End Term Examination :: Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Date: Time: 3 Hours Full Marks: 50

Spring Semester 2010-2011 Subject No:
IM41006
IV Yr B.Tech (H), Dual Degree Sub. Name: Networks and Project Management
No. of Students: 17 of B.Tech/Dual Degree/M.Sc – AG, AR, CS, EX, IM, MF
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This question paper has two parts. Answer both in the same answer-book but in separate
distinct sections. No marks will be given if answers of one part are found in another section.
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PART A: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Instructions: Questions 1 & 2 are compulsory. Answer any ONE out of the remaining TWO.
Be brief and to the point.
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Question 1.

A project has five activities each uniformly distributed between 12 and 18 days. Activities A and B
have no predecessors. Activities C and D have activity A as their predecessor, while activity E has
activities b and c as its predecessors.

a) Under standard PERT assumptions determine the distribution of the project completion time.
b) What is the probability that the project is completed by day 50 under PERT assumptions?
c) Under conditional sampling the two common activities A and E are to be sampled using
Monte Carlo with 2 digit random numbers from the following stream of uniformly distributed
random numbers: 0372078942. What are the sampled values for the activities A and E?
d) With the above sampled for activities A and E estimate the probability that the project would
be completed by day 50.
e) How many simulation runs are needed to estimate the project mean with 90% confidence and
a precision of 5% using Monte Carlo simulation?
(10)
Question 2.

Dr. Bhattacharya is the Project Manager of a construction division of ALTECH LTD. His most
important project coming up is the development of a new over bridge construction. He has identified
15 groups in his division which will need to carry out different phases of this project. Referring to the
work to be done by the respective groups as activities P, Q, . . . , T, the precedence relationships for
when these groups need to do their work are shown in the following table. Having 25 years of rich
experience in similar kinds of project and exposed to typical problems in construction projects like:
 Failure to use good written contracts between the owner, contractor, and subcontractors.
 Failure to document changes to the project.
 Failure to document and meet expectations. .
 Failure to follow the building code.

Dr. Bhattacharya has provided realistic estimates on Normal and Crash duration/cost of the project.

Activity Time (Weeks) Activity Cost

(1000 Rs.)
Activity Normal Crash Normal Crash
P (1-2) 30 11 1000 1480
Q (1-4) 32 24 1200 1400
R (1-3) 21 11 700 1190
S (2-4) 18 8 500 820
 T (3-4) 19 10 550 730

Dr. Bhattacharya wants to be doubly sure on his estimates and project completion time. You are hired
as a dynamic IIT Kharagpur project analyst and exposed to following challenges:

a) What is the maximum possible amount for which the project can be crashed?
b) Would crashing lead to a significant amount of saving? Compare the normal project cost and
the cost of the crashed project.
(10)

Question 3.
The project below is to be scheduled with a maximum resource availability of 8 men daily. Using
Wiest’s procedure determine the minimum project duration. Identify all the critical sequence(s) and
compare with the critical path of the unconstrained project.

Activity Predecessor Duration (days) Daily manpower

requirements
A1 - 4 6
A2 - 2 4
A3 A1 1 3
A4 A1 6 2
A5 A2, A3 3 5
A6 A4, A5 4 3
A7 A4, A5 2 8
A8 A6 1 5
(5)
OR
Question 4.

a) Briefly explain how the extensions in the basic PERT/CPM project network model including
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) and GERT extend the scope of the basic model,
highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.
b) “Using Critical Chain Method (CCP) activity durations be cut by 50 percent and that the
project buffer be half the duration of the resulting longest path” – Comment.
(5)

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PART B: NETWORKS

Instructions: Answer Question 8 and any two from the rest.. Be brief and to the point.
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Question 5.
Consider a network with the following distances (undirected) between its nodes:
s-b: 7; s-c: 1; b-c: 3; b-d : 2; b-e: 2; c-e: 4; c-f: 3; d-e: 1; d-f: 3; d-t: 2; e-f: 4; e-t: 2; f-t: 7
Find the 2nd shortest path(s) between s and t using Dijkstra's and Pollack’s algortihms.

(8)
Question 6.
Briefly explain any two of the following:
a) Out-of-Kilter Algorithm with the help of appropriate equations and conditions.
b) Floyd’s Algortihm for finding shortest path in a graph.
c) Maximal Flow Algortihm using flow augmenting paths.
 (4+4)
Question 7.
Solve the following Transportation problem by network simplex method with cost
minimization. Note that positive bi values signify the node as a source and negative bi values
signify the node as a sink. cij values signify cost of unit transportation from node i to node j.

(8)

Question 8. (COMPULSORY QUESTION)

v2 e4 v4
e1 e8
e3 e5 e7 v6
v1
e2 e9
v3 e6 v5

a) Consider the graph shown above. With respect to the spanning tree {e2, e3, e5, e8, e9},
find out the following:
i) Incidence matrix (A)
ii) Fundamental Circuit matrix (Bf)
iii) Fundamental Cut-set matrix (Cf)

b) Show that the matrices Bf and Cf are orthogonal to each other.

c) Find the Connection matrix (X) of the graph shown. Show that the graph is connected
by the method of collapsing.

d) Find the value of X2 for the graph shown above. What does it signify?

e) Find whether the graph G (depicted by the connection matrix given below) is connected
or not by obtaining higher powers of the connection matrix.

v1 v2 v3 v4
v1 0 1 0 1
Connection Matrix of graph G = v2 1 0 0 1
v3 0 0 0 0
v4 1 1 0 0
(2+1+2+2+2)