Discuss the major differences between PERT and CPM. Be sure to provide examples to illustrate your understanding of these concepts. Be sure to support your comments with references from the literature and cite your sources using APA 7th edition formatting guidelines. Your initial response should be 200–250 words and include at least one reference.
Please use the below information as well as any other outside sources to aid in this assignment.
Textbook: Quantitative Analysis for Management by Barry Render, Ralph M. Stair
Chapter 11: Project Management
11.1 PERT/CPM
Almost any large project can be subdivided into a series of smaller activities or tasks that can be analyzed with PERT/CPM. When you recognize that projects can have thousands of specific activities, you see why it is important to be able to answer questions such as the following:
Questions answered by PERT.
When will the entire project be completed?
What are the critical activities or tasks in the project—that is, the ones that will delay the entire project if they are late?
Which are the noncritical activities—that is, the ones that can run late without delaying the entire project’s completion?
If there are three time estimates, what is the probability that the project will be completed by a specific date?
At any particular date, is the project on schedule, behind schedule, or ahead of schedule?
On any given date, is the money spent equal to, less than, or greater than the budgeted amount?
Are there enough resources available to finish the project on time?
General Foundry Example of PERT/CPM
General Foundry, Inc., a metalworks plant in Milwaukee, has long been trying to avoid the expense of installing air pollution control equipment. The local environmental protection group has recently given the foundry 16 weeks to install a complex air filter system on its main smokestack. General Foundry was warned that it will be forced to close unless the device is installed in the allotted period. Lester Harky, the managing partner, wants to make sure that installation of the filtering system progresses smoothly and on time.
The first step is to define the project and all project activities.
When the project begins, the building of the internal components for the device (activity A) and the modifications that are necessary for the floor and roof (activity B) can be started. The construction of the collection stack (activity C) can begin once the internal components are completed, and the pouring of the new concrete floor and installation of the frame (activity D) can be completed as soon as the roof and floor have been modified. After the collection stack has been constructed, the high-temperature burner can be built (activity E), and the installation of the pollution control system (activity F) can begin. The air pollution device can be installed (activity G) after the high-temperature burner has been built, the concrete floor has been poured, and the frame has been installed. Finally, after the control system and pollution device have been installed, the system can be inspected and tested (activity H).
Immediate predecessors are determined in the second step.
All of these activities seem rather confusing and complex until they are placed in a network. First, all of the activities must be listed. This information is shown in Table 11.1. We see in the table that before the collection stack can be constructed (activity C), the internal components must be built (activity A). Thus, activity A is the immediate predecessor of activity C. Similarly, both activities D and E must be performed just prior to installation of the air pollution device (activity G).
Defining the Problem
Delays in care at a hospital emergency room were causing loss of life and dollars.
Developing a Model
A PERT model was developed to track patients as they moved through the various stages of emergency care.
Acquiring Input Data
A sample of 100 patients was selected at random from a population of 460 patients over a 2-month period. Process times were recorded with a stopwatch.
Developing a Solution
The data were put into the PERT model, and project completion times and variances were calculated.
Testing the Solution
The results were as expected. Some processes such as filling out forms were slowing down the system.
Analyzing the Results
The PERT model showed a project completion time of 84.9 minutes and a project variance of 253.1 minutes.
Implementing the Results
PERT was able to help the hospital identify the critical activities of patient care in an emergency room setting. The hospital was better able to schedule and control various activities of patient care as a result of the PERT model. PERT also helped identify those activities that could be improved.
There are two common techniques for drawing PERT networks. The first is called activity-on-node (AON) because the nodes represent the activities. The second is called activity-on-arc (AOA) because the arcs are used to represent the activities. In this book, we present the AON technique, as this is easier and is often used in commercial software.
In constructing an AON network, there should be one node representing the start of the project and one node representing the finish of the project. There will be one node (represented as a rectangle in this chapter) for each activity. Figure 11.1 gives the entire network for General Foundry. The arcs (arrows) are used to show the predecessors for the activities. For example, the arrows leading into activity G indicate that both D and E are immediate predecessors for G.
Last Completed Projects
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