Network analysis and project scheduling for McGee Carpet and Trim

Critical path and the project completion time To determine the critical path, a critical activity must be determined. A critical activity has two common features; • It has no floats or extra time hence must be started and completed as planned • Takes first priority in use of resources A critical path runs from the initial event to terminal event carrying the critical activities simultaneously (Willis, 1985). Three conditions to determine a critical activity and a critical path should be satisfied and it includes; i) ESi = LCi ii) ESj = LCj iii) ESj – ESi = Dij or LCj – LSi = Dij Where; ESi- earliest start time LCi –earliest completion time ESj-latest start time LCj-latest completion time Dij-duration of the activity All this conditions are calculated in the diagram shown in the appendix.

The critical paths are activities 1, 2, 3, 7 and 6 (as shown in the appendix) while the total project completion time will be 37 days; these 37 days is the sum of all average time in the critical path followed by the project team i. e. 78) and 6 (0. 11 Early Start (ES), Early Finish (EF), Late Start (LS), and slack for each activity Forward pass computation is used to determine the Earliest start time (ESi) for each activity. Computation begins from initial event and moves forward to end at the terminal event. The earliest start time at the initial even is Zero. If two or more activities flow into an event, take the maximum allowable time using the formula ESj = Max. 824% (from the Z-table) Where; Z measures the number of standard deviations (σ) the stated time (T) lies away from the projects mean time (Ẍ).

The probability is then read from the standard normal distribution table for the calculated Z –value. Project management and necessary requirements Project management is an undertaking that is non-repetitive and has set objectives that are definite, unique and consume resources. Requirements of project management include definite time set, resources, team work, risk taking and set objectives (Oberle & Cheng, 2009). Finally, the main implications of changes in project scheduling are huge financial losses and time waste along with long time in implementing the changes. 44 0 Where; a- optimistic time b- pessimistic time m- most likely time te- expected mean time for each activity Diagram 2. 2 Critical path, critical activity, slack, ES, LC References Chanas, S. , & Zieliński, P. Critical path analysis in the network with fuzzy activity times.