Chapter 8 Project Activity Scheduling

Solutions of Problems 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 at pages 374 375 of your textbook are

given in the following.

Problem 4:
a) The critical path is B E G.
b) 23 work periods.

Problem 7:
Figure 7a is ADM format.

Figure 7b is PDM format.

A C F
G

Start D H End

B E
 Chapter 8 Project Activity Scheduling

Problem 8:
Please see note about network depiction.
a) The critical path activities are A, C, E, and G.
b) The projects duration is 22 days.
c) Yes, activity B can be delayed one day without delaying the completion of
the project.

Problem 9:
Task a m b Expected Variance Std Dev.
A 6.5 7.5 14.5 8.5 1.78 1.33
B 8.5 10.5 12.5 10.5 0.44 0.67
C 2.5 3.5 4.5 3.5 0.11 0.33
D 6.5 7.5 8.5 7.5 0.11 0.33
E 5.5 5.5 9.5 6.2 0.44 0.67
F 5.5 7.5 9.5 7.5 0.44 0.67
G 4.5 6.5 8.5 6.5 0.44 0.67
H 2.5 3.5 3.5 3.3 0.03 0.17
 Chapter 8 Project Activity Scheduling

Sum of
Expected Variances
Desired Project Critical
Duration Duration Path Z Probability
21 24.7 2.78 -2.2 a) 1.4%
22 24.7 2.78 -1.6 b) 5.5%
25 24.7 2.78 0.2 c) 57.9%

Problem 10:

a) The critical path is A - C - B - E - F.

b) The only event with slack is D at 3 days.
c) If D were the final event in the network, then the critical path would be A C
B D.
d) The following spreadsheet excerpt illustrates the calculation of the probability of
completion in 14 days:
Task a m b Expected Variance Std Dev.
AB 3 6 9 6.0 1.00 1.00
AC 1 4 7 4.0 1.00 1.00
CB 0 3 6 3.0 1.00 1.00
CD 3 3 3 3.0 0.00 0.00
CE 2 2 8 3.0 1.00 1.00
BD 0 0 6 1.0 1.00 1.00
BE 2 5 8 5.0 1.00 1.00
DF 4 4 10 5.0 1.00 1.00
DE 1 1 1 1.0 0.00 0.00
EF 1 4 7 4.0 1.00 1.00
 Chapter 8 Project Activity Scheduling

Sum of
Expected Variances
Desired Project Critical
Duration Duration Path Z Probability
14 16.0 4.00 -1 15.9%

e) If CD slips to six days the critical path is unchanged but slack on D is reduced. If
CD slips to seven days then there are two critical paths: A - C - B - E - F and A - C
- D - F. If CD slips to eight days then the critical path shifts to A - C - D - F and
the project duration extends to 17 days.

Problem 11:

10 28 36
B G 8 I
17 28 41
1

3 10
9
4 2

0 7 18 37 43
A 3 C 2 F 11 H 6 J
0 7 18 37 43

1
4 5
6 3
3
3 13
D 8 E
3 13

Figure 8.11 shows duration on the arrow in matching the (i,j) notation used to
define the problems source data.

b) The critical path is A, D, C, E, F, G, H, J.

c) The completion time is 43 days.