PERT and CPM in Project Management

Effective project management demands optimization of the duration of the project to minimize the total
project time and cost. The Project Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) and the Critical Path Method
(CPM) are always employed by project managers by breaking large complex projects into sub-activities,
deploying resources and managing the circles of the projects in order to minimize the total cost and
time of the project

AOA and AON Conventions There are two approaches in showing the activity precedence relationship in
a project. These are: AOA—Activity on Arc (AOA) This uses arrows (or arcs) to represent activities and
nodes (circles) to represent events.

AOA shows the activity duration on the arc.

AON—Activity on Node (AON) This uses circles to represent project activities and arrows to show the
required sequence of precedence relationship.

AON networks are slightly easier to construct since they avoid the need for certain connecting (dummy)
activities.

Below shows a network diagram, the work activities in precedence relationships indicated by arrows
linking the circles.

Activity A must be completed before Activity B can begin and after Activity B is completed, Activity C can
begin.

Activity A and B can occur concurrently, but both must be completed before Activity C can begin.
An examination of the completed diagram in Figure 1 will enable us to determine the critical activities.
Note that for some activities, such as activity A, the early start and late start to the early finish and
late finish times are identical. This means that the activity has no slack and is therefore critical. Any
delay in that activity will cause the whole project to be delayed. Therefore, for those activities that have
0 total slack, the time difference between the start times and finish times is zero. These are A, B, D, G, I
and K. The critical path is shown either with a thicker line or with a double line.

Total slack and Free slack Slack or float are the extent of the period an activity can be deferred without
delaying the start time of succeeding activities; it is described as the maximum time an activity can be
delayed without necessarily delaying the completion of the project. This kind of slack is often called total
slack or total float in order to distinguish it from several other types of slack. Total slack for activities not
on the critical path is found by subtracting either early start from late start times or early finish from late
finish times. As a result, Activity C has a 15-day slack and Activity E has a 5-day slack. Free slack
represents the amount of time that an activity can be delayed without delaying the early start of any
other activity.

Figure 1. Network diagram showing Early Start (ES) and Early Finish (EF) times as well as the Late Finish
(LF) and Late Start (LS) times for each activity.

Total Slack = (Free Slack) + (Interruptive Slack) Consider Activity F, with ES = 7 and LS = 16; and EF = 16
and LF = 25; the difference between the early finish and start times, EF − ES = 16 − 7 = 9 days; or the
difference between the late finish and start times, LF − LS = 9 days. Activity C can be delayed 9 days
without changing the early start time for any other activity, or it can be delayed for as long as 16 days
without changing the earliest project completion date (although if C is delayed more than 9 days, the
early start time of some other activities will be postponed). Activity E, on the other hand, has a total
slack of 5 days, but since activity H, which follows E, has 5 days of total slack, E has no free slack at all.
Interruption slack would be 5 for activity E.

Figure 2. Diagram showing the early event times (EET) and the late event times (LET) of each activity.
Activities A; B; E; F; G; 1; and J are the critical activities and the project will normally be completed in 52
weeks.
Crashing schedule
The crashing decision is to reduce (crash) the normal completion time of the critical activities in the
project as to arrive at 45 weeks of the required time. From the solution of this problem, the normal time
of completing the project is 52 weeks, thus, 7 weeks reduction is needed. The reduction will begin with
the critical activity that has the least (minimum) average crashed cost.

Activity A – N5/week, for 2 weeks = N10.00;

Activity B – N15/week, for 1 week = N15.00;
Activity E – N12.5/week, for 2 weeks = N25.00;
Activity J – N5/week, for 2 weeks = N10.00;
Total crashed weeks = 7 weeks;
Total crashed cost = N60.00;
Total normal cost = N860.00; therefore, the total estimated cost in completing the project in 45 weeks =
N920.00.

Summary of undertaking a new project

1) Develop a list of activities that make up the project, identify the controllable factors; and for the
uncontrollable factor estimate the completion time for each activity.
2) Determine the immediately preceding activities for each activity in the project.
3) Draw a network showing the activities and precedence relationship of the activities.
4) Using the network and the activity time estimates determine the earliest start time and the earliest
finish time for each activity by making a forward movement through the network. The earliest finish
time for the last activity in the project identifies the total time required to complete the project.
5) Using the project completion time identified in step 4 as the latest finish time for the last activity.
Note that the earliest finish time for the last activity is the same as the latest finish time. 6) Use the
difference between the latest start time and the earliest start time for each activity to identify the slack
time available for the activities with zero slack; these are the critical path activities.
7) The crashing decision is to reduce the normal completion time of the critical activities in the project;
beginning with the critical activity that has the least average crashed cost.

Conclusion
Operational research techniques are needed to manage the projects circles by optimizing the project
duration so as to minimize the total project time and cost. The Project evaluation and review technique
and the Critical path method are techniques used to plan the scheduling and optimal staffing of
individual activities and control projects to completion within a given time. Large-scale project
management necessitates managing several activities across the organization, and these tools are used
to aid the step-by-step activities in a priority relationship, in order to minimize the total cost of the
project by managing time and project efficiency. CPM is driven through network activities, optimizing
the duration of the project, ensuring cost minimization and time of projects. Thus, they are useful tools
for managing complex, small and medium-sized projects. These tools (PERT and CPM) are now found to
be useful in construction, transportation, education, and telecommunications projects. It is, however,
important to note that traditional means of project management or the use of the Gant chart limit the
success of project management.

Recommendations
Based on the investigations carried out on the application of PERT and CPM in project management, this
paper recommends that: 1) In deciding between using PERT or CPM in effective project management, a
project manager must identify the nature of the estimated time duration of a project, as PERT will be
more effective for projects with an unknown time estimate, while CPM will work well for a project with a
known time estimate. 2) Prior to commencing the execution of a project, all required resources to cover
every activity must be assembled and prioritized to eliminate interruptions that could bring delay and
unnecessary cost implications. 3) Policies focused on improving project execution should be
implemented in developing nations to minimize the many cases of failed and delayed projects.
Subsequently, stakeholders in projects must be given the right, under the law, to prosecute the
government, its agencies and/or the executors of projects for failure to execute a project on schedule.