present the output of lpsolve.

5. Present the network of the project indicating the critical path.

6. Present an execution plan (Gantt diagram) of the project.

7. Pick an activity belonging to the critical path. Find the starting time for the activity. Justify
succinctly.

8. Pick an activity that does not belong to the critical path.

• By inspecting the network of the project, find the earliest starting time for the activ-
ity. Justify succinctly.
• By inspecting the network of the project, find the latest starting time for the activity
without delaying the total execution time of the project. Justify succinctly.
PART II

Even though there is a deterministic processing time for each activity, it is often possible, in-
creasing the resources used in the activity, to reduce its processing time. This is called crashing
times, and is accomplished with extra costs.
Let us associate two additional parameters to each activity: the first is the value of the cost,
in monetary units (M.U.), of reducing the duration of the activity by one unit of time (U.T.);
the second is the value of the largest possible time reduction for the activity. These values are
presented in the following table (consider only those that belong to the list of activities of your
group):

Activity cost reduction cost [M.U./U.T.] Largest reduction

0 400 100 1
1 1000 300 2
2 1400 500 4
3 300 100 1
4 2000 400 3
5 1000 800 1
6 800 90 2
7 900 – 0
8 600 100 1
9 300 — 0
10 1600 500 1
11 1400 300 2

For illustrating purposes, for Activity 1, which has a normal processing time of 6 U.T., re-
ducing the duration of the activity by 1 U.T., being the new processing time 5 U.T., has a cost
of 300 M.U.. The largest reduction is 2 U.T., that is, it is possible, with a cost of 600 M.U., to do
this activity in the minimum time of 3 U.T..
Suppose that we need to reduce the total execution time of your project, obtained in Part I,
by 3 U.T.. The objective is to decide how should the activities processing times be reduced, ao
as to be able to complete the project in the new execution time with a minimum additional
cost.

1. Present the mathematical programming model for this problem. Identify clearly the
meaning of the constraints and the objective function of the problem. Add any detailed
explanation that you find necessary.

2. Present the input file submitted to lpsolve to find the optimal solution.

3. Present the output of lpsolve.

4. Present the solution.

PART III

The duration of a project and its cost are often balanced. Taking the duration of the project as
a parameter, solve the model of Part II as many times as needed to obtain the graph that plots
costs against time.

1. Plot a graph with different possible durations for the project in the x−axis and total exe-
cution costs of the project in the y−axis.

PART IV

In Part I any activity could be executed in parallel with any activity other than its predeces-
sors or successors. Execution in parallel means that there is an instant of time when the two
activities are being executed simultaneously.
Now we address planning under resource constraints. Consider, for instance, activities 1
and 2 and that there is only one equipment used by the two activities. Either activity 1 should
end before activity 2 starts or activity 2 should end before activity 1 starts. Clearly, the global
duration of the project may increase due to the resource constraint.
Pick two activities executed simultaneously in Part I, and consider that they can not be exe-
cuted simultaneously. Again, the objective is to minimize the project duration.

1. Present the mathematical programming model for this problem. Identify clearly the
meaning of the new constraints and the objective function of the problem. Add any de-
tailed explanation that you find necessary.

2. Present the input file submitted to lpsolve to find the optimal solution.

3. Present the output of lpsolve.

4. Present the solution (Gantt chart).

5. Did the duration of the project increase? If so, indicate the amount of the increase.

PARTE V

Consider now a variant to Part IV when outsourcing is available. Pick three activities executed
in parallel. Again there is only one equipment, but one of the three activities may be out-
sourced, while the remaining two activities may not be executed in parallel, due to the resource
constraint.
Again, the objective is to minimize the project duration.

1. Present the mathematical programming model for this problem. Identify clearly the
meaning of the new constraints and the objective function of the problem. Add any de-
tailed explanation that you find necessary.
 2. Present the input file submitted to lpsolve to find the optimal solution.

3. Present the output of lpsolve.

4. Present the solution (Gantt chart).

5. Did the duration of the project increase? If so, indicate the amount of the increase.

Determining the list of activities of your project

Let ABC DE be the number of the student of the group with the largest number. Remove from
the list of activities the activities D and E , being the new precedence constraints expressed in
the following way:

• the successors of activity D will have as precedents the predecessors of activity D; and

• the same for E .

For illustrating purposes, if activity 6 is removed, activity 4 will have activity 5 (instead of
activity 6) as precedent, the same happening with activity 9.

VC