Early Start (ES) = Early Finish (EF) of the previous activity.
Early Finish (EF) = Early Start (ES) + Duration of the project.
For instance, in activity B, Early Start is taken from the Early Finish of activity A, which should be done first. The duration of activity B is 7 weeks, according to the presented project table, and by summing up Early Start and the duration of the activity, project managers receive Early Finish which will affect the following activities of the project.
Late Start (LS) = Late Finish (LF) of the following activity
Late Finish (LF) = Late Strat (LS) – Duration of the project
The calculation of LS and LF should be conducted from the end of the diagram network. For example, for activity E, the number for the Late Finish is taken from the following activity J which is 32. By subtracting the length of the activity execution, managers receive Late Start, which is 27.
Total Slack:
A=0, B=17, C=0, D=0, E=0, F=17, G=8, H=0, I=20, J=0, K=0.
Free Slack:
A=0, B=0, C=0, D=0, E=0, F=17, G=0, H=0, I=20, J=0, K=0.
Safety slack:
- A = 11.5
- B = 12.5
- C = 13.5
- D = 14.5
- E = 15.5
- F = 12.5
- G = 11.5
- H = 11.5
- I = 10,5
- J = 11.5
- K = 10.5
The estimated time to complete the project is 57 weeks. However, the number of weeks may increase or go down depending on the progress of the plan execution. For instance, if every scheme step is done on time, it might take 42 weeks to achieve the desired goal. Nevertheless, if the company meets problems that do not allow managers to move to other plan steps, 94 weeks might be needed to complete all provided phases. There is a low probability that managers will be able to complete the project in 35 weeks, as an optimistic forecast states that more time will be needed. The project’s estimated budget is $205,000, and money should be divided right to make sure that the expenses do not increase during the project execution.
If some steps crash, the project development time can be decreased to 35 weeks, and it is the minimum duration of the project execution. However, the final result will not be full, and the outcomes might not be positive as predicted at the beginning of the plan. Nevertheless, by using structured steps, the probability of completing the project on time increases to 80%. During the implementation of the plan, the time boundaries may become strict. In this case, such a step as revising can be crashed. Moreover, the time spent on the documentation process and testing can be decreased to meet the deadline of 35 weeks. In this case, the project might lose $50,000 instead of spending $30,000 on the development of these two tasks.
Task B, which is market assessment, is a crucial step in the project, and a crash in this area might cause negative outcomes to the whole project presentation. When the time spent on one of the steps increases, managers should think about the possible solutions that help avoid crashes. For instance, early finish bonuses and penalties can positively impact crashing solutions and avoid problems (Akin et al., 2021). The early solution for activity B is three, and by decreasing this number during the plan execution, fewer crashes might happen. If the expected time for activity H decreases to 4 weeks, the company might lose $5,000, and less attention will be paid to other steps. Moreover, if the crashing time for activity E stays for seven weeks, the organization will have a greater loss of $10,000. This task might require two weeks of active work of professionals in testing to achieve the success of the project. Every financial problem decreases the level of success of the projects, and project managers should consider this aspect.
Reference
Akin, F. D., Polat, G., and Turkoglu, H. (2021). A crashing-based time-cost trade-off model considering quality cost and contract clauses. International Journal of Construction Management. Web.