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Incorporating Quality Considerations Into Project Time/Cost Tradeoff Analysis

and Decision Making

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management · December 2006

DOI: 10.1109/TEM.2006.883705 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 INSE 6230- TOTAL QUALITY PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Research Project Summary Report

INSE 6230 Fall-2011

Total Quality Project Management

Selected Research Title

Incorporating Quality Considerations into Project Time/Cost

Trade-off Analysis and Decision Making
Author: Bruce Pollack-Johnson and Matthew J. Liberatore

Instructor:
Andrea Schiffauerova, Ph.D.

September 26, 2011

Group Number: 14
Group Members:
ID Name E-mail
9757775 S M Anamul Haque sm_haq@encs.concordia.ca
9767681 S. Mohiuddin M. Bukhari smmbpk@gmail.com
5385792 Noman Saleem nomansalim@yahoo.com
1124323 Yatin Khurana yatinkhurana9@gmail.com
5994365 Khadijetou khadijetou@gmail.com
5267099 Ahmed Zeshan callzee@hotmail.com

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Research Context
The selected research article is focused on the traditional time/cost trade off analysis that does

not explicitly consider quality in project scheduling, and it proposed the methodology to make a

balance between cost, time, and quality. This research is based on the traditional assumption

about uniform quality during project budgeting and scheduling. The authors realize that the

above said assumption is not a realistic consideration for quality project management.

Summary
In this article, the authors integrated the quality in traditional cost/time trade off models,

proposed a three dimensional time-cost-quality trade-off model, and then explained the model

with a real life example. The authors have referenced five different ways of defining the quality,

and they assumed that quality is a measurable factor by using any of these five. Moreover, ISO

9000 quality definitions have already been incorporated into Project Management Body of

Knowledge (PMBOK).

The author claims that very often quality is compromised with making a trade-off between

time/cost while scheduling any project. This explains that quality is not always uniform, and it

changes when cost and time factors vary. Figure 2 and figure 3 differentiate, how the time/cost

curves shifts up or down when considering the quality dimension. The article also refers to other

researchers conducted in the same area that have quality focus. The purpose of most of the

researches is to identify the critical to quality measures (CTQs), and then tracking the quality

costs by using different models. The authors suggest that quality should be proactive approach,

and the project managers should focus on quality planning and quality assurance during the

planning phase of any project. Furthermore, authors mentioned, “Modern quality management

indicates that quality is planned, designed, and built in –not inspected in.”

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In order to optimize and to create a balance between the cost, time, and quality, the researchers

have proposed a model “Mixed Integer Linear Programming Model”. The basic purpose of this

model is to maximize the quality while respected the budgeted cost and targeted time for each

activity. This model has three basic assumptions:

1. Project network has no cycle

2. Activity 0 is the only one that is not an immediate successor to any other activity

3. The finish activity is the only one that has no successor

The quality objective function and the major constraints model are described as follows:

Here Qmin is the minimum acceptable quality in all the selected task options. Q-bar is the average

quality level. α is the relative importance of Qmin.

First, all the activities are defined and sequenced. Then the upper and lower limits for Time, Cost

and quality are defined. Later, at the design phase, the project management team develops

multiple task completion options for each individual activity with varying levels of Cost, Time

and Quality (cij, dij, qij respectively). Finally, the task options are selected in a way that

maximizes the quality without compromising the cost and time constraints. The said model helps

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the project scheduling decision making, and it also support project managers to plan desired

work quality at the design stage. The article also infer, that the targets developed at the planning

stage become standards to measure the performance and overall the quality of work at the

“Measure and Control” phase of project process.

The model has been explained very clearly by a construction example in the article. In this

example, the contractor decided the time and cost upper limits at 26 days and $185,300

respectively, and she also decided that Qmin and Q-bar are of equal importance with α = 0.5.

Table III (in the appendix) lists all the project activities with maximum available options of time,

cost and quality combinations. To start with, the contractor decided that the baseline solution

includes option 1 for all the activities. At this point, the quality (Q0.5= 65) and the total time (26

days) are within the targeted range, but the total project cost has gone over-budget. In order to

meet the budget constraint while respecting the time and quality, option 3 was selected for

activities 5 and 9 (see Table IV in the appendix). The duration remained the same, but the

budgeted cost reduced to more than needed level. Moreover, the quality Q0.5reduced from 65 to

64.1666, and it’s still in the desired range).

Using the same problem parameters, the contractor illustrated another example (See Table Vin

the appendix) where she tried to reduce the duration from 26 days to 25 days. Since the

reduction of the project time is required, the activity 7 on the critical path is chosen to reduce a

day by selecting option 2. This selection increases the quality, and also the budgeted cost by

$1300. In order to bring the budgeted cost below the target, option 3 is selected for activity 11.

This resulted in a saving of $3000, but it reduces the activity quality from 60 to 50. However,

now the contractor has a margin of $1700 to increase the quality in any other activity. Finally,

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option 3 selection for activity 12 increases the activity quality from 70 to 80 with an additional

$1600.

Critical Analysis
Based on the defined assumptions, our team agrees with the author’s model. In real life, the

quality does vary with time/cost trade-off. However, defining multiple options of time, cost, and

quality trade-off for each activity increases the project manger’s workload extensively.

Moreover, defining the bases for quality measure is really a judgmental and very complex task.

The quality scale and measures can be very different when defined by different individuals.

References:
Pollack-Johnson, B., M. J. Liberatore. 2006. Incorporating Quality Considerations Into Project

Time/Cost Trade-off Analysis and Decision Making. Engineering Management, IEEE

Transactions on, 53 (4), 534-542.

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Appendix
A.1: Table III

A.2: Table IV

A.3: Table V

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A.4: Figure-2 and Figure-3

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