Construction Planning and Management

CE-4124
Bereket Bezabih
beackon@@gmail.com
Hydraulic and Water Resource Engineering Department
Arba Minch Institute of technology
2005
 Lecture 9
Program Evaluation and Review
Technique,PERT
 PERT
• If the degree of uncertainty in estimating the
duration of an activity is relatively high, a
stochastic approach like PERT can be employed
• PERT uses three time estimates for duration of
an activity and uses central limit theorem and
treat these estimates are normal distributed.
• It calculates the probability that a certain event
like substantial completion of the work with a
certain level of confidence.
 PERT Calculations
• Three time estimates
– First chose a path in the networks that leads to the
required event and for each activity on the path estimate
• To…..the most optimistic duration
• Tm….the most likely duration
• Tp…..the most pessimistic duration
• The weighted mean value is called the expected
duration of the activity Te
To  4Tm  T p
Te 
6
 PERT Calculations
• The standard deviation for the expected duration is given by;
T p  To
e 
• And the variance of the expected
6 duration; Ve   e2
• The expected duration variance and standard deviation for all
activities on the path are given by;
n
TE   (T
i 1
e )i
n
VE  
i 1
( e2 ) i

 E  VE
 PERT Calculations
• The probability that a certain event will occur on or by a
certain date (Ts) can be calculated using the normal
distribution formula;
Ts  TE
Z 
E
• PERT can also predict the date by which a certain event will be
completed with a certain degree of confidence(probability) as;

Ts   E * Z  TE
The value of the cumulative normal distribution can
be read from tables
 PERT
• Example:
– In a CPM network the critical path include the
following activities. Their duration are shown in
the table below. Compute the following values
1. The probability that the project will be completed on
day 32.
2. The probability that the project will be completed on
day 34.
3. The completion date with at least a 90% confidence
level.
 PERT
• Example
Durations

Activity Optimistic Most likely Pessimistic

A 2 4 7
B 5 8 14

C 4 6 8

D 2 2 2

E 7 10 21