Introduction to Simulation

and Modeling

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 Advanced Project
Management Concepts
(Lecture 11,12)

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Advanced Project Management Concepts
 We briefly review the critical path method (CPM) and program
evaluation and review technique (PERT).

 PERT and CPM were both developed in the 1950s as project

management tools.
 The primary difference between PERT and CPM lies in their abilities
to handle randomness in managing project tasks.
 CPM focuses on project task durations that are deterministic or, in
other words, do not vary in time.
 Conversely, PERT was specifically designed to handle variations in
project task durations.
 Fifty years later, the distinction between PERT and CPM has
blurred, and sometimes these techniques are referred to as PERT/
CPM.

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Advanced Project Management Concepts
 we refer to these techniques as networks. To describe the project in
network terminology, we have:

 Activities

 Events

 Nodes

 Arcs

 Paths

 Critical path

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Advanced Project Management Concepts
 An activity is a task that requires time to complete.

 An event is defined as the completion of one or more activities at a

particular time.

 A project is represented by a network consisting of nodes and arcs.

 The nodes in the network are connected by one or more arcs.

 The arc arrow represents the required sequence of the activities.

 A path is a sequence of nodes and arcs.

 The critical path is the path that, if delayed, results in an increase in the
overall project time.

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Advanced Project Management Concepts

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Advanced Project Management Concepts
 The actual representation of the project with respect to the nodes
and arcs can take two different forms:

 1. Activity on node (AON)

 2. Activity on arc (AOA)

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Activity on node (AON)
 project activities are represented by the nodes on the network.

 we start at the leftmost node.

 From the start node, two arcs are possible.

 There is an arc to node 1 and there is an arc to node 2. This means that there
is no precedence relationship between the activities represented by nodes 1
and 2.

 There is also a single arc leaving node 1 and a single arc leaving node 2. Both
of these arcs lead to node 3.

 This representation means that in order to begin the activity represented by

node 3, both the activities represented by node 1 and node 2 must first be
completed.

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Activity on node (AON)
 Once the activity at node 3 is complete, there is one arc that leads to node 4.

 The activity on node 4 can begin only when the activity represented by node 3 is
completed.

 When the activity on node 4 is completed, there are two different arcs.

 One arc leads directly to the finish, and the other arc leads to node 5.

 Before either of these activities can be conducted, the activity on node 4 must be
completed.

 There is a single arc from node 5 that also leads to the finish node.

 This means that in order to finish the network, both the activity of node 4 and the
activity of node 5 must first be completed.

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Activity on node (AON)

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. Activity on arc (AOA)
 The activity-on-arc (AOA) project representation utilizes nodes to
represent finished events and arcs to represent activities.

 we start at event node 1. At node 1 two different activity arcs lead to

event nodes 2 and 3.

 Arc A leads between node 1 and node 2. Arc B leads between node
1 and node 3. This means that both of these activities can be
performed at the same time.

 The next node is node 4. A single arc, C, leads from node 2 to node
4. Another single arc, D, leads from node 3 to node 4. This means
that both activity arc C and activity arc D must be completed in order
to reach event node 4.

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. Activity on arc (AOA)
 Once at event node 4, there is activity arc E to event node 5.

 At event node 5 there are activity arcs F to node 6 and G to the

finish node.

 Arc F and arc G can be performed at the same time. At event node
6, there is a final activity arc, H, to the finish event.

 Before the finish event can be reached, both activity arcs G and H
must be complete.

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. Activity on arc (AOA)

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. Activity on arc (dummy activity)
 it is sometimes necessary to insert a dummy activity.

 This is an activity that actually has no duration and uses no

resources.

 Its sole purpose is to provide a logical connection between two

nodes.

 Dummy activities are typically represented by a dashed-line arc.

 Suppose, in the previous example, both activites A and B are

needed for event 3. In this case, the original activity arc B still exists,
but there is a new dummy activity arc with no label between
 event node 2 and 3.

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. Activity on arc (dummy activity)

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Simulation Project Network
Example

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Simulation Project Network Example
 We use the AOA approach to illustrate one possible network for part
of a simulation project
 In this network, the arcs correspond to the following first-level
project tasks:
 A = Problem statement
 B = Project planning
 C = System definition
 D = Input data
 E = Model translation
 F = Verification
 G = Validation
 H = Experimental design
 I = Analysis
 J = Conclusions

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Simulation Project Network Example

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Simulation Project Network Example

 This network is only one of many ways that the simulation project
might have been represented.

 Depending on practitioner’s willingness to compress some tasks, it

would be possible to develop a more complicated network.

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Calculating the Critical Path
 Once we have developed our AOA network and have estimated the
duration of each activity arc in the network,

 we can consider calculating the critical path through the network.

 To compute the critical path, we will need to calculate the following values
for each activity in the network:

 ES = Earliest start time

 EF = Earliest finish time

 LS = Latest starting time

 LF = Latest finish time

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Calculating the Critical Path
 For each of the activities in the network, we can easily calculate the
earliest finish time as:

EF = ES + task duration

 Similarly, the latest start time for each of the activities in the network can
be calculated with the following equation:

LS = LF – task duration

In general, we make a forward pass and a backward pass to calculate all

of theses values and eventually obtain the critical path.

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Calculating the Critical Path

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Calculating the Critical Path
 We now begin our calculations with a chart with the following
headings:

 Activity

 Duration

 Predecessor

 ES

 EF

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Calculating the Critical Path
 We begin by listing the data for activities A and B.

 As the network chart indicated, both of these activities do not have

any predecessors.

 Because neither of these activities has a predecessor, the earliest

start date is time 0.

 The earliest finish times for each activity are the same as the
duration of the activities

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Calculating the Critical Path

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Calculating the Critical Path
 The next activity is C, System Definition. This activity has both
activity A, Problem Formulation, and activity B, Project Planning, as
predecessors. This means that the earliest start for activity C,
System Definition, is the later of activities A and B. Because activity
A has the earliest finish of 5, the earliest start for activity C is 5. The
earliest finish for the System Definition is the earliest start plus the
duration of the activity. Thus, the earliest finish is 10 days

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Calculating the Critical Path
 Activities D, Input Data Collection and Analysis, and E, Model
Translation, both have activity C, System Definition, as a
predecessor.

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Calculating the Critical Path
 Activity F, Verification, requires that both activity D, Input Data
Collection and Analysis, and activity E,
 Model Translation, be complete. Because the later of these two
activities is 35 days, activity F, Verification, cannot begin until the
end of activity D, Input Data Collection and Analysis.

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Calculating the Critical Path
 Activity G, Validation, has activity F, Verification, as a predecessor.
Since activity F, Verification, does not
 end until 45, the earliest start date for activity G, Validation, is 45.
The duration of activity G is 5 days, so the earliest finish date is 50
days.

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Calculating the Critical Path
 Activity H, Experimental Design, has activity G, Validation, as a
predecessor.

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Calculating the Critical Path
 Activity I, Analysis, has activity H, Experimental Design, as a
predecessor.

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Calculating the Critical Path
 Last, Activity J, Report and Presentation, has activity I, Analysis, as
a predecessor.
 Because the earliest finish time for activity I, Analysis, is 62, the
earliest start date for activity J, Report and Presentation, is 62.

 The duration of activity J is 10 days, so the earliest finish date for

activity J, Report and Presentation, is 72 days.

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Calculating the Critical Path

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Calculating the Critical Path
 We begin by listing the data for activities A and B.

 As the network chart indicated, both of these activities do not have

any predecessors.

 Because neither of these activities has a predecessor, the earliest

start date is time 0.

 The earliest finish times for each activity are the same as the
duration of the activities

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 The minimum amount of time that this particular project can be
completed in is a total of 72 days.

 Once we have determined the length of the critical path,

 we can perform our backward pass.
 We can now add the latest start and the latest finish columns to our
table.
 We begin the backward pass by fixing the latest finish value of
activity J at 72 days.
 Because activity J, Report and Presentation, is 10 days in duration,
the latest start for activity J is 62 days.
 From this point on, the latest finish date for each remaining task is
generally going to be the earliest of all of the latest start dates of its
successors.

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 The only successor to activity I, Analysis, is activity J, Report and
Presentation. Because the latest start date of activity J is 62, the
latest finish date of activity I, Analysis, is 62. The latest start date of
activity I, Analysis, is 52 days.

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 Activity H, Experimental Design, has only one successor.

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 Activity G, Validation, has one successor, activity H, Experimental
Design.

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 The only successor to activity F, Verification, is activity G, Validation
 Activity E, Model Translation, has only activity F, Verification, as a
successor.

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 Activity D, Input Data Collection and Analysis, has only one
successor. This is activity F, Verification

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 The latest start and latest finish times for activity C, System
Definition, are somewhat more complicated to determine than the
previous activities.

 Activity C actually has two successors. The first successor is activity

D, Data Collection and Analysis.
 The second successor is activity E, Model Translation.
 The latest start time for activity D is 10, and the latest start time for
activity E is 15.
 Because we need the earliest of the latest start times, the latest
finish time for activity C, System Definition, becomes 10 days.
 Because the duration of activity C is 5 days, the latest start date is 5
days

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 Activity B, Project Planning, has only one successor, activity C,
System Definition.

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)
 Activity B, Project Planning, has only one successor, activity C,
System Definition.

 The final activity, activity A, Problem Formulation, has only one

successor.

 This is activity C, System Definition.

 The latest start date of activity C, System Definition, is 5 days.

 This means that the latest finish date for activity A is also 5 days.
Because activity A is 5 days in duration, the latest start date is 0
days

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Calculating the Critical Path (backward pass)

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Calculating the Critical Path (Slack)
 The backward pass is complete.

 We can now calculate what is known as the slack for each activity.

 This is the difference between the latest start and the earliest
start.

 It is also the difference between the latest finish and the latest start.

 The slack is listed in an additional column in our table.

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Calculating the Critical Path (Slack)

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Calculating the Critical Path
 The critical path can be identified by the activities with 0-day values
in the slack column. This means that the critical path is:

 Activity A – Problem formulation

 • Activity C – System definition
 • Activity D – Input data collection and analysis
 • Activity F – Verification
 • Activity G – Validation
 • Activity H – Experimental design
 • Activity I – Analysis
 • Activity J – Report and presentation

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Calculating the Critical Path
 If any of the above critical path tasks exceeds the estimated activity
duration, the duration of the whole project will be extended.

 Conversely, any of the noncritical task durations can be extended by

the slack time without extending the overall length of the project.

 If any of the noncritical tasks do exceed slack time, then these tasks
become critical.

 These previously noncritical tasks that have become critical can

now extend the project if their activity times are extended.

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Note

 The critical path calculated for this particular simulation project

example will differ from that for any other simulation project if the
precedence of activities or the duration of the activities is changed.

 If the practitioner decides to utilize this sort of network technique, a

different network and activity table will have to be generated.

 The critical path for this new network will also have to be resolved.

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Summary

Any Questions?

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