Unit II

Introduction to Network Analysis

 Definition of a Project
A project consists of interrelated activities which are to be
executed in a certain order before the entire task is completed.

The activities are interrelated in a logical sequence which is known

as precedence relationship.

A particular activity of a project can not be started until all its

immediate preceding activities are completed.

A project is a temporary endeavour involving a connected sequence of activities

and a range of resources, which is designed to achieve a specific and unique
outcome and which operates within time, cost and quality constraints and which
is often used to introduce change
 Characteristics of a Project
Typical characteristics of a project are as below:

A unique, one-time operational activity or effort

Requires the completion of a large number of interrelated
activities
Established to achieve specific objective
Resources, such as time and/or money, are limited
Typically has its own management structure
Needs leadership
 Examples of a Project
(a) Construction of a house (h) Shutdown maintenance of major
equipment's/plants
(b) Commissioning of a factory
(i) State level professional course
admission process
(c) Construction of a ship
(j) New product launching
(d) Fabrication of a steam boiler
(k) Launching a new weapon system
(e) Construction of a bridge
(l) Conducting National Election

(f) Construction of a dam (m)Research to develop a new technology

(g) Commissioning of a power plant (n) Construction of railway coaches

 Concept of Project Management
Project Management: The application of a collection of tools and
techniques to direct the use of diverse resources towards the
accomplishment of a unique, complex, one time task within time,
cost and quality constraints.

Its origin lie in World War II, when the military authorities used
the techniques of operational research to plan the optimum use of
resources.

Project management is considered to be an important field in

production scheduling mainly because many of the industrial activities
can also be viewed as project management problems
For example: Fabrication of boilers, Construction of railway
coaches, Launching satellites, etc
 Phases of Project Management
Project Management has three phases:
Planning,
Scheduling
Controlling

Planning Phase:
The planning phase has the following steps.
Dividing the project into distinct activities (Work breakdown
structure)
Estimating time requirement for each activity
Establishing precedence relationships among the activities
Construction of the arrow diagram (Network)
 Phases of Project Management
Scheduling Phase:
The scheduling phase determines the start and end times of
each and every activity.

These can be summarized in the form of

Gantt Chart
Critical Path Method (CPM)
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)

For each non-critical activity, the amount of slack time (float

time) must be shown on the same time chart. This will be
useful at the time of adjusting non-critical activities for
resource levelling/resource allocation.
 Phases of Project Management
Control Phase:
The control phase uses the project representation diagram and
time chart for continuous monitoring and progress reporting.
In this phase, the project representation will be updated, if
there is any variation in the proposed schedule
 Project representation
Project flow is represented in the form of a network for the
purpose of analytical treatment to get solutions for scheduling and
controlling its activities.

A network consists of a set of arcs which are connected

meaningfully through a set of nodes. The precedence relationship
among various activities of a project can be conveniently
represented using a network. So, the collection of precedence
relationships among various activities of a project is known as
project network.

These are two methods of representing any project in the network

form. They are (i) Activities on Arrows (AOA diagram), and (ii)
Activities on Nodes (AON Diagram).
 PERT & CPM
At the time of scheduling phase of a large project, one comes across
variety of Sub-activities. Given this scenario, the job of the project
manager is to coordinate all the sub-activities and minimize the
project scheduling time.

The interdependency of the distinct sub-activities often needs a

systematic approach to minimize the time cost. On some occasions
the starting of one sub-activity depends upon the completion of
some other preceding sub-activity.

For example. in a house construction project, the electrical wiring

of the building is prerequisite for plastering. Similarly, for painting,
plastering is the prerequisite.
 PERT & CPM
To minimize the total time for project completion, one often use Program
Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). Sometimes we use Critical Path
Method (CPM) as well. Both these techniques use similar terminology and
serve the same purpose though both of them were developed independently.

During late 1950s PERT Technique was developed and used in connection with
the planning and designing of the Polaris Submarine system.

The CPM was developed by the Du Pont Company and the Univac Division
Remington Rand corporation as a device to control the maintenance of its
chemical plants.

However, the CPM technique is commonly used in projects with known

constant activity timings. In this method not only the activity timings are known
constants, but also the amounts of various resources required to perform the
activities under reference, are also constants.
 PERT & CPM
PERT on the other hand, is preferably used in situation involving certain degree
of uncertainty in activity completion timings. Thus, in essence, PERT is
probabilistic in nature and hence used in research and development related
projects. Since CPM is deterministic in nature, it is used mostly in construction
related projects.

The following are some basic issues addressed by network analysis of project
scheduling:
What is the minimum time required to complete the project?
What are the start and finish dates of each one of the sub-activities?
Which are the critical activities that must be completed in time to keep the
project moving?
How long the non-critical activities can be delayed without disturbing the
smooth functioning of the project?