Tutorial 4 - ICT712 Information Technology Project Management
The following content is sourced from: Larson, E 2021, Project Management : The
Managerial Process, McGraw-Hill US Higher Ed ISE, NY. Available from: ProQuest Ebook
Central. [2 July 2021].
Exercises
1. Given the network plan that follows, compute the early, late, and slack times. What is the
project duration? Using any approach you wish (e.g., trial and error), develop a loading chart
for resources, Electrical Engineers (EE), and resource, Mechanical Engineers (ME). Assume
only one of each resource exists. Given your resource schedule, compute the early, late, and
slack times for your project. Which activities are now critical? What is the project duration
now? Could something like this happen in real projects?
1
Answer:
Instead of taking nine days the duration has been extended to 11 days and all activities are
critical. Resource shortages are common in real projects and this problem demonstrates the
impact resource constraints can have on project schedules.
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2. Given the network plan that follows, compute the early, late, and slack times. What is the
project duration? Using any approach you wish (e.g., trial and error), develop a loading chart
for resources Carpenters (C) and Electricians (E). Assume only one Carpenter is available and
two Electricians are available. Given your resource schedule, compute the early, late, and slack
times for your project. Which activities are now critical? What is the project duration now?
3
Answer:
Resource constraints extend the project duration from 12 days to 14 days and Activity 2 which
was part of the original critical path is no longer critical path. All other activities are critical
which illustrates the key point that resource constraints tend to increase the sensitivity of
project networks.
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3. You have prepared the following schedule for a project in which the key resource is a
tractor(s). There are three tractors available to the project. Activities A and D require one tractor
to complete while activities B, C, E and F require 2 tractors.
Develop a resource-constrained schedule in the loading chart that follows. Use the parallel
method and heuristics given. Be sure to update each period as the computer would do. Record
the early start (ES), late finish (LF) and slack (SL) for the new schedule.
Answer:
5
Log of Parallel Method of Scheduling: Exercise 8-4
PERIOD ACTIVITY CHANGES
0-1 B Schedule Activity B (first by minimum slack rule)
A Schedule Activity A
1-2 - No changes
2-3 - No changes
3-4 - No changes
4-5 C Delay ES of Activity C to 5. Reduce slack to 1
5-6 D Schedule Activity D (minimum slack rule)
C Schedule Activity C
E Delay ES of Activity E to 6. Reduce slack to 1
6-7 E Delay ES of Activity E to 7. Reduce slack to 0
7-8 E Delay ES of Activity E to 8. Reduce slack to -1
F Delay ES of Activity F to 11. Reduce slack to -1
8-9 E Delay ES of Activity E to 9. Reduce slack to -2
F Delay ES of Activity F to 12. Reduce slack to -2
9-10 E Schedule Activity E
10-11 - No changes
11-12 - No changes
12-13 F Schedule Activity F
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4. You are one of three carpenters assigned to complete a short construction project. Right
before the start of the project, one of your fellow carpenters was hospitalized and will not be
available to work on the project.
Develop a resource-constrained schedule in the loading chart that follows to see how long the
project will take with only 2 carpenters. Be sure to record the order in which you schedule the
activities using the scheduling heuristics. Activities A, B, C, D, E, G, and H require 2 carpenters
to complete. Activity F requires only 1 carpenter. No splitting of activities is possible.
You will receive a bonus if the project is completed within 15 days. Should you start planning
how you will spend your bonus?
7
Answer:
You should not spend time planning how you are going to spend your bonus. The schedule
will take 16 days.
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5. Given the time-phased work packages, complete the baseline budget form for the project.
Answer:
9
6. Given the time-phased work packages and network, complete the baseline budget form for
the project.
10
Answer:
11
7. Given the time-phased work packages and network, complete the baseline budget form for
the project.
Answer:
12
8. Given the time-phased work packages and network, complete the baseline budget form for
the project.
13
Answer:
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