Lecture 15-M5 Network Analysis for Project Planning (Contd.)
Lecture 15-M5 Network Analysis for Project Planning (Contd.)
(MN 6035)
The network planning device can be used to identify the activities whose
duration should be shortened so that the completion time of the project can be
shortened in the most economic manner. The process is known as network
crashing.
The crashing of duration should be done only along the critical path. If there is
more than one critical path, duration of the activities should be crashed equally
in both the paths.
The network analysis method of time-cost trade-offs is concerned with
determining how much (if any) to crash each of the activities in order to
reduce the anticipated duration of the project to a desired value.
The data necessary for determining how much to crash particular activities
are given by the time-cost graph for the activity. Figure below shows a
typical time-cost graph.
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Direct Cost
Project Duration
Step 1: Identification of Critical path: In the first step, the normal critical path needs to be
identified for identification of the critical activities.
The cost slope indicates the demand of additional cost per unit crashing of duration to
expedite the project.
Step 3: Ordering of cost slope in ascending order to identify the minimum cost slope
All the activities are ordered from lowest to highest cost slope. The activity having the
minimum cost slope has to be crashed first to its minimum duration.
Step 4: Crashing the activity
Crash the critical activities as per the order of lower cost slope to reduce the critical path
duration. The critical activity having lowest slope cost slope should be crashed first to the
maximum extent possible. Calculate the new direct cost by cumulative adding the cost or
crashing to the normal cost.
Lengths of the other two non-critical paths are 29 days and 30 days respectively.
Thus, first target for crashing is activity B. After crashing the activity B by 1-day, the
duration of the project becomes 30 days and the revised network of the project is as
follows:
The crash cost of the project = Normal cost + Crash cost + Indirect cost
= (18000 + 4000 + 8000 + 4000 + 4000) + 1*300 + 30*600 = 56300
After 1-day crashing of activity B, the number of critical paths in the network becomes
two.
These are 1-2-5-4-6 and 1-2-3-4-6
Thus, for further reducing the duration of the project, activities in both the critical
paths need to be crushed simultaneously.
Crash the Project by additional 1-day:
There are three options to reduce the duration of the project by 1-day.
Activities, A and E lay in both the paths and thus crashing either of the activity by 1-day
reduces the duration of project by 1-day.
In another way, the crashing of the network can be done by crashing the activities B and D
by 1-day each. To make the cost-time trade-off, the option which increases the crashing
cost minimum, should be chosen.
1-day crashing cost of A = 500
1-day crashing cost of E = 1000
1-day crashing cost of B + 1-day crashing cost of D = 300 + 600 = 900
Out of three, crash cost of A is lowest. Therefore, activity A should be crashed to reduce
the duration of the project by 1 more day. After crashing the activity A by 1-day, the
duration of the project becomes 29 days and the revised network of the project is as
follows:
1 2 3 4
B, 5 C, 7 D, 2
E, 8
a. C, 1
b. C, 2
c. D, 1
d. E, 1