Project Management

Chapter 8 (Crashing)

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 Project Crashing
Basic Concept
In last lecture, we studied on how to use CPM and
PERT to identify critical path for a project
problem

Now, the question is:

Question: Can we cut short its project completion

time?
If so, how!

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Chapter 8 - Project Management
8-2
 Project Crashing
Solution!
Yes, the project duration can be reduced by
assigning more resources to project
activities. But, doing this would somehow
increase our project cost!
How do we strike a balance?
■ Project crashing is a method for shortening
project duration by reducing one or more
critical activities to a time less than normal
activity time.
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8-3
 Trade-off concept
Here, we adopt the “Trade-off” concept
 We attempt to “crash” some “critical”
events by allocating more resources to them,
so that the time of one or more critical
activities is reduced to a time that is less than
the normal activity time.
 How to do that:
 Question: What criteria should it be
based on when deciding to crashing
critical times?
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 Example – crashing (1)
Max weeks can be crashed
Normal weeks 2 6(3)
5 (1)
3
1
5(0)
The critical path is 1-2-3, the completion
time =11
How? Path: 1-2-3 = 5+6=11 weeks
Path: 1-3 = 5 weeks
Now, how many days can we “crash” it?
5
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 Example – crashing (1)

2 6(3)
5 (1)
3
1
5(0)

The maximum time that can be crashed for:

Path 1-2-3 = 1 + 3 = 4
Path 1-3 = 0

Should we use up all these 4 weeks?

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 Example – crashing (1)

4(0) 3(0)
2 6(3)
5 (1)
3
1
5(0)
If we used all 4 days, then path 1-2-3 has
(5-1) + (6-3) = 7 completion weeks

Now, we need to check if the completion time for path 1-3 has lesser than 7
weeks (why?)
Now, path 1-3 has (5-0) = 5 weeks
Since path 1-3 still shorter than 7 weeks, we used up all 4 crashed weeks

Question: What if path 1-3 has, say 8 weeks completion time?

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8-7
 Example – crashing (1)
Such as
2 6(3)
5 (1)
3
1
8(0)
Now, we cannot use all 4 days (Why?)
Because path 1-2-3 will not be critical path anymore as
path 1-3 would now has longest hour to finish

Rule: When a path is a critical path, it will not stay as a critical path

So, we can only reduce the path 1-2-3 completion time to the same time
as path 1-3. (HOW?)

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 Example – crashing (1)
Solution:
2 6(3)
5 (1)
3
1
8(0)
We can only reduce total time for path 1-2-3 = path 1-3,

that is 8 weeks

If the cost for path 1-2 and path 2-3 is the same then
We can random pick them to crash so that its completion
Time is 8 weeks
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 Example – crashing (1)
Solution: 4(0) 4(1)
2 6(3)
5 (1)
3
1
8(0)

OR 3(0)
5 (1) 6(3)
2

1
3

8(0)
Now, paths 1-2-3 and 1-3 are both critical paths 10
8-10
The Project Network
AOA Network for House Building Project

Figure 8.6
Expanded Network for Building a
House Showing Concurrent Activities
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Project Crashing and Time-Cost Trade-Off
Example Problem (1 of 5)

Figure 8.19 The Project Network for Building a House

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Project Crashing and Time-Cost Trade-Off
Example Problem (3 of 5)

Table 8.4
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Project Crashing and Time-Cost Trade-Off
Example Problem (2 of 5)
Crash cost & crash time have a linear
relationship:
Total Crash Cost $2000

Total Crash Time 5 weeks
 $400 / wk

Figure 8.20
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Project Crashing and Time-Cost Trade-Off
General Relationship of Time and Cost (2 of 2)

Figure 8.23
The Time-Cost Trade-Off
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Project Crashing and Time-Cost Trade-Off
Example Problem (4 of 5)

Figure 8.21 Network with Normal Activity Times and Weekly Crashing Costs
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Project Crashing and Time-Cost Trade-Off
Example Problem (5 of 5)
As activities are crashed, the critical path may change and
several paths may become critical.

Figure 8.22
Revised Network with
Activity 1 Crashed
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Project Crashing and Time-Cost Trade-Off
Project Crashing with QM for Windows

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Formulating as a Linear Programming Model
AOA Network for House Building Project

Figure 8.6
Expanded Network for Building a
House Showing Concurrent Activities
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 8-19
Formulating as a Linear Programming Model
Example Problem Formulation and Data (1 of 2)

Figure 8.24

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The CPM/PERT Network
Example Problem Formulation and Data (2 of 2)

Minimize Z = x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7
subject to:
x2 - x1  12
x3 - x2  8
x4 - x2  4
x4 - x3  0
x5 - x4  4
x6 - x4  12
x6 - x5  4
x7 - x6  4
xi, xj  0

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 8-21

The CPM/PERT Network
Formulating as a Linear Programming Model
The objective is to minimize the project duration (critical path time).

General linear programming model with AOA convention:

Minimize Z = xi
subject to: i
xj - xi  tij for all activities i  j
xi, xj  0

Where:
xi = earliest event time of node i
xj = earliest event time of node j
tij = time of activity i  j

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall 8-22

Project Crashing with Linear Programming
Example Problem – Model Formulation
Minimize Z = $400y12 + 500y23 + 3000y24 + 200y45 + 7000y46
+ 200y56 + 7000y67
subject to:
y12  5 y12 + x2 - x1  12 x7  30
y23  3 y23 + x3 - x2  8 xi, yij ≥ 0
y24  1 y24 + x4 - x2  4 Objective is to
y34  0 y34 + x4 - x3  0 minimize the
y45  3 y45 + x5 - x4  4
cost of crashing
y46  3 y46 + x6 - x4  12
y56  3 y56 + x6 - x5  4
y67  1 x67 + x7 - x6  4
xi = earliest event time of node i
xj = earliest event time of node j
yij = amount of time by which activity i  j is crashed
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