Project Control

Project Planning & Control
Prof. Koshy Varghese

Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Lecture - 01
Introduction, Course Context, Construction Project Management
Welcome everyone to this class. This is a class on Project Planning and Control, and we are
recording this along with the students of the dual degree batch in Building Technology and
Construction Management, who were taking it as a course. So, these are the students, who
will be participating with me in the classroom, and this first lecture will give up basic
Introduction to the Course and the Context of the Course.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:41)
So, we would first look at the learning objectives. What we have today is, I would hope by
the end of this class we will be able to define, what project management is to all of you,
understand the science of project management, understand that there are standards with
which project management is managed, and we are able to get a better understanding of, what
the standards are and actually, then going to the scope of what the course does and the plan
for the class. So, this is really the learning objectives for this lecture and let us gets started.
So, I would like to set the context of the course first and for this, I would like to do it in a
little bit of a discussion base mode and the first question, which I want to ask you all is, what
is project management?. What do you understand by project management? Management of
resources, what else?
Student: People scheduling
People scheduling, cost, what are the other topics that come to mind.
Student: ((Refer Time: 01:56))
So, you have cost, but up to the management of the… So we are using the term management.
What does the term management mean?
Student: Should be an optimized allocation of resources and…
So, now, I am coming back to this term, we will design management and in project
management, management is one of the function. So, let us take probably the definition of
management a little later. What is the project?.
Student: undertaking a task.
Undertaking a task… So, I decide to undertake a task of let say making cars. Is it a project?
Student: depending upon the.., it should be unique.
It should be unique, so the keyword which we are looking first unique. So, when we talk
about project management, it is really management of something unique. Is that okay?
So, when we talk, so I want to now continue and kind of get to the general definitions. So,
what you will see here is when we I do not want to go and ask you on the definition of
management because there are probably over 1000 definition of what management is. And I
will just take you know one of the oldest definition, which was put forward by a person, who
was one the fathers of management from a French origin and it is to manage it is to forecast
plan, organize, to command and coordinate and control. So, this is how he defined
management.
Now, when we come into the project, so we want to be able to forecast plan, organize,
command and coordinate and control, we can do that in any many contexts. When you come
into the context of the project, the key is that it is temporary, just as you all mentioned it is
temporary it is unique. And it is temporary, so if you look at this definition, now the
definition of a project is, what you say less common and one of the most accepted definitions
of a project is what is put forward by the project management institute and this is, it is a
temporary group activity designed to produce a unique product, service or result. So, the key
word here is again it is unique.
So, remember it is a unique product, unique service or unique result and another way of
looking at the of, you know very popular wiki resource is project management is again
discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to bring about successful
completion. So, what I have done with here is combine the definition of management with the
definition of the project, you know I have taken this particular definition because it nicely
combines this both together.
If you go to PMI’s definition of a project it is a little broader, what it shows in project

management is the application of knowledge, skills, and techniques to execute project
effectively and efficiently. So, the take away from this is that, when we look at project
management is management or something unique and whether you are, you know and when
you look at what is management we are looking at planning, organizing, securing, managing
resources or you know command, coordinate, controls all these verbs we can use it with
doing something for taking about a unique activity. So, I think we have a good understanding
now; project management is something which is unique, then what is the management of
something that is not unique, process management.
So, that is, so we come to this comparison between process and project management. So, if
you take to process, it is something that is not unique and most of us away involved in
processes or in the project. Generally, industries involved in the process, they are doing
things which are repetitive. So, a lot of what industry depends on today is repetitive. Can you
give me examples?
Student: Assembly lines.
Yes, assembly lines. So, you have car manufacturing. Anything else?
Student: Food.
Food, you know a lot of work, you know Hindustan lever will make all your food package,
shoe package, everything is the processor. You know you have the person who makes a cell
phone, Nokia make cell phones, it is repetitive. We will come back to whether Nokia is, how
repetitive is Nokia cell phone, for how it repetitive with Apple iPhone, will come back to
that, so let say electronics.
There are so many aspects of the process and with this, we can understand it is repetitive, a
lot of the service we encounter is repetitive. I go to the bank, the teller or whatever service,
many customers come to the bank for the same service day after, day after day it is repetitive.
So, for example, bank it is a repetitive process. Anything else you can think of.
Student: Conducting an exam.
Conducting an exam is it now, so that is an interesting one. Is it repetitive or is it a project or

repetitive? Conducting JEE exam every year, is it a project or is it repetitive.
Student: There is a protocol.
There is a protocol, but there is… So, how unique is it? There are challenges. So, I would like
to explain on that example, quiz 1, quiz 2, quiz 3. Is that more of a project or JEE more of a
project?
Student: JEE is more of a project.
JEE is more of a project. So, what I want to highlight here I want to do this later, but the
opportunity is come up now, there is now we cannot start classifying everything as a pure
process or a pure project. You are going to find that there are things that are in between, there
are things that are partly I mean like this exam example, some of some in. Some quizzes,
which are done on an everyday basis have more of a process, we do not think about it, we
delegated; I mean systematizes when it a process. JEE by most standard it is a project.
So, we let see now, let us look at examples of a project, what are the examples you can think
of projects. Construction our favorite area, yes events.
Student: Events, genome.
Yes, genome, why do we call that a project?
Student: All research and scientific things.
Yes all research and scientific things, so it is actually research.
Student: Even development is a project, I mean…
Yes, research and development is a project. So, if you get a project, we take projects like
when you do an M.Tech project, it is a project, because it is a single activity which you are
going to take.
Student: ((Refer Time: 09:17)) policies
Yes policy making very, very high level, it is a project. So, for example, presenting the
railway budget for a year will be almost like a project. Aadhaar card, it is a project it is a…
So, you have an idea of what are these aspects which are unique. Now, just to reinforce what
we have discussed classic repetitive process are assembly lines, manufacturing a car it is
repetitive, it goes on doing the same thing over and over again only if the model changes,
there is a change.
You know this is classic process go, it is so process oriented, it is so highly automated that it
just goes on without almost no human interaction. Now, when and we can go on with the
examples like this, so one thing which we have to understand or the reason I introduce this is
we have to think when I take up a task is should I do it in a project mode or in a process
mode. Coming back to the quiz example, if I going to do exam or quiz, I am going to quiz 1
and quiz 2, quiz 3 or even in final exam of the semester it is a process mode of thought.
If I am going to do, you know joint entrance exam conducted it is a project mode of thought.
So, we have to understand how, what the endeavors are. When we take projects, you can
recognize this; this is the Bandra-Worli highway the bridge. Now, something construction
again DMRC, some non-construction example research is a project, software development is
a project. So, this is one of the areas of project development, project management that has got
a lot of focus today, because of the so much of software that is started coming out and a lot of
tool with project management has been associated with software development.
And when we talk about research, for example, development of a space launch or you know
DRDO decides the new BrahMos, so which is a project. So, again to kind of repeat you have
to think now of where we need to use project base thinking, where we need to use process-
based thinking.
Now, I want to come back again to this, so I think we have answered the question, what is
project management? In looking a process and project we discuss that thinks need not be
purely processed, thinks need not be purely project. So, this in between line has been think is
getting more and more blurry in reason times. I will take the assembly lines itself was an
example it uses to be we saw the Ford assembly one of the first assembly that it use to be that
Ford would probably put out a new model of a car once in a year a once in two-three years
are even later.
If you came if you take the Indian context the ambassador car was one of the locally made
first you we would probably get a new version of ambassador every 3, four years effort on,
on that to they would not be major changes. How is the automobile industry today?
Student: It fast the evolved.
It fast the evolved. So, what is the project part of the car, what is the process part of the car?
Student: Process as the manufacture.
A process as the repetitive manufacture.
Student: The project needed to go behind, there is nothing will new ((Refer Time: 12:48)).
New modifications are putting out the new prototype, finding out how it is going to. So, new
product that comes out is in a project mode after comes to project goes into a process mode
and use another example I take the cell phone industry or the smart phones, how often does I
mean again you are looked go back into the past you would probably change your phone I do
not know, how often you have to change your phone once in 2 years 3, 4 years 3 years I had 6
months 9 months 1 year I am sure the variation is there in the group.
But, it would be that you got off phone, and you held on to it for many years before it
changes, but today the models itself do not permit every is 6 to 8 months, where iPhone
comes out every
Student: 8 months
Eight months nine months they get so. So, now, again we are come to a cycle where the
process of making an I phone as is done in China and it is process sized, but the product of
the new I phone is a project. So, many companies find that now they have to be both and
project management mode as well as process management otherwise they cannot be
successful.
So, that is the core difference today that is one of the reason is why project management has
really taken off. The concept was people need to understand the concept of project
management. Now…
Student: How could you classify supercar industry. For example, each car is though the
model is same, they are customized to the…
So what is happening, so if you actually go back to the car industry, what Ford did was bring
the assembly line before he standardized. Before Ford, it is used to be customized. Now, can
you make a car in the customized mode today without technology no? So, what happening is
the customization is basically a result of technological development. So, again now, as we see
the project, process, project, process the line is blurring, but with technology being more
enhanced we are able to do project faster process go back into project mode go back into the
process.
So, one thing that is really pushing the project capability is technology. So, I will give you
some basically I mean from what I understand you are saying if a customer wants a
customized car the industry able to deliver because the robot that making it can be a program
to customize as per customer requirements.
So, that happening to something like for example, shoes even now if you go to the shoe shop
you go and to any I say buy a shoe 10 or 10 and a half, and I buy it and hope fits me perfectly
is that that is the standardized way of shoes right. What would be the customized way of the
shoe?
Student: ((Refer Time: 16:08)) enter the size.
Why size is not your shape of your leg, size is only a standardization of your leg. What would
be the customized way of doing it?
Student: We do not know the size of the leg length and breadth I give.
So, I could take as a laser scan of my leg and send it over the net to this factory. They read
the scan they would be able to make a shoe exactly to fit my leg and send it back to me
possible, because of technology. So, now, the project, so if I have to do it with the shoemaker
a, it will be a project for him, where you would have to measure my leg and you know there
is actually do that in this today it is in technologies enabling and blurring these lines.
So, there the project mode is almost process sized fully, because of technology any other
question. We move to the next question again in the context I assume in some places you
would have heard this what is project management and specifically is project management an
art or a science
Student: a bit of both

bit of both. So, if it is a bit of both is it more of art or more of science?
Student: As engineers, we having it is more of science.
As engineering, you would be wanted to be more of science that.
Student: use to be more of art in the earlier time spend now, string methods and procedures
to follow and now that we have more and more procedures like methods to do project
management we have more of science.
So, more over science, but if I want to say divide art and science between 100 percent what is
it where is it where is art what percentage is art what percentage is science management.
Student: Optimization and optimization come from the mathematics. So, it lies in the field of
science, so it is all management now.
So, is all management science know what I am saying is you want to manage a construction
project I mean optimization is a part of the whole thing I want to successfully bring in a
project is it art is it agreed it art and science are it more art or more science individual a
project or project, project it is more optimize. So, it is it is far enough to have this debate on
more art or more science at least with all discussion I had with industry and people in
practicing people especially in construction project there will say still more of art. The
science is since developing like you all are saying there is science, but it still developing and
we still have a long way to go okay.
So, let us take at this in the context of art verse science. So, you can see we what we need to
do if you take art what are the aspects an art you know you have political acumen and
business acumen, people acumen personal you know interpersonal skills, leadership, so all
this an art and the science sides we have techniques, methodologies, process tools okay you
have to balance both, and you go to the art side is a person dependent if you are good at the
art of project management it doesn't mean that I can repeat what you are doing.
So, you need that project manager who is a skilled project manager who has a lot of this
capabilities to bring in a project, and if you go back, and you know to the earlier time that
was what made you a good manager or whatever it is, it was an art. When you are going to
the science side, you do not want to be people dependent; you want to be a system dependent
you want repeatable results. So, repeatability is one of the pillars of science and
quantification even mathematics only if I can see one another way looking at science if I can
quantify and I can make it you know to express it numerical form then I am being more in a
science-specific not necessarily mathematical.
But, it is one of the pillars the other is certainly repeatability I might have rules which are not
mathematical, but if I apply those rules, I can always get the same result that is good enough
that is still science I am not person dependent I am not totally heuristic and person based. So,
this is where we look. So, we understand you need a balance, and if you look at management,
it is a relatively new science. So, you find there is an area called management science there
are journals called management science which really looks at management from a scientific
perspective and when you start looking at it from So, if you looking at actually go back this is
a Taylor, whose principles of scientific management was the first book that started I mean the
book which we are all know there are before Taylor there were people who where you know
practicing science, but they did not make it publicly as I mean it is not as publicized as
Taylor's work. So, if you look at look at his principles you see that he started measurements
based on measurement thing started decision started being implemented and like is this was
in the early nineteen hundreds.
So, that is one management science we can start now when you compare management
science. So, what we need to know is now we see. So, now, we agreed the science and art
role, but this will be become more apparent that is more of not when you compare with
somebody other disciplines. So, let us say you compare the engineering, I will take a very I
mean most of you are in I have taken a lot of courses either in structural engineering.
So, structural engineering art or science?. it is much more of science there is art unit, but
certainly a much more of a science okay, there is no doubt about it. But, if you go back a few
hundred years was structural engineering art or science?. we needed a master builder be able
to put it in a way you make it stand he knew it, if you didn't have him you didn't have the
structure today it doesn't matter whether I mean we can train you to be structural engineers
and practice most of the structural engineer repeatable you can make structures in style.
Another thing is something that science can be taught in the classroom like this, and that is
the objective you take medicine art or science, was an art more of a science some might argue
too much of a science and you really need the art back to be able to do, but again there is a
balance of art or science, but we see a lot of science in medicine of course, you take pure
sciences, it is all science okay. But, where did all this start? So, I mean I have taken pure
science because we have a look at some names who is this Newton.
So, what is Newton do to make the science his loss of motion and everything else started to
quantify force equals mass * acceleration we did not have any I have that forms the basis of
many apps of mechanics and science. So, you know the quantify that made it into a science.
Avogadro So, again his number started making things scientific. Faraday as for as electric
goes he is one who made things scientific. Lord Kelvin. So, all of these people were that
many, many years ago and starting making physics and chemistry more science than art.
So, we are now in that face what management is trying to be made a science we are still more
in the art form, but we are trying to make it science okay, and that is the face we are in. Okay
let us take architecture close to our area should it be an art or should it be science?. It should
be an art. So, will be leave that for discussion you can go on and about it should be an art, it
should be science do it without science there are limitations if you do it without art. So, so
certainly we do not want to fully science. It should be more art or it is something like art itself
should be an art should not science anyway, so that is an interesting point to debate.
Lecture - 02
Objectives of a project, scientific way of Managing of Objectives
Now, we have taken these two questions. Now, we come to the third question. So, when we
are looking at the science of something, we need to be able to understand our goal. So, we
take a project, and we say; okay we decide, we defined what a project as we said; project
needs more science. Project management needs more science. One of the scientific
approaches is to know your goal and work your way towards your goal. So, what are the
goals of project management? What are the objectives of the project? What is a project do?
So, let us take, put up an image here to help you. Let us say so; this is an apartment complex.
Let us say you are getting a customer or as let us say either as an engineer or as a customer
you want this; you are going to invest in this; you are going to be part of this. What are the
objectives?
Student: completion (refer time: 01:07)
Completion, yes.
Student: Within what time? Stipulated (refer time: 01:10)
So, time, cost, quality.
Student: completion, safety.
What do you mean by safety?
Student: So, the structure should be able to (refer time: 01:27)
Right
So, there is safety; you do not want to collapse it. There is one thing about the safety of the
structure itself and the safety of it being constructed. So, when it was constructed, You want
to make sure that you are not living in a place which took many people; you got many people
injured or some there are. So, from a construction point of view, safety is important.
Anything else?
Student: Completion is also important.

Completion, but all these we are assuming; at completion, you should have met the time
deadline; you should have met cost expectation and quality, safety.
Student: Environmental
Yes, environmental consideration. Today that has become very important. So, typically, these
are the objectives of a project. There might be other objectives; for example, they say good
team building. You know project's specific objectives are also there. You know if it is a
social cause, you might say if the project is from a social perspective; you have social
upliftment; that there are other things which can come. The next issue which we want to
discuss is what you think as the priority today?. So, these are objectives.
Student: Constant time, cost and cost management (refer time: 02:50).
Is it cost? You know, is this the priority or is this the priority?
Student: some like roads and this is time (refer time: 03:14).
Right. So, there are certainly many projects now. You are saying cost and time; can we
compromise on quality?
Student: No.
So, we are assuming this is cost and time, given acceptable quality. We will not accept a very
shoddy place immaterial of cost and time. Accept, we are saying quality should be
acceptable. So, what we are saying is basically right; there is, it certainly used to be cost plus
time earlier on, especially, in the Indian context if you go back 20-30 years, people did not
put so much importance to time; cost was all encompassed. Now today, you know that I mean
time has become, almost in the most project, has become a high priority. You take Chennai
metro. Yes, I mean time; people are looking at the deadline. The whole public is looking
when it is going to be opened. There are other projects, which were started and gone on for
nearly 25 years before it was opened, and it did not matter those days, but today, you cannot
have Chennai Metro go on for ten years; it has to open, start open and so, time is a priority.
Now, with such a priority that the owners, the contractors, especially, the owners are willing
to pay more to finish on time; why?
Student: Depend on the importance of constructed facility.
Yes, anything else?
Student: They finishes early; the cost, the money were getting might result in a better profit
(refer time: 04:53).
Exactly. So, when you look at the project’s life cycle; when you finish early and you get, you
start generating income from the project, you actually make up whatever money you spent in
the construction phase. So, if you look ultimately, from a corporate standpoint, all businesses
are in the business of making money, if you are looking specially, from a private perspective.
It becomes, all these get related to cost or profit. So, I would put cost or profit; all of them,
even putting environment safety; everything gets related to this. This is from a business sense
point of view. So, for example, today, time is important, because take the real estate; land
value is so high. If I finish a project earlier and start getting rent out of it, I mean, I offset any
kind of acceleration cost of my construction very quickly, and that construction phase is only
two odd years or three years max; my income phase is so many more years. So, this is the
reason today, the time has become very important. Let us say the quality is something we are
taking care. Why is a safety not so important today in our context?
Student: (refer time: 06:16).
One is this, people perceive this additional cost. Two is yes; there are very good standards in
the country, but you know, there is little enforcement, and also, people do not pay for poor
safety. So, in a lot of the developed countries, people started implementing safety only
because if there was a safety violation, it really affected your modern work. Similarly, the
environment is very new. We are not even sure what are the policies where the environment
things are getting only clear now, but again, if you make, say today for example; the green
building is a very popular concept; why?
Is that why it so popular? Is that the only reason why it is popular?
Student: Sir, it actually energy efficient, basically.
One is it is energy efficient.
Student: Materiel efficient.
Material-efficient, all of that is there, but it is also that people build a green building, because
more people will want to buy a green, will invest in a green building. So, it really comes out
to business requirement. So, we now move on to the fourth question. So, we understood what
the objectives of our project are, and we now on to combine Actually, the second question
and the third question and say, how do we scientifically, manage these objectives.
So, we went to cost; you know, how do we scientifically manage cost? How do we
scientifically manage time? How do we scientifically manage quality, safety, and
environment? If you go back, you know, even these two decades, the answers to this would
be each company would have a different practice. It would not be what; there is no
standardized method. If you ask me today, how do design a reinforced concrete building,
what would, how would you answer me? What would you refer me to?
Student: Code (refer time: 08:20).
Prof: You will say IS 456; has the reasonable way of, we follow the practice there. I can get
you know, most kind of standard buildings I can do, and this is also being the approach to
scientifically, approach these project objectives, which is the establishment of standards for
scientific management.
You have seen; I have actually put so, one of the pioneering standards was the project
management body of knowledge, PMBOK, released by PMI. Now, the ISO standards which
are very popular; the ISO also now got a standard for project management; it is ISO 21500
guide to project management, very similar to the PMI standard. The Indian standard has also
got a guide for project management, 15883, very and so, these standards are fair quite closely
related. If you actually go into these standards, you will find; I have kind of given a broad
outline. We will find there are sections on integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human
resources, communication, risk, procurement, stakeholders, health, safety and environment,
other management issues; all of these you can see some of the objectives, which we explicitly
define. Time, cost, quality, and then, when you look at health and safety, and environment;
all of these are there.
These other parts; for example, without human resource development, you cannot achieve
these objectives. So, the other parts of it are supporting processes, which help us achieve
these objectives. So, this is actually what you call a process standard, which is that if you do
things right, the results will be correct. It is not a product standard saying that or this is what I
expect out of the product. It is a process standard. Now, this is also supported by; we are
familiar with this standard. You heard of it; right, what does it do? 9001 for quality; it is a
quality management system standard; 14001, environmental standard; 18001, occupational
health and safety. So, what you find today is there are scientific ways to approach this. There
are standards; there are if you get into the standards today, and this is a start; these are only of
you know, about a few years old, but this is put things into a standardized form.
This is a really strong step. Now, when we talk about the process approach and management
approach is this process. So, when you get into a process, this is the way you look at it. So,
almost all of this is similar in its philosophical concept. Basically, this is a very very popular
cycle called Deming cycle or the Shewhart cycle; call plan, do check, act. You will find that
most of this course or almost all of the concepts we cover in this course, has to follow this
cycle. So, you plan something; you do what you are planning. Will what you do exactly, as
per your plan? Almost always no. Then you check; you kind of take action as to what
corrections you need to make, replan and do again. So, this is called the plan, do check, act,
and you will find a simpler version of this is plan, monitor, and control.
So, you plan what you want to do; let us say plan what you know, for the next month;
monitor how you are progressing on the work. If you do not, if you are not able to keep the
plan, apply control to be able to try to change so that, you were adhering to the plan as much
as possible. Another same thing again; plan, execute and control; closing and then say
initiate. Actually, I should start with initiating, planning, executing and controlling, closing.
So, this is a PMI cycle. So, if you look at that from another perspective, the initiating
processes; you have planning, executing and then, the monitoring and control is the larger
cycle in this whole process and then, you have closing. So, what I want you to take away
from this is that the whole so, what is the title of this close?
Student: (refer time: 13:16) control.
Prof: Control. So, this is the philosophy; we are not putting monitoring in that because it
makes a title tool lock; that you basically need to plan, monitor, and control. This is the
cycling; only if this cycle is well placed, then the whole project will proceed with; this is the
philosophy, with which we take the project forward.
Lecture - 03
Course Scope & Plan, Questions and Discussions
Okay, so, when you come, we come to actually, the scope of the project of this course is to
focus on time management. So, okay instead of calling this construction, planning, and
control, I could call this course construction scheduling because planning really can involve a
lot more things, rather than time. Scheduling means it is basically time management. So, we
are actually focused in this course on time management. We are not going to talk about
quality; we are not going to talk about safety; you know, very little, quite a little bit on cost,
but it is not cost management. We are not going to talk about the environment; primarily,
focus on time. When you talk about managing time, we actually come up with tools.
So, this is the other thing which a standard does. What are the tools which we need to use?
How do we utilize which tool? And these are some of the tools which we cover which is the
Gantt or the bar chat; the critical path method, which is really the core of the course is going
to be on the critical path method, okay. We will spend a little bit time on program evaluation
and review technique, which is PERT and other techniques like LSM; a little bit on Monte-
Carlo simulation okay so that, you get introduced to some of the more advanced concepts and
planning. Like ahead, as I said earlier, the emphasis is on planning, monitoring, and
checking; this is still the most basic part of the course.
Now, one of the elements here is, I will this is an outline of the BIS standard on time
management. So, this is like I said 15883, part 2, and you will see the standard itself is; it is
has got plan, monitor, control; this is the base of the standard and as you get into the elements
of the standard, it will have elements of planning; it will have elements for monitoring; it will
have elements for control. So, I mean, please keep this in mind; the standard is, I think, the
first version of it came out only very recently.
So, it is not a very matured standard yet; and until, we people start using it and giving
feedback and doing that standard will not; it will have to go through that kind of again, a
continuous improvement process in itself, but you know, I think we are at least, fortunate that
we have a standard today, which specifies certain things. So, we can specify this as standard
and try to follow it in the best way as possible. We will refer to this standard as well as the
PMI standard, you know, where it is relevant, but also the concepts of what we are covering
are sometimes, you know, slightly different from what these standards specified. So, some of
those fundamentals, I will certainly go outside the standard to cover.
So, I will basically summarize, and we will have a discussion after that. I think, I hope by the
end of this, you are able to define project management. Okay, we have looked at approaches
to project management as a science. We have had an overview of the project management
standards, and we have actually, covered the core scope and the overall plan as to how we are
going to go about this. I am not giving you a lecture-wise schedule that is available on the
website and the NPTEL requirements. We will generally follow that lecture-wise schedule
for the course. Are there question which you can ask?
Student: So, in the plan, monitoring and control so, monitor and control; which is very close
to checking part; part check?
Check is monitoring. Okay if I take it back here

So, basically control is still act. So, what you do not have in plan, monitoring, control is you
do not have the doing part. Okay, so, we are a saying you plan something it will be done. So,
you do not have the doing part, but you have the monitoring as a checking the controlling as
the act. Okay so, so I mean yeah. So, there are many examples we can. So, let me answer
some other the other questions you may have then I can give you certain example on this. Are
there any other questions?. Okay just give you a very broad example of plan, monitoring, and
control and the use of tools let me a put it into a situation which is totally outside project
management but you might be able relative to it let us say I want to go from this campus to
the central station, and I need to go, what is the, how would you go about to doing. So, that is
a project to make a trip to Chennai from IIT campus to central station you have to plan
Student: a route
You will plan a route what is the tools you need for a planning a route (refer time: 05:41).
Student: mobile phones, Google maps....
So, okay you will use google maps you will plan the route and what will the plan result in
what-what will it what are all the parameters of your plan (refer time: 05:51)
Student: distance, time, cost...
distance time. So, let say it is what you want is time and cost are let say not too much of a
problem at a stage no yeah. So, it is the cost not an issue time is the main issue you want to be
able to manage the time of where you are going to go. So, you take Google maps you will
know the route you will you will let say you want to reach there at 10 O'clock for a train what
would what would be a planning decision.
Student: time of departure
time of departure will be and mode of transport what typically what is your mode of transport
Student: Train
(refer time: 06:30) Okay let us say you have an own mode of transport let us say it is it is
friend with the bike okay let say the I am giving you some control, MRTS you do not know
have any control I am giving you some control it is friend with the bike now how much time
do you estimate?
Student: forty minutes
forty minutes. So, I can do planning without tools I can basically ask friend who is done this
before and say he will say forty minutes let us very heuristic planning I can do that if I made
this trip many time I just use my experience and come up with that, but google map this is
that the tools are good you should have forty minutes I want to be that at what set 10 O'clock
I should at least start by nine twenty. So, that is the plan is over now we actually start the
journey you do not know Google map with you anymore assume okay you do not have the
connectivity to do monitor what are what are your option? How would you monitor you
progress? (refer time: 07:33)
Student: certain stretch...come to known destination ...landmark...
Okay so, so does that have to be included in your plan? (refer time: 07:40)
Student: Yes, If we are going by bike
If you are going by bike you would have to include that in your plan that I will reach these
milestones at this times only then I can actually monitor if I had to say that look I am going to
start at nine twenty and near the station at ten o clock I will not have intermediate milestones
should monitor my plan (refer time: 08:00). Okay so, so let say you are very meticulous and
planning you say I have to be you this junction by this time this junction then I making good
progress. So, you start all this all does as been done in planning now including milestones,
not just your start time you start off and okay you find you do not have a watch it is a tool the
tool is absent now how do you monitor (refer time: 08:31)
Student: We will have stop and ask other..

Yeah will have monitoring become more difficult without a tool okay and you will. So, these
are the tools that I helping you. So, if you now let's say now you have a now a watch, and you
know the milestone and you progressing towards this station and you find that you are
supposed to be some point in nine forty, but you reach that only by nine forty-five. So,
because your monitoring, you got a statistic on your progress and you find your five minutes
late at a milestone what you do? (refer time: 09:07)
Student: I will control the minutes.
You have to take control you have the either the tell you are friend go faster are you have to
say that the find new route might be slow because traffic is high. So, you will have to find the
alternate route. So, you have to take control of the situation and respond and plan again.
So, I hope. So, that. So, that is the very kind of a very everyday context example of a plan,
monitor, control or even PDCA in a way you have done the plan you are actually made the
journey you have checked where you are you are taking action to change the plan in a way. I
would prefer put it in the context of plan, monitor, control because it is very much more
project oriented PDCA can be a much broader than just projects. Any other question?. Okay.
Lecture - 04
Construction Industry and National Growth
Okay, in this lecture will cover some characteristics of construction projects and the learning
objectives are going to be to kind of get an understanding of the impact of the construction
industry and the national growth especially in India.
Look at the projects stakeholders; you know who are the players who actually participate in a
project and what they get out of the project. Look at the phases of a project; this is a very
important part. Organization, how is a project organized and what are the aspects of project
organization. And then finally, we actually we start getting into scheduling and
understanding, what is a scheduling engineer do, what are the levels of scheduling and this
will then lead us to the most focused part of, what we start from lecture three on the concepts
of scheduling.
So, let us get started on the first objective. If we look at the national GDP you can kind of see
the blue line, we have been you know since around 2002 we have actually been on this part,
which is really skyrocketing upwards. So, this is the GDP and around here we have been
skyrocketing upwards.
Now, if you take this GDP pattern and overlay it with the growth of the construction share of
the GDP, so when you go back we are close to 1.8 trillion dollars, and you will see the share
of the construction industry has also been raising, and we are at nearly 8 percent of the GDP,
which is a very, very high value. Okay, so, basically when we look at our economy, and we
are saying that this is the contribution of the construction industry, which means that we are a
very important industry for the nation.
Now, it is not just from the GDP percentage, if you look at what we are going to be in 2020.
So, this is a very interesting graph which… Are you exposed to this graph before?
Student: No
No, it is something which you want to be able to look at, and this is one reason why there is
so much of interest in India. If you look at, so this is called a population pyramid and
basically, what you have on the right on the each bar, so as you go up you have different age
groups.
So, you have, for example, you know 0 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 14 different age group as you go up,
and you have the population of people in this case in India and China it is in millions. So, it is
actually in million people population and as you can see the green bar represents the number
of people in the age group 0 to 4, the yellow bar 5 to 9. So, when you look at this graph what
is the pattern you see, what makes India attractive as the place to invest in the future?
Student: You need to 60, know more of youth…
Yes, it says that there is a very, very young, so a population pyramid which is shaped this
way means older people in our fewer, younger people are more. Population pyramid, which is
this way means what, what is the mean to the economy of the county.
Student: Population decreasing....
The population is not necessarily decreasing; it is an increasing older age population. You
can see in Japan's case, it is almost the older population is actually in some cases you can see
the 45, 50 is more than the younger population. What is the mean in the future of the country?
Let say take it another 20 years, what does it mean.
Student: the working people..((Refer Time: 04:00))
Yes, the people who can generate revenue for the country will, people who are living who are
unable to generate are more than the people who are able to generate if it is inverted
parameter, in which case it is not a very good sign for the country, let us fundamentally
something wrong. So, you will find that right now India is among all of these you can see
India is in a very healthy reasonable pyramid, but you can actually go to web and project
these for future, and you will find, how the population changes. This is only for 2020 Okay.
You can see China; it has you know because of their population policy; it is a varying
population. You can see some of the African countries have almost a very classical pyramid;
it is a real well pyramidal shape, but of course, populations are much lower. You can see, so
the right side shows the female population, the left side shows the male population. So, in
graphs like this are used to project what is going to be the situation in a country from an
economic perspective, from a growth perspective, from a development perspective, because
finally, it is a population which thrives the whole issue. Any questions or clarifications on
this observation?
If we now go to this concept that without to support this population we need infrastructure
development. So, whether we like it or not for that we mean, unless we develop infrastructure
our people are simply not going to be able to sustain just living reasonable quality of life.
So, when you go into infrastructure you will find you have familiar with this, we need roads,
we need several 1000’s of kilometers of roads.
We need ports for trade.
We need airports, and you will be seeing you know, how many new airports are being built
today.
Student: Almost all tier 2 cities.
All tier 2 cities, you know even major cities, you know BIAL, Bombay International take
DIAL just got completed very successfully you know one of the largest airports. Bombay
international airport, Chennai is under construction, Hyderabad just got constructed,
Bangalore was over, and now they are going for phase two. You are going to the tier 2 cities,
all over there are airports being constructed.
So, what use to be basically a runway and a very small airport building way, you came and
pass through becoming a commercial center today. You take any of these things, you go back
to the ports, a large amount of port development activities. We are all coastal nation, there
was lot of opportunity in a ((Refer Time: 06:51)) neighbors, which are much smaller being
able to capitalize on port trade much, much more than we are, because we do not have, so say
a country like Singapore can have a capacity, has as much larger capacity for port activity
than India for its size.
How do we even compete with that or you know, we have the potential to do so, and we
really need development in this kind of regions. I go back to roads, the same story; whether it
is national highways or rural roads without I mean you have seen how much different are
road makes to an area. The minute you have transportation infrastructure the area develops,
the minute they know and then you know the quality of life goes up; literacy goes up;
everything else goes up. So, for national development, all this kind of infrastructure is very
critical.
Let us continue, so we looked at general we have mostly transportation infrastructure, but if

we look at urban population you can see here you can look at, so China is still the most
populous country in the world, but somewhere people expect India to overtake China and we
will be the largest population with the reasonably good pyramidal distribution. So, there is a
lot we need to do to be able to capitalize on that.
And the other trend you see, if you look at the rural population versus the urban, as we go
forward in time the rural population will drop, and the urban population is what is going to.
People are going to move from rural to urban areas; these are trends which we see. Now,
basically, what is the expectation out of this trend? So, you looking at 2020, 2030 all of you
are in a peak of a career at that stage. You are going to have more urban population than rural
population or a significantly larger urban population, what is an impact.
Student: Need for infrastructure
Need for infrastructure, all kinds of infrastructure.
So, I can just, just reemphasizing this urban infrastructure part. So, here just, just look at
some of these comparisons you know we have we have population goes up from you know
goes to 590 and will have 13 cities with more than 4 million people out of which 6 will have
more than 10 million people, will have 55 cities with more than 1 million the US only has 9
cities with more than 1 million will have 55.
And you can see, but again the trend is that urban population is going to increase, and this is
totally infrastructure and national level you know dams, roads are one think urban
infrastructure is another very, very big area of development.
So, we need real estate, urban infrastructure and you are experienced in that today all kinds of
infrastructure is being built from Chennai metro to you know whether IT buildings or
commercial building or housing projects or water supply systems.
But we cannot ignore rural infrastructure because still a lot of a population going to be in a
rural area they I mean quality of life there is also very important, but the needs as slightly
different you going to have sanitation projects, housing projects you know more, more rural
housing, irrigation, rural roads all of these. So, all of this is going to I mean based on current
projection in the next 2025 years this just as to sustain this level of growth as this level of
infrastructure development has to sustain if a population is going to maintain or at least
continue this quality of life or improve the ideally we should improve a quality of life.
Now, this is another big area we are facing you know the situation today we have facing, so
much of power shortage and this is a very, very major area and which we need whether it is
renewable energy and whether it is nuclear energy are whether it is a traditional you know
thermal power plant we need power; otherwise we are not going to be able to fuel our
industry we will we when have been just, so much of growth depends on power.
So, if you actually look at the five-year plan what we see here is the five-year plan that was
over last year this was the outlay for what we are talking about. So, these are the sectors most
these are directly construction sectors, and this is the planned outlays it is for the next five-
year, so this huge amount of investment going into the construction sector. So, from the
policy point of view from a planning commission point of view the pushing all this money
into the construction set, what is the limitation, where is the bottleneck?.
What resources we really do not have, so if you look at I mean we do not have construction
industry bandwidth to be able to handle this many this much of money in this shorter time.
The company as to grow you know and we able to so; that means, is a lot of opportunity in
the construction industry you know to be able to I mean the government has decided that the
this is what needs to be, and this is just the public sector to bring in the private sector now, it
is an even larger I mean not even larger it is as significant kind of investment that are going
on.
So, when we look at this from the national perspective one is yes industries I mean
construction companies or construction project delivery mechanism have to be a device to be
able to spend all this money efficiently in this next few years one. Let us go back to some
other questions we asked last time, or you have when we look at objectives, what are the
objectives of our project quickly
Student: time, cost, quality, safety, environment
how many if these objectives are met on projects today?
Student: at least three ((Refer Time: 13:42))
Are they met?
Student: No, no ((Refer Time: 13:45)).
We have now, let say this is little more difficult to measure from now we know these. So, if
you take an average project of our country is this satisfied or not satisfied, Student: not
satisfied
not satisfied most projects over on time, over on cost quality is not it could be much, much
better might be from a safety perspective with it is means structure safety might be okay, but
the general quality of construction can be really it leaves a lot to be decided is we would
protect the question is.
So, so we are saying are they met. No why are they not?
Student: Lack of proper management guidelines.

So, one, one I mean, so there would be many reasons. So, one place where we can kind of
make a change is in what we would professional management, management and at all levels,
we are not just talking about project manager level we are talking about that we know all
levels of a project site you know right down to the foremen who is actually supervising the
work write down to you know the other point with comes up this craft skill.
So, today if you look at whether it is a craftsman or a project management professional we

find the level of training they have had, then they are not for the kind of scale of project
where undertaking they are not really we do not have a people to handle, that's basically,
where we are coming people we have is in that kind of ironic country like India we talked
about population growing, exploding, but we still do not have a people.
So, that is that is the kind of an of the situation where are in and only where we can get out of
the situation is people understanding what they need to do in terms of knowledge skill and
experience and then being able to put to practice it properly. You take craftsmen; there is a
lack of skilled craftsmen today. So; obviously, there is the lack of skilled craftsmen. The
minute I go to the site and ask a Mason, who does not have the experience to do masonry the
quality is not going to be as good. The engineer who inspects does not know how to ensure
that the concrete quality is designed and poured in the right way.
So, they will again when you take out of formwork again there is going to be all kinds of
problems like. So, at every level, we need more competent in our people, and that is really
from an education perspective that is really, where one of the things which we really need to
address and courses like this in some ways address that.
Lecture – 05
Lesson – 05
Project Stakeholders, Project Phases, Project Organization
Now, I am moving on to the issue of projects stakeholders. So, when we take a project, who
are all the people who are interested and participating in the project? So, let us take a few
examples, I have given the example of a small of a single family home there, we have a large
bungalow, you have a single person, who owns a bungalow. So, we know that, so you know
it could be one of your future homes, you are the customer.
So, we know that there is a customer. One of the stakeholders, who are the others? So, let us
take single family home as an example. Who are the others, who you would bring into this
project?
Student: Architect.
Yes, there will be an architect.
Student: Structural Engineer.
Okay.
Student: Project manager.
Would you bring a project manager?
Student: No.
Who would do a project manager?
Student: Contractor.
The contractor would do it, or the architect would do a project management in this case. Who
else?
Student: Vendors.
Vendors, suppliers.
Student: MEP
Is there MEP? What is the MEP or plumbing, but it is I would not put it as MEP. There is
some plumbing involved, but it is not as sophisticated, it is something which your contractor
can handle single-handedly. Anyone else? There are regulatory people, like the corporation,
((Refer Time: 01:50))these that, etcetera.
Student: Finance((Refer Time: 01:52)).
There can be finance, bank; there can be a regulatory and public agencies like municipal
authority, water supply, electricity, sewage all of them you will need permissions from all of
them, you know the Chennai CMDA, the Metropolitan Development Authority. So, basically
what I, what do you wanted to say is, so for even a project like this you have a lot of people,
who are involved.
Now, let us take a slightly more complex project, so this is let say a large IT building, you
will, we will go back to our original list, we certainly have a customer. You will have an
architect, you will have a structural engineer, you will have a contractor, you will have
suppliers, you will have to finance all of these, who else will be involved. There will be a
project manager here because it is a large project.
Student: You have so many contractors.
Yes.
Student: Sub-contractors.
Yes, so they are called subcontractors, in this case, because it is a single thing, single house
the contractor might have the mason, the carpenter, everybody might work with him. You do
not need a subcontractor, whereas in the large project like this you will go with
subcontractors. So, something we missed out here is, in addition to structural engineering,
you need you have foundations, geo tech, all of that will be there, but we will assume that is
the… You will really need engineering services here, not just structural; you will need, now
you need MEP.
Student: ((Refer Time: 03:48)).
MEP is part of ((Refer Time: 03:51)), you will need structural, you will need geo tech, you
will need instrumentation depending on the kind of you know, what are the kind of facilities
you have in and you need instrumentation, I am kind of filling that here.
Student: Environmental clearance((Refer Time: 04:15)).
Yes, all of that you will have, so here you might not need environmental clearance for the
house, now you will have a public agency, which will you have you might need
environmental clearances. You know it is something like the pollution control board might
come in to say that you have to be cleared, we have more public agencies coming in. What
else?
Student: ((Refer Time: 04:40)) suppliers for elevators and.
All of that will be part of the MEP; you will have now, for example, a part of the MEP and
like you said an elevator, you have air-conditioning system, you will have fire water, I mean
fire production systems. So, same similar, but the whole thing is got more complex and more
people. So, all the and all of these stakeholders are important, unless as a project manager
you manage all of them in some way or the other, you are not going to be able to complete
successfully. Do all these…
So, let us take another, you know just let us continue with this thinking, now here is a public
project, something like Delhi metro. Stakeholders almost all of the above, earlier stakeholders
are there, but now you have public at large and public comes with very different
requirements, diverse requirements. And then, we are, here we are now looking for very long
term public service, it is not, I mean we are not looking at today’s requirement, you are really
looking at very much more long time. Here is a project, can anyone recognize what this is?
No, the one below. What is it look like to?
Student: ((Refer Time: 06:01)) Refinery.
It is a refinery; it is a refinery and again, you now, you have what is the kind of engineering
that goes into the refinery, what are the types of engineers. So, most of the above earlier ones
are the same.
Student: ((Refer Time: 06:20))mechanical.
Yes, you have a mechanical for piping, chemical for the process, you have instrumentation,
you have civil, and you have metallurgy. So, now, this is, the engineering here is become far
more complicated, project management, regulatory, subcontractors, different kinds of
subcontractors. When you take the earlier project, this we primarily in the scope of a civil
engineering, here scope of a civil little bit of MEP and electrical is also certainly there. But,
now you go to our project like this, slightly different because it is public, but still more
engineering input today.
We go to something like a refinery, it is a hub of engineering inputs are required in addition

to all of the others ((Refer Time: 07:22)). Now, you go into things like a nuclear power plant,
so it can get really complex. We can go on discussing this, but the basic issue I want to bring
about is there are multiple stakeholders and unless you understand, who the stakeholders are
clearly, you will not be able to manage a project. So, a lot of project management is
understanding stakeholders and managing them properly on a project.
So, here is kind of a very comprehensive look at some of the stakeholders in a project, which
is a popular representation and if you go around, you will find it covers many of them on a
typical general project, not necessarily a construction project. So, stakeholders again, I am
just emphasizing stakeholder management is really a key issue. Now, coming back to
stakeholder management in one more aspect, ((Refer Time: 08:19)) when you take most of
these, all of them, what is your object, why is stakeholder management important. What are
the stakeholders trying to do for themselves?
Student: ((Refer Time: 08:29)) profits.
Yes, stakeholders are trying the maximize their own and all businesses, they are trying to
maximize their objectives, and unless their objectives are aligned with the project
management objectives, it is going to be very, very difficult to manage the project. So,
getting stakeholders on board, getting correct stakeholders on board and managing
everyone’s objectives and balancing is really the key, is one of the keys.
The next idea we want to discuss is on the phases of a project, this is again very, very
important to understand, how does the project begin and how does the project end. So, if you
look at, and it also is important to look at it from the, from who are the players in various
phases? So, here we have a project life cycle of phase, starting from the original idea of a
project going all the way to the decommissioning. So, here we have performing business
planning, so we can take any of this, let say take that IT building as an example.
So, one of the IT companies want to desire whether they want to set up a building, so yes. So,
here it is performing business planning, does not make business sense to invest in the
building. So, you can look at the various sub-tasks, determine resource requirements, identify
corporate objectives, develop project concept. Once the concept is approved, you go to pre-
project planning; in most of these is not it is all business decisions still, it is all you know for
business point of view they making.
You know organize pre-project planning, select project alternatives, develop project
definition, decide whether to proceed with the project, in most of this is a financial decision
you know whether there is investing the project, brings the returns it should or not if I am a
private entity. With the government entity, whether the investment will begin social returns
or development returns, and only then we come to this execute the project.
So, in the execute project phase you have developed detail design, procure equipment and
materials, construct the project, start up the facility. After that it all goes to the operation,
where you managing, operating you know looking at improvements, improving in this thing
and finally, decommissioning the projects, so this is operation part.
Now, I just want to put does in the perspective of the engineering curriculum we are learning
today. You are being, I mean most of you will be in the civil engineering program 4 or 5
years, where to do you, what is the focus of the program, which, where are we in the
program. We are only learning execution, ((Refer Time: 11:31)) design and most of your
curriculum are towards detail design. It is not even preliminary design detailed design.
So, if you look at of the curriculum here, I think 80 percent of your course work was at least
here and might be those of you, who are taking construction management you will have more
course work in the construction project aspect. So, I just wanted to put the perspective of this
is what a project goes through as project managers for the owner. So, for someone like we
talked about project participant last time, stakeholders, where does the owner interact with
this project, where does the owner come in, where does the owner go or how does the
owner’s responsibility change, where is the owner.
Obviously, the owner is involved here, how does his responsibility change throughout. Here
he has a very high responsibility, I mean responsibility is always responsible, it is owner’s
responsibility, but day to day here it is probably very high, here it is probably is less and then,
of course, it is very high again. What about someone like a contractor?
So, there is almost no responsibility in today’s contracting model; there is no responsibility in

and you know conventional model, but when you come here you have a lot of responsibility
and then, delivery and then, you… Someone like, so you can have a project manager from
two sides, you can have the owners project manager, you can have the contractor's project
manager or you know, the project scope for each is different. The owners project manager
will be looking at from at least from here to at least this delivery of the project.
The contractor of the project manager might be looking early from somewhere, and this
phase still tells delivery of the project. So, what I want to emphasize is the different
stakeholders play different roles and each other phases and ask for me finally, who is most
gain for a successful project, which stakeholder the owner. Because finally, he is the one who
is going to own it and he is going to the operate it and in the owner has to be really involved
although involvement decreases a little bit they have to be a fully involved with this
throughout the phases.
But, most of the other actors come in and leave the stage in different parts of it and how you
manage that whole you know, who comes in when, when are they brought in how much
information do they have, what are the skills how do they leave is also very, very important
part of this whole project management process.
Now, let us just focus on this phase, which comes out here, so if I take to execute the project,
and I am taken at into, what we typically call us engineering procurement construction and
commission, so you might have heard the word EPC other acronym EPC yes or no, yes. So,
EPC stands for engineering procurement and construction and many of our construction
companies today are looking at EPC as a business there, so when the owner wants you to be
built a project in the older model I can I mean in one of the models I can get someone to do
design procure the equipment and a contractor to construct.
But, there is a delay in some of that it is happening, because the design has to be fully
complete before construction starts. In the EPC model you try to get the same company, so let
say EPC I try to get the same company to do engineering, procurement, and construction.
What are the advantages, what are disadvantages?
Student: Lesser number of player certainly better.
A lesser number of player certainly.
Student: better accountability.
Better accountability, because one company is fully responsible.
Student: work and start early.

Yes, if they manage it properly work and start early.
Student: Quality.
Might be yes if work enough given at the same account company yes quality might also be
better.
Student: Efficiency of a person((Refer Time: 16:08)).
Yes, efficiency, so all of these are the advantages. What are the disadvantages? They do not
get the company who is really big enough to do EPC properly they will not be able to deliver
the project. So, EPC is lot of responsibility I want to put this a little bit on a timeline, so if
you look at conventional project delivery it could be E-procurement starts somewhere here,
and construction will start somewhere here for this, or you know, or even you can start
immediately after engineering I am just showing an overlap basically there is a lag between
engineering and construction.
So, this is not acceptable today with the time frame we have, so if choose to keep engineering
you know very engineering same lot of companies are trying to do this today. So, I am trying
to save my due time and how am I saying it by overlapping engineering, procurement, and
construction, so this model is called fast track construction. Obviously, management of this is
far more challenging than the management of a conventional method.
Yeah, yeah, so in this case also it can be done, but does not make sense for the wants to same
company to do this, and this is when a single company can do it more efficiently. Typically
here engineering is done by someone else and construction is done by someone else
procurement might be done by the owner themselves or you know some kind of consultant.
But, obviously, when I when I am can do this fast tracking it makes sense to give it to a single
company because then my communication between engineering construction I assume is very
good is much better because it is a single firm. So, and in like we discuss, which case is
management challenge is more? Fast track yes, because you have to manage constantly you
are drawings coming from engineering to construction, you know the owner then changes his
mindset is not exactly like this I will have to go back to engineering so that interface has to be
very, very well managed.
And today you will find a lot of projects and the fast track mode, but engineering is where
there is the engineering construction interface is the challenge and the missing the weak link
is there, because traditionally we have doing this and organization was a setup for doing
construction after engineering was complete, but this schedule does not permit this today.
Another point I want to discuss is the is this graph is here which goes back to our earlier
phases performing business planning to operation and maintenance, and you have two curves
the yellow curve is showing, how cost egress as a project progresses. So, you will find in the
initial phase the cost there is not much money spent, but when you are come into the design
and construction phase that when most of the money gets spent and then, operation and
maintenance, there is again some amount spent.
Now, the purple curve on that is the influence, what is says is how much can I influence the
outcome of the project. Obviously, in the earlier stages of my construction, I have a lot of
influence on the project or with little influence I can with the world with my influence I can
easily make a change. So, let say I take reinforce building I can say I am going to go with
steel or concrete where can I make the decision in the early phases after I do my design I
cannot make the decision.
So, my influences actually decrease and any influence any change I make here, what is do it
has a much bigger impact on the cost of the project. So, early in the phase, I have high
influence whether low cost implication later in the phase I have low influence with high cost
implication. So, this is the way this is something which is to be kept in mind because it is
really important to understand that you need to make a decision, you want to make critical
decisions early in the project so that changes are minimized later.
Now, you come to how is actually a construction project organized, so there are many, many,
many variations here. So, I am not saying this is just a typical structure, and I would say that
they can be asked many variations as there are companies and projects. So, this just gives you
an idea as to, where the scheduling function comes in.
So, if you take from the construction side I am looking from the contractor side you might
have a regional manager for a large contractor you will have a project manager function
might be for a specific project under the project manager you will have a variety of groups
you have the scheduling and planning, which is the function of this course and will come
back a what this person does you will have the quality control, you will have occupation
health safety environment, you will have the execution team, whose actually doing the work
you can have others, you will report project manager you will have subcontractors, who will
be doing work you know for the project.
So, this is kind of all the people on the project you certainly, then on the client the architect
the design engineers the project management consultant and I am not put them into a
particular organizational as shown relationships because depending on the contractual
conditions they can all vary. But, these are . Finally, the players could come in these are there
are different organizational responsibilities, but our focus is on the scheduling person, and he
typically reports a project manager and he is the really critical person in the construction
projects.
Lecture - 06
Project Scheduling Levels (Scheduling Engineer Responsibilities)
So, moving into the scheduling present let us see, what is responsibilities are. So, this is a
relatively… I will not say new position, but it is a position which is becoming more and more
and more critical because the time constrained on our project is more. So, if you go to today's
projects, you will find that we talked about earlier; people need to know, people need to have
knowledge and experience to be able to manage large projects.
But, today there are so many large projects that a person out of college with very, very little
experience with very, you know basic knowledge gets put in as a scheduling engineer. So,
you really have to learn a lot on the job, and if you take the responsibility of the scheduling
engineer, there is a lot of text on this, but let us just see it is a lot of work. It is to, look initial
job planning, scheduling of time, scheduling of materials, coordination of subcontractors,
monitoring of job progress, analysis of change, problem solve.
When I take up a project, these are the duties involved. You have to make the initial schedule,
then update. So, you talk about monitoring and updating the schedule throughout
construction, the responsibility of the scheduling engineer, change orders, delays, other
schedule disruptions. The schedule is going to be disrupted. How do you actually take care of
all these disruptions? Very critical.
Scheduler works very closely with the project manager, project execution team and the
subcontractors. You do not do your job they are all going to be kind of your; you are almost
like the conductor of the orchestra, or you are writing all the scores so that the project
manager can conduct the orchestra. But, basically you are in the middle of this whole
orchestra of the project and one of the very, very critical ability; you should be able to have
good communication skills in addition to the knowledge and skills of scheduling tools.
They will continuously be producing critical scheduling information for the project team. So,
without the schedule is the backbone of the project, without the schedule, the project is going
nowhere, and the scheduling function becomes really, really the important part of this whole
project management exercise. So, it is a support to project superintendent, project manager
and all other parties associated with the project. Without a good scheduling engineer, things
do not go well.
Now, when you look at the schedule, so we will take this up from the next class as to how we
are going into the detail of scheduling. But, when you look at the schedule it is very
important to understand scheduling can be done at different levels. So, I want you to kind of
look at this. So, you have what we call in executive summary or master schedule, you have
what is level 2 schedule, it is called a summary master schedule, you have project
coordination schedule.
And then, when you go into level 4 you have the project working level schedule and a
detailed schedule. Now, I leave it you to go into the definition and look at it, but this is the
basic framework for what we are going to be starting from the next lecture. But, we will not
be looking at all five schedules, we will primarily be looking at level 3 schedule, which is
where the critical path method is brought in a big way.
But, you have to understand that the level 3 schedule has to interface with the other
schedules; otherwise, it is meaningless; that is, the point 1. Point 2, can you think who would
be the use of level 1 schedule, who would be the use of level 2 schedule. So, higher you are
in the project hierarchy or other things, so typically the owner or what we talk somewhere the
regional manager from the contractors point of view will be discussing level 1 schedule with
the owner. What about level 2 schedule?
Student: The project manager.
Level 2 will be at the project manager’s level. Level 3 will be the scheduling engineer.
The scheduling engineer, he is primarily responsible for level 3 schedule, and this is where
that the all the nitty-gritty details of the overall coordination plan are. Level 4…
Mostly the execution team, so from level 4 it will be going to the execution team, and level 5
will be the detail, at the craft level they should know what the detail schedule is. So, by going
through these levels you also get an understanding that your organization of a project and
your scheduling functions, they have to be correlated and without that you will not be able to,
I mean you have to give the right report to the right person.
If you give, you know if you only schedule at level… I mean there I have seen a project
where people try to schedule at level 4 throughout, saying more detail is better. You are run
into; you cannot do level 4 schedules from the beginning because you cannot anticipate some
their activities required at that level of detail. You can, you know it is up to level 3 it is must
right at the beginning, but so level 4 and level 5 the details become as you look ahead.
So, in another way to look at or to classify this schedule is how much of time period are you
planning for, how frequently will the schedule change. So, level 1 ideally should not change,
level 2 if there are major changes might change, level 3 has more chance of changing than
level 2 depending on major changes in the project requirements or unforeseen circumstances.
What about level 4 and level 5?
Student: It can change.

It can change, at the monthly level, it can change, you know. So, if you do a very detail
schedule you know at level 3 and make it level 4 detail, you are asking for trouble, because it
is going to change on you so much that just changing the schedule will be your full-time job.
So, we will, so I mean I might not get the opportunity to keep coming back to the scheduling
levels, but this is something you have to keep in mind from a broad perspective. This is so
important because a lot of time this is where scheduling does not get done properly.
You have to produce a right schedule for the right requirement. Are there any question?
Student: What is the difference between PMC and project manager.
A project management consultant is a person, who is professionally, who is actually more

representing the owner. So, if there is a company that requires a construction service to be
done and that company does not have an in-house expert on the construction of the facility,
they will hire a project management consultant from to be their representative to get that
done. So, the project management consultant will ensure that you know design is done
properly, will coordinate between design and construction; they will take on that role.
The project manager is just the person or the role, who can you know… So, the owner might
have a project manager to look after it, but it might be only his part time job. The contractor
will have a project manager, but the project management consultant typically is the person
who takes over the owner’s interest in the construction project. I think that would be in a
summary form that could be written.
So, again summarizing this lecture, we have covered this issue of how the construction
industry is so important for national growth and you know, why we nearly need to emphasis
scheduling and other skills required for doing successful projects. We are looked at projects
stakeholders and how important stakeholders management is, we looked at the different
phases of our project, understood how projects are organized in a very broad contacts and
then, looked at levels of scheduling and how they interface with the project organization to
produce the right level for the right level of the organization.
So, we will continue next lecture in talking the basic concepts, which drive the scheduling
practice.
Lecture – 07
Week - 02
Time Management, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Gantt Charts
In this lecture what we are going to cover is Time Management and WBS, WBS stands for
Work Breakdown Structure.
We look at the objectives of this lecture, we will first look a little bit at time management,
specifically from the standard and get an overview of what are the various elements of time
management, look at the basics of work breakdown structure and then, look at some of the
simple tools which are used today for time management. And in the next lecture we will go
on to more sophisticated tools and as we know a lot of these sessions will be on the time
management tool.
Now, I would like to take you back to what we discussed in the first few classes as to plan,
monitoring and control or the PDCA cycle. Now, do you have to recall this? So, what was the
example we discussed when we talked about the plan, monitor, and control? So, I gave you
an example where we are traveling from, say IIT campus to Chennai and how you can plan,
how you can monitor and how you can control. So, what were the tools we use there?
Student: Bike
Is that the tool?
Student: No, once time…
One was, what did you use to plan and what did you use to control.
Student: Google maps
Google maps are used to plan. Yes, what is used to control?
Student: Time, watch
Watch and you need some kind of milestones or locations. So, the same concept applies to a
construction project or project management also.
If you go and look at what planning is, it is basically developing a strategy for executing a
project in order to meet project objectives; it is extremely important. Do is the executing
project with the intent to meet the objectives, monitoring and this is where the important
phase starts in terms of the feedback look. Gathering data on actual project progress and
comparing with the plan to evaluate complaints to the plan and control or act is decision-
making on interventions required during the execution of the project to keep the project on
track in order to meet objectives. So, this is what we call the complete cycle of, how we need
to, do to manage a project.
Now, when we go into the time management aspects specifically, we have to apply the plan
do check act or the plan monitor control cycle here and you can see that, in the project
management body of knowledge, you can see the project management body of knowledge.
These are the subclasses in the time management clause. So, clause 6 is time management,
and you can see that we have activity definition, we have activity sequencing, activity
resource estimating, duration estimating, schedule development, schedule control. So, these
are the basics of time management.
Now, the way the PMBOK defines, you discuss it, you have various inputs, different tools
and techniques and the output per each of this clauses. So, what I would ask you to think
about is, if we take these six clauses which of this is planning, which of this is monitoring,
which of this is control. Planning will be what?
Student: 6.123
6.1234, even 5 is the plan. So, you will find most of it comes into the planning side, the
monitoring and the control is actually 6. So, when we come, when we actually talk about the
control you will find that control is really based on project, project requirements. So, we
might not be able to give us specific detail standard for it, but 6.6 talks both about the
monitoring and about the control part, whereas you can see the amount of information given
in planning, amount of steps in planning it is far more detail.
Now, one of the critical aspects, when you look at planning, is, everything is made up of
activities. So, if you look, go back to the clauses see activity definition, activity sequencing,
activity resource estimating. So, the key to what we are doing in the planning phase
especially is on activities. So, we really have to get used to this term activities, because that is
what a project is finally made up of, that is what we look at a project, and we say, we look at
a project as it is, we look at it comprised of multiple activities and what we have to do is to be
able to identify all the activities, which is a key step and this complete…
If I take a project, break it down to it is activities and make sure all activities are completed, I
basically took care of the project and as you can see in the graphics here, this is a very
common problem-solving approach. So, you have a problem, you divide it into subproblems,
you then divided into further subproblems, you solve all the subproblem put it back together,
and you get the solution. Any idea on what this kind of approach is typically called?
Student: Work breakdown structure
Work breakdown structure is one of the steps towards it. The breaking down is, but there is a
more common term. It is called divide and conquer. So, we have all heard about this; it is
commonly used, so you basically dividing something into small tasks, taking care of the
small things and then putting it back together and you know it is a common concept and
approach we used for complex tasks. So, the project is complex, we approach it by the divide
and conquer approach.
Now, here we have some examples of what I would say common projects for you, you can
relate most to this, whether it is an industry lecture, whether it is organizing a CEAFEST or
whether it is a field trip or whether it is something like Shaastra. What I would like you to do
is to think about, what… Let us take industrial lectures; it is a fairly simple exercise. What do
you think are the activities you would like to, what are the activities that come to mind when
you are organizing an industrial lecture.
But, before I get to the activities let me take a step back, is time what are the objectives of an
industrial lecture. Let us take industrial lecture as a project. What are the objectives of an
industrial lecture? I want to use the board here, can you tell me… I mean all of you have
organized industrial lectures, what you think as an objective for an industrial lecture.
Student: A perspective from the industrial side instead of the normal acted ((Refer Time:
07:21))
So, I am calling it content. What are the other objectives?
Student: Motivation and inspiration
I would say that part of the content, I am using it as a part of the content.
Student: Time
Time, so what about time? I do the industrial lecture; I schedule it at 5 o’clock, the Speaker
everything, I mean what. The speaker comes at 9 o’clock, is it objective met? no. I schedule
the industrial lecture at 5 o’clock, I go, the room is not available. So, we see time is an
important part of achieving an objective to the industrial lecture. Is there any other, other than
time let us come back to time, but what are the other objectives you could get.
You want an industrial lecture and lecturer, and you will own, yes you want an audience,
what else do you want.
Student: Speaker
Speaker, content speaker.
Student: Resources like a projector.
You want I am putting resources like a good projector, classroom, and ambiance, everything
else. Anything else?
Student: Transportation
Transportation, is it an objective? Is it an objective or is it something that achieves an

objective? Is your objective to get really good transportation for use, is that an objective, No.
it is something that you have to do to achieve an objective. What about food or tea or coffee,
is that an objective or not? No, will your customer, who is your customer.
Student: The audience
The audience is fully satisfied with just food for thought or with any other kinds of food. So,
we will say refreshments, and I am now putting the last one as time. So, you know that even
if all of these objectives, there might be more objectives we can think of, but I just want you
to go through the exercise of kind of listing that even when you look at a something like a
guest lecture, there can be a serious of objectives you have to meet and if you list those
objectives and then you start finding, how you are going to meet the objectives you are going
to have a better chance of doing so.
Now, I put this objective of time. In how many dimensions are time important, I am kind of
using the word dimensions intentionally. What are the aspects of time that are important for
this industrial lecture?
Student: Starting time, duration...
Yes, so if I take time, you need start you need the duration, so these are critical, you have to
start at the right time you have to end time. Now, in order for you to start at the right time,
what are the other activities which are important.
Student: Transport
Yes, transport, so I am going to kind of listed out here, there is transport. What else? This is
more brainstorming, I am not trying to do any structure to it now, I am just going to what else
is important. You want to make sure things start on time, what else is important.
Student: You have intimate the speaker...

Yes, transport is important, communication.
Student: Time for setting of resources.
Yes resource availability, you have to make sure. I mean you cannot assume that the hall is
free, I just walk into it. You have to make sure that is available at that time. So, you have
resource availability.
Student: Audience availability
Audience availability and communication, so again you will find that one of your critical
parameters here is time, the objective is time and meeting time is so important, and if we start
listing down, you will find that… For example, now what is the activity you do, so we are
going to trying to now break up your project into objectives and objectives into at
deliverables, and then, the deliverables have to be have… There are certain activities which
are to be done to achieve the deliverable.
So, let us take a little further, I can go to the next level, I take audience availability. What do I
have to do? How do I ensure audience availability?
Student: Publicity, admin the schedule such that feasible hours.
Yes, I go for clashes. So, you know clashes are given good communication, I would you
know might be do long term communication then short term communication. So, this is again
lot of activities which go into organizing this industrial lecture. Now, are there any... So, the
point I wanted to make here is you can take this, start breaking it down, it dividing and trying
to take each bit and manage it separately, we can assign responsibilities to people, we can do
so many things around which might be things are getting done without a very formal
structure, might be we are already doing it, but this adds formality to it.
Let us take, why do you think among the other three are the next simpler one to organize.
Field trip, which is simpler to organize a field trip or industrial lecture, probably it is very
simpler, field trip has a lot of external work. So, I am sure you can go in the same manner and
start saying, what are your objectives and then start organizing a field trip. Is time important
in a field trip?
Student: Yes
Yes, very important. Time is one of your primary objectives, starting time you know ending
time when you reach, you know all of these, other things are also important. Let us take
something like CEAFEST, which is the next one. How is time important in CEAFEST?
Time is critical from many perspectives. Now, what are the… So, now I come to the question
again, what are the dimensions of time that are important, what are the dimensions of time
that is little different from industrial lecture to CEAFEST.
Student: There are multiple deadlines
There are multiple deadlines; there are multiple days, multiple events, multiple starts,
multiple finishes. If those finishes do not finish properly you cannot start other events, so it is
more complex, more dimension, more time issues are associated with it, but I mean very
similar to Shaastra. Again complexity just increases, but the most important part of this
exercise is the fact that time plays… Time is objective and sometimes we do not realize it, we
just go about trying to organize things without that very, very specific focus on time.
Lecture – 08
Lesson – 02
Basics of Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
So, now, here I gave a very simple initial breakdown structure, which is similar to what we
had you know we have find scheduled speaker, transport, hall arrangements, refreshments. I
can start breaking this down, and I will finally, get it into all of the activities, which you have
to do to achieve this.
Now, a similar structure can be taken for a building project. So, here I have taken a building,
and I have broken it into, what… In the first part, it is the phases of the building project.
Remember, we looked at different phases of our project, design; we looked our pre-design
phase also, but here I have taken initial part and broken into phases. We have a design, your
procurement, your project management, construction. I have taken construction and then
broken it, again broken it, divided it, I have taken the structure and again started dividing it,
so this is the work breakdown structure.
Now, we can do this intuitively which sometimes lands as in trouble, because different people
see things from different perspectives, there is also different rules to do a work breakdown
structure. So, what we will do is, we will see some of it, we will not go into too much detail
as into the standards in the work breakdown structure, but our objective here is to get
adequate work breakdown structure information to be able to start developing it. We will
actually come back to more details on work breakdown structure in a later lecture. Are there
any questions on what you see here?
Student: Project management should not be the construction be under project management?
See project management is, it actually in composes all of it is design, procurement, and
construction. So, these are tasks which have to be done as a part of a project management,
and they are separate. So, what you are suggesting is there are put, but construction is, which
means actually the whole thing can come under project management. Design, procurement
and construction can come under project management; that was it could be also I mean I will
not say it does not make sense, it make sense.
But, in the way it did here, the main thing is project managements gets to identify as a critical
task, which has to be done and there is no sequence, or there is no hierarchy here. It is just
these tasks are, these are the phases through which it is going, there is a hierarchy of
components, but not necessarily of roles as a form. Other questions?
Now, I have given a simple example here, you can see this bridge, what I would like you to
do is take a look at this drawing for a few minutes and then, can you kind of think what are
the, how would you develop a work breakdown structure for this, what are the activities you
would want to represent and let us try to identify what are the proper approaches to break this
project into it is activities. Remember, we are trying to find activities. Any questions?
Student: You have to look at the sequence of the activities.
You have to look at the sequence of the activities, sequence actually comes a little later, if
you go back you remember, where we said identifying the activities, estimating the duration
and then, sequence. If you jump into a sequence that is okay, if that is a way you visualize
that; that is, fine. But, when you look at this, let me explain what you see, basically you have
a two-span bridge, you have pre-cast piles, and then, there is pile cap. There is an apartment;
there is a pier, there are pre-cast beams, and then, there is the approach, which is built on the
east side and the west side and the road is already there. So, this is the basic elements of it.
So, if we now you are thinking, of course, you need some civil engineering domain
knowledge to think of the activities. What are the… What would be the activities you could
think?
Student: Surveying
Surveying, yes. So, let us take it more for the construction from the construction side. You
seeing the bridge, yes let us start from pile driving. So, that is I am taking that as a scope of
what this is, before you drive the piles, what you do?
Student: soil testing.
The soil is tested, you know you need piles, you come up with specs, you actually mobilize
on site, you are all ready now, you have been given the construction go ahead. So, we go
back all the design is done here, the procurement you know most we are not worrying about
the procurement here, we are assuming the cement will be available when you want, steel
will be available when you want, you know formwork is available, equipment is available, all
that we are assume. We are coming only to the construction part of the whole bridge.
So, what is the first, so let start bottom up that is one way to go, I what do you excavate. So,
let me say these are not, these are let me say these are driven piles. So, I am not necessarily
excavating to the piles; here I am going to drive the piles in and they are precast piles. So,
they have to be driven. So, what do and I assume now I can also give you an assumption that
piles are precast on site.
So, the first activity would be to precast piles now; that gives your clue it could be pre-cast
lines of pre-cast beams you can see beams are also pre-cast what could be.
Student: Set up the facility for the pre-cast task.
So, I fine, fine, so that is the mobilization task, look at the structure. So, now, our piles are
pre-cast, and my beams are pre-cast. What are my other options? So, let us go into the
methodology I pre-cast the piles, now what do I do the piles, I would drive the piles. Yes, I
drive the piles. So, after I drive it, I do create consult the pile cap. So, there is some sequence
coming in, but I will have to think of the pile cap. After the pile cap I will have to think of the
abutments and the piers after that the beams, and then, there is a deck slab and road over it, so
if you kind of look at the bridge…
So, you have cast piles casting beams then, what you think it is driving the piles the pile cap,
abutment east that middle pile, pile cap, the pier, the west piles, pile cap, abutment, place my
beam here, place the next beam, deck and then, the. So, this is the sequence now based on the
sequence I did I mean of course, in the scheduling and whatever we do the sequence base an
important part.
But, lot of times will might not be able to see the sequence immediately you should have to
be able to identify the components and we able to break down the project into component
breakdown, which will then make sure that once we have all the components listed in the
work breakdown structure once we do all of it in the whole bridge should be done.
So, if you actually go into this you can see all of the activities which we talked about are here
take a look is there something you would think of it differently look something you would
changes I am not even talking sequence I am not talking of sequence 1 to 15 does not imply a
sequence it just identifies activities I should complete delivering my project sequence will
come later. The way this is organized is there anything we would say I do not this could be a
little different especially with 14 and 15. What do you think about 14 and 15?
Student: The beam is constructed, we could actually do it for a single step.
So, here and actually know again what thinking of the sequence I am thinking of the
organization no I am again sequence I am thinking the organization is my is the person who
does my road is the same person does the deck slab or is my road construction different from
my deck slab construction. So, in a road requires a different kind of a way of a doing this
deck slab and I might say that this is not I want to break this up I want to have road separate,
approach road east, approach road west, deck slab east and deck slab west as a separate units
of responsible separate components that have to be done it I am just giving it as a possible
break up.
Most of the others fit logically into where they are logically into where they are you cannot
actually you can break it up, but they logically fit into what there this is just put as I just put it
up as a suggestion. Now, is there any other level of detail you can think on this for example,
we have cast piles some of you mention one of you mention that you know now setting up the
casting yard setting up the formwork, setting up you know setting up the batching plant all of
that could be a representative it depends on whether you think it is required are you know
when I say something like that whether it comes from the activity imply. Each of the
concreting activity will require some kind of formwork, should I say you know mobilize
forms is that, or you know ((Refer time: 10:49)) strip form, cure all of these are there.
But, here is at the much more abstract level we will see one of the challenges of our work
breakdown structure is to identify the level of abstraction you want for an activity how detail
should I go how abstract should it be and we will take that up as we go, but please keep that
in mind. Any questions on this?.
So, here I have given, we have taken construction you know I can start breaking it down I can
take superstructures, substructure, roads, procurement again. So, this is I am taken I am
actually going bottom up I took the activities it is a… I can start I can organize it into this
WBS. So, we will be doing this at a later stage when we start also entering this into doing for
analysis with this.
Student: Based on individual perception.
You know, so you should is based on, so the here we come into this mix of art and science.
So, we are basically saying that identification of activity is right now is seem more of an art
than science no there is certainly a lot of art in identifying an activity, but the science with
comes to what is the purpose of the project. What is the purpose of the identifying activities?
But, you are right the way you interpret the bridge under the way we actually you know to
start at structuring it there is there can be the difference is opinion.
But, let me ask you the question you are seen the bridge in this form, how would you
reorganize this?.
Student: ((Refer Time: 12:45)) approach.
That is acceptable; that is to me that is a reasonable suggestion, and I purposely combined it.
So, that we can see that is a that is something that comes the other parts 1 to 13 how else
would you break it can be it can go further detail no doubt about it
Student: we can rearrange actually like though pile caps first drive all the pile caps. And
then, start sequences
That is sequence we are not discussing, how would you logically, what is the logical structure
you would have which is different another structure could be I can say concreting is
something are as we said earlier I only say substructure work superstructure work just leave it
at that is too abstract this is one level of detail further and; however,. So, if you look what on
what basis is this broken down what is the component bring down.
So, we have taken the various component of the bridge and try to break it down as much by
component. So, once we put all these components together, we have the bridge and generally
construction that is a kind of way one of the most common base one of the probably the
easiest way break down because components of physical. But, a lot of time say something
like service a project management of service you cannot break it down by component.
But, in construction yes you can allow break it down by component, but you have to realize
that the breaking down by component is still only one view does not give we might require
other views in of project. For example, we might want a view from different subcontractor I
might have do I mean do I might have the same subcontractor like all of concreting could be
one subcontractor which means a piling and the deck slab does not mean does not need
different people for I want to I want concreting view to the project not the component view to
the project.
So, these are things that can at change views and this important to understand it is multiple
views exist and might be when we look at it from the level we are today that component is
easiest to look at as you get into more complex situation with multiple teams is looking at
different aspects you will find that there are views, which you cannot even see which others
needed it in that perspective we able to management the project. Coming back to this issue of
detail remember we talked about schedule levels, level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 level 5.
So, the detail you do also made depends on the level of the schedule which your are working
and sometimes when you are in the in the beginning in the higher level you there is no
meaning in going into too much detail. Other questions or points?. So, here we raise this
question is this common question what is the level of detail require. So, it says the level of
detail require basically it is a plan communicate monitor control the project given the type of
project scope package deliverables and duration.
So, for example, and other very important thing is a level of detail is duration I am I am in an
in a shut down better of in project where to let us say you have a power plant, and you have
the boiler shut down for you to do maintenance. So, in this case, the boiler can be shut down
only for a few days, and it is critical that the boiler come back up and the power plants starts
generating again what is the what is the detail you will go to from a duration perspective it
will be an hourly it even a half hourly duration your activity has to be at that level of detail as
suppose to level of project it is going to take 4, 5 years to complete it can be weeks, months,
because that is a level and control it.
So, the control depends on also the time scale and what is you are deliverable from the
project the second question is you know what activity should we consider like we have said
WBS should be comprehensive, there should be no gaps in the job, job logic does not
necessarily mean sequence; it means at once have completed all the elements of WBS my job
should be fully completed. All activities from my job should be accounted for so when you
talked about project management being a part this is something that you use to be missed
people would not put project management in the WBS.
Because, it was not a what you call it was not a component of a something like that no
drawings were not coming out the project management even though the plan that is not a
component, but there is a lot of money spend on project management there are resources on
project management. So, we should make sure that all paths of jobs are taken care of when
we do is WBS and when we decompose WBS at each level, hundred percent of the work
apply to the next higher level is.
So, these are some other basic rules, but still, we will find that when you start trying to break
up the project into its activities into its elements and organize it in the form of work
breakdown structure, it is not that easy for everyone to see the same perspective as we just
experienced.
Now, I just put this to show you this is the question this is asked very commonly what is a
level of details and you know there are guideline such as this, which gives you checklist you
say you know you have to answer if you take a look at this list should the work package we
decompose further this says the greater the number of positive answer should have followed
in question is stronger the justification for breaking down from work package.
See the rule is not it is not a very black and white rule it is a gray rule it says greater stronger
justification and that is the nature of the job. So, you can see the there are there are a list of
questions here.
And that does not end there quite a few questions, and once you can answer these question
then you probably have a justification or in an answer should I go into more detail on it and
this is a question faced by a professionals. So, without a lot of experience with a lot of a of a
of planning knowledge everything when you come in that is still a question as to how the
detail should I go in a work breakdown package. This, the reference to this is given below I
would encourage you to read it if you more curious about learning about a what how what
level of detail to break down.
So, we need to step back and if you take a work breakdown structure you have multiple views
you have the product view the process view you can break it down by location you can break
it down by responsibility there are many other logical views, and the challenge is that all in a
when you take a project and all its stakeholders one or the other view is always applicable
design.
So, somewhat we say here is you can you get actually you get a multidimensional work
breakdown structure. In some cases, you have to actually take all of these views develop an
n-dimensional work breakdown structure, which can be sorted the way you want based on the
view you want. Today, with computer programs and you know software, that is possible we
will see a bit of that later in the course.
Lecture – 09
Lesson – 03
Tools for Time Management
Now, we move into this topic of the time management tools. So, the identifying these
activities are really a critical part of being able to apply the tool, without identifying activities
we cannot, there is not much we can actually manage. So, here I have listed some of the
common tools, which are around and we will be covering quite a few of this, but I am starting
of the basic one lists or a calendar. Do we consider calendar is a time management tool?
Student: It is most basic
It is most basic; a diary is the time management. We will go on to bar charts and Gantt charts;
that is in the next lecture. It is a slightly more sophisticated way of time management. Go into
critical path method gets even more involved a little more detailed than bar charts, go into
something like program evaluation review technique or PERT, now you getting little
probabilistic, Monte-Carlo simulation. Again more, again probabilistic and representing
uncertainty, linear scheduling method or location based management system.
Now, you are bringing in a slightly different view to scheduling. Theory of constraints,
dependency structure matrix, the lists goes on. The challenge again here, which tool do I use
so which job.
So, a lot of time is tempting to use a complex tool or even a simple job saying, because of
the, what do you say the charm in using a complex tool. So, we have seen many projects in
which the team would say I would like to use pert because it is probabilistic modeling and I
have a lot of uncertainty in my project, so I wanted to use the most sophisticated technique.
But, might not be justified, but I want to use Monte-Carlo simulation because it really
simulates my project, but the overhead of running Monte-Carlo simulation overhead of
getting data to run Monte-Carlo simulation, just really does not justify the using the tool.
So, the utility of the results you get out of it is just not that. So, the root we should probably
use here is using the simplest tool, which can get your job was done and this again is not,
how would you say it, it is not that simple to execute. You have actually to develop a good
judgment or what is a right tool for your kind of work. Any questions or suggestions or points
on this?
Let us go to the simple tool. How many of you do lists? 1, 2, 3, four everyone, everyone is
good time management, people, everyone does lists.

So, you do the lists, and you do not follow the lists. So, you can see lists have been around for
a long time; you use to get the old paper form of the list where you was supposed to do to-do
lists. You can see it there, you know the last one is probably what is the best to do lists,
nothing to do all the times, so you just crash it out, I have done, and you can see that out, this
is the transform from paper to your smartphones, computers, everything, your outlook, you
know Google calendar, what. Everything is, you know Google as a task lists.
So, this to-do list is a very common part of our time management tool. Does it really do time
management? What is the time dimension in the To-do list?
Student: Start activities are there.
Is there at time aspect to-do tool?
Student: If you associate time, the deadlines with them ((Refer Time: 04:25)).
If you put to do on a calendar, then there is a time aspect tool. If you do to do without a
calendar, basically there is in this window of time you need to do so many things. There is
no; there is a kind of an implied time management in it, but basically what is a list now. The
list is activities which you have to do to achieve something, which you want to in that week
or in that day or whatever.
So, you are doing activity identification, you are listing the activity, you are not putting a
specific time on of it, all of it and like I said we do the list, but a lot of times you doing the
planning, you are not doing the monitoring or the control. All you are doing the planning you
are doing the monitoring and control only in the very, very, very last minute, which tends to
upset your other plans. Now, what is the difference between a to-do list and a calendar tool?.
A calendar certainly has, you have a time dimension on your activity and the time dimension
again it is a single time dimension usually, saying that you are going to, you have the start
typically on a calendar we enter on this day I do this, you might have a duration also, so that
is what the calendar.
And again the calendar is gone from it is a paper from to highly sophisticated electronic
forms, that will do all kinds of things for you if you are willing to do.
So, I would like to take this discussion now, back to our earlier example, which tool would
you use for what or do you need something more sophisticated. Take the industrial lecture,
what is the tool you would use, is a to-do list in a for what is, how would you actually, now I
am getting into a little more detail. Last time we identified the activities, calendar for the
industrial lecture, what could you do on the calendar.
Student: Starting from communication from the lecture speaker, as we confirm by this date.
So, you would take dates, and you would say that what you could do on each date, what you
should achieve by each date would be done. You would also probably say when should I start
something and by surely when should lists be taken care, what is the… Say you want to do an
industrial lecture schedule by in, let say two weeks time. You want to arrange for a lecture in
two weeks time, two weeks from today. What is the duration of your activities or to what
level of detail would you plan, daily or hourly?
Student: During the lecture, it should be an hourly basis.
During the lecture, so as you get closer to the lecture that you are going to get level five
schedule it will be hourly that means refreshment should arrive at specific time lecture should
start at a specific time should end this that all of these would be and have pickup the speaker
at a specific time It would be do hourly are even to the minute. But, I should send that letter
out the invitation letter should go it did does it need to be hourly no it can be daily probably
you can't have a week it can be daily it should go by this day it does not matter it goes I mean
shouldn't matter it goes 9 o'clock or by 5 o'clock by this day I should send it you are giving
enough of a buffer on that for various, various uncertainties on that day is enough.
But, you cannot afford to use day in the in the final details when you go to the last part of
your lecture you cannot afford to use that. So, calendar is okay and not being, so complex you
can still write down the schedule in a written form you do not need that when you get into the
only thing a calendar is got final your calendars went from a daily calendar to an hourly
calendar as you get to the final sequence of the lecture, when you go into field trip it is the
same calendar.
CEAFEST lot of it is calendar can calendar can take a lot of preliminary activities, but the
challenge, now is you are going to have you are going to have multiple activities looking for
the same resource. So, all will be a required by 3, four events. So, I cannot afford just to say
okay hall is available I cannot afford. Can I plan events independently no I have to plan it and
see? So, you will actually need something little more sophisticated, than the calendar
something like a yeah something like a Gantt chart which we will cover.
But, yes you can do it with the calendar the color coding this that everything you could use it,
but we are looking for something more sophisticated when you go to a something like
Shaastra something like Gantt chart would be, or a bar chart would be adequate would be
adequate you do not need anything for more sophisticated. So, this is what we are going to
cover in the next class which is Gantt chart. We will understand how Gantt chart is a bit of
the history and how it is developed.
But, meanwhile what I would ask you to do is to actually take up any upcoming project are
involve with think we know whether it is an exam that is coming preparation for an exam and
resulting in exam or whatever you would like to think it whatever is coming up in the next
one month they will be a certainly be involved some project or the other I know some of you
involved with CEAFEST. Develop the work breakdown structure with the following aspects
in mind what are the time-related objectors what is a level of activity details are appropriate
what are the alternative structures for the work breakdown structure, which structure is more
appropriate for you and the team.
And the critical thing is to it to be able to identify organize activities you needed to plan
communicate and control the deliverables of the project from time perspective by looking
only from the time perspective, not the cost or anything else. So, I would like to discuss to a
kind of think about is, and we will discuss it in the continuing session.
Lecture – 10
Lesson – 04
Gantt / Bar Chart – History, Representation
Progress Monitoring, Uses, Steps to draw a Bar chart
In this lecture, we are going to start covering some more details on the tools such as Gantt
charts and we will look at the learning objectives here. I will cover a little bit on the history of
the Gantt chart, how you represented alternative representations, how we can use the Gantt
chart for monitoring and we will do a little bit of an exercise, and then, I will demo a
spreadsheet which we can use to be able to do simple Gantt charts.
Now, when you go into the history although it's called a Gantt chart, it was actually there is
the evidence that this form of a chart was originally used by a Polish engineer and he was
actually in steel in the steel works, and he used what you see here, it is called a Adamiecki
harmony graph. So, it is almost like a musical score, which, the difference here is you can see
the bars are coming down vertically as opposed to what Gantt designed later on. So, it was
only around 1910 that Henry Gantt actually came out with this, with what we used today is
called the Gantt or the Bar chart.
And; obviously, the what came out of Eastern Europe was not an English, so the English-
speaking world did not take up to it and what Gantt came up was in English, and so we
associate this chart with the Gantt chart and interestingly you will find that Gantt was
associated with Frederick Taylor. So, he had worked for some time with Frederick Taylor,
went into this principle of scientific management and so, at that stage it was kind of an era
when factories and production places were looking at scientific ways of doing management,
and Gantt was one of these people who came up with, what we know as the Gantt chart.
Now, incidentally, it was very popular for production purposes and world war 1. It was used
for planning the Hoover Dam, interstate highways in the US, it got really popular, because of
its simplicity. Now, there is also evidence that Germans used a similar chart. So, what you
see here on the right is a chart that is used for bridge construction in Germany. So, while the
world knows it as the Gantt chart, there is evidence that never this is common sense based
approach, which was used by quite a few engineering managers in the past.
And I recommend you read the reference given below, it gives you history of the Gantt chart,
It refers into more detail on what is covered on this slide and it also gives you access to the
original books by Gantt on how he developed the chart and we know, what it is purposed
were, and these are now out of copyright. So, it is public domain, and you can actually see
how some of the management thinkers, at that stage who were trying to optimize production.
Now, when we actually get the representation like Gantt chart, you are familiar with this and
some form or the other, it does not need a lot of explanation. But, just look at the simplicity
we had activities, which are listed here on the left of the chart there is a activity and on the
top which is time. Now, you remember last class what was our objective? What was the
objective of the earlier lecture?
Student: Work breakdown structure.
Work breakdown structure. What does the work breakdown structure do?
Student: Basically it recognizes, you recognize all the activities that involved in the work.
So, by using the work breakdown structure, we want to be able to identify the activities, and
once we identify these activities, we can actually put it suppose we able to listed down here.
So, we assume that some kind of activity identification exercise has taken place before the
bar chart is made to list the activities. On the time axis here we have days, and we have not
actually covered the topic of how do we estimate the duration of activity. So, that will come
in the next lecture, but this is also important.
So, we just need, we need two inputs. What are the inputs we need to draw a bar chart?
Activities and time, start time and duration. So, we have the activities which we got from
work breakdown structure or some other means; we need to know when the activity is going
to start, and we need to know the duration of the activity. So, with that you can actually draw
this, you can easily see that. Now; obviously, just drawing the bars on a graph is one thing,
but making it meaningful in the context of the project you are trying to do is really the key
question here.
And as we get into the exercises later you will find that, when you have to draw when you
have to put the bar into where are you going actually to place the bar; that is going to be some
of the key questions.
Now, if we look at what are the aspects that the bar chart shows you, you can see one is
certainly what are the various activities are when an activity begins and ends, you know how
long each activity scheduled to last, so this we have discussed before. So, I can get more
information I can go on a particular day, say like day 12 and see, what are the activities that
have to be performed on that day.
So, now, I am not going from an activity side I am going on a day side and finding what
should be the activities that are performed. I can find what activity overlaps with what and
the last part I can find when you know what is the duration of the project. So, this project
takes 25 days, what is the actual duration of the whole project. So, this is all basic planning
information, and you can see that most of these are; obviously, related to time. Any
questions?
Now, there are different forms of a bar chart, so this is a sample of a milestone chart, so here
you find there are no bars actually, but you have the same concept. You have time on the x-
axis, you have activities, and you are just taking, you are just placing points on when an
activity should be completed or how much can an activity, can be what is the most you can
extend an activity.
So, this is kind of a milestone chart, which is very popular. Typically when we go back to the
levels of scheduling, if we take the highest level of scheduling, it is more of a milestone chart.

Now, another form of the bar chart, it need not be continuous, you can see here that we have
continuous A and B. Now, I have in the second graph here the second bar chart here, what is
represented. Discontinuously happens. So, what is constant in both?
Student: Duration, total time.
The total, would you call that duration.
Student: The total timing was, the total working time is same.
The total working time is the same, so in A's three days and you can see that here 1, 2, three
days. So, the effort put for this activity A is the same, the effort put for activity here is, for B
is five days and here we have split it up.
So, there is no reason a bar chart has to be continuous as I have shown here. We can also split
up the effort in a duration for the activity because that is what often happens. So, you know
for examples A could be done by a person who is not available on day 3, 4 and 5, which
means you need flexibility to represent it in a non-continuous form. So, do keep this also in
mind, that you will be able to bar chart does not need to have a continuous representation.
Now, another unique aspect, what you very convenient aspect of a bar chart is the fact that
you can use it the progress monitor. So, here you can see that you have the regular bar chart,
which is continuous, and this is a plan and ask progress is made you can start shading the bar
and show you know where am I?. So, here I mean I might be on the particular time period
and how much your progress has been made, so this is either you can shade in the bar, or you
can show a parallel path provide and see how much of it is continue.
Now, in some of these cases, it becomes tricky to say what do we mean by progress. So, this
we will we will take up this question later has to how do we define progress in what you
mean by progress we will take this up to some extent in this class, but certainly a lot more
when we take up project monitoring module of this course.
So, here is another way in which monitoring is done there a you have you have bar chart here
you have the progress chart the green shows the progress made now what we have here is the
line showing the day on which way the current day and what we showed in red here it could
be something like cost how is the cost of the project varying with respect to time. So, we have
a plot a graph like this to show you how this happen we will plot a graph like this and what is
shown what do you think the green line here?.
Yes, the red is the plan or the estimated cost. So, it is the cash flow for the estimate, and the
green is what is… Once a project is started progressing what is the actual cost?
Student: Green, above the red, because mostly you have the…
You can have the green above the red, but it also depends on I mean just let's just take this
question if the green is below the red what could what are the two things it would mean?.
Student: may be overestimated
yes it is overestimated, and I am doing the below cost or
Student: going behind schedule
yes that is the other part that is going behind schedule I am not complete I am not completed
enough of my project progress I do not spend the money it could be in that it could be either
Student: B is unfinished activities

yes. So, right now B should have been finished it is not finished. So, we are actually behind
schedule
Student: it could also be below the estimated
it could it could have been below, but right now when you look at the schedule there are
many activities which are should have been finished, which are not finished
Student: also may be the progress also wasn't good for the cost the expense is very high let
us say there might be a lot of overheads.
So, right now the question is can you make the conclusion why this below you cannot make a
conclusion it could be either that and but when looking at the progress bars what do you
think?
Student: it could do mostly that in the work assignment company
Work assignment company. So, you have not spent money because work for that money has
not been completed, so yes, yes spent less. So, now, when you know once you get work. So,
when you go to the end of the project what is likely let us say the project is fully completed
the green will be over there. So, these are the scenarios that are possible and When we get
into the monitoring will get into the much more details of this.
And, so when we start just to summarize when we when we want to draw a Gantt chart, these
are the steps one who take', identify activities, you will identify milestones identify expected
time and sequence of tasks, draw the horizontal time axis you will write the activities and
represent the activities for specific time duration with bars or with milestones are whatever is
required. Now, when we come into the last two, the last two are, where you are filling the
bars based on an as they are completed and keep track of the progress.
Lecture - 11
Develop a Bar Chart (Exercise)
What I want to do now is to kind of give you are a chance to make a bar chart, and We are
going to take two exercises. We will take one from yesterday's class, which is doing the guest
lecture. So, can you at least, can you identify five activities, associated with the guest lecture
and draw a bar chart, and assume that the guest lecture has to be scheduled 30 days from
now. So, the scope of the project is to schedule a guest lecture exactly, 30 days from now,
and that is the time. That is when your CEA wants your guest lecture. What are and I want it
to be a five activity; I want you to limit yourself to five activities, and I want you to think of
what is the kind of bar you are going to draw for each of them. So, we will take a couple of
minutes to do this and then I will come back.
So, first, we will take the activities. How many of you are ready to give me the activities? We
will probably, I will get feedback, and we will converge on our set. What are your activities?
Student: (refer time: 01:28) First of all invitation to the speaker, communication to the
audience, arrangements, transport, lecture
Now, anyone has something different? (refer time: 01:44)
Student: Finalizing the speaker...
So, probably, I would start with that; you have to select the speaker; so, select I will say,
select and finalize.
Student: (refer time: 02:07)
Yes. So, when we say finalize the speaker, when I say select we have we will be looking at
making say, five phone calls, finding who is available, because a day is fixed; topic,
everything and then, finalizing on a particular speaker. So, this is all contained in that. What
would be the second activity?
Student: Inform and publicity.
Publicity for the talk. Three?
Student: Infrastructure bookings (refer time: 02:43)
Make bookings. Four?
Student: Transportation...(refer time: 03:01)
make
Student: If you just take a videography of this particular lecture, then you have to distribute
the content again.
So, do you want to say audiovisual arrangements?
Student: (refer time: 03:37) yeah that could be one
You want to make it as audio visual. So, we are talking about videography; we are talking
about making sure projectors available, computers; we will leave it at that. We guys now
want to refreshments; it is good one. So, these are the priority you get. The room comes with
the refreshments; is it?
Student: Yes.
Yes, but it is a different letter; you cannot. So, what is the next thing that is on our mind?
What do we have to do?
Student: Duration (refer time: 04:16)
Yeah, we will have to look at. So, let us just put, I am going to put a column here and call this
the duration. So, this is the activity; this is the duration. I am not worrying about; we will be
thinking about the sequence; we have to think of sequence also, but let us just talk about
duration. So, I want, this is little tricky. I want you to think how are we going to, how are we
going to estimate duration one and what do you think is likely duration? Select and finalize
speaker.
Student: The time given before the deadline.
Yes. So, you have 30 days.
Student: So, maybe within five days (refer time: 05:01) finish the.
So, you are giving yourself five days. So, remember you are giving yourself five days. So, I
am going to put five here. Giving publicity for the talk.
So, this is thing actually, you have a buffer of 25 days, but are you going to do publicity on
every day.
Student: (refer time: 05:28) to do four times or five times.
So, do you want to put it as 25 or do you want to do it as a non-continuous or discrete bar

chart?
Student: non-continuous bar chart.
Yes, you want to do it as a discrete bar chart.
Yes. So, now, we know that we need five man-days of 5 days of effort. So, I am just going to
put it as 5-D. This is going to be five continuous days. You can assume that yes; you are
going to work on five continuous days. Make a booking for the room?
Student: For one day.
One day should be fine. Make transport arrangement?
Student: One day.
One day. Audiovisual arrangements? So, so when you come one day, one day, one day; what
is it mean?
Student: It could be done actually anytime.

It could be done, but these are more milestone events, and you have one day; the critical
aspect here is the duration does not matter. So, actually, if I am thirty days from here, I could
make this on the 29th day. As far as my time management goes it is okay, but would you try
to do this on the 29th day? No, because you want to make sure that the hall; it is very likely
that the resource will not be available to you if you do it in the last minute. So, you have to
decide how many days ahead would you do this?.
Student: 2 days.
Two days, three days again, I mean you take our environment; this is why you guys run
around so much. Yes, one week or two weeks is what I would say. Remember, you have I
mean, we are going all the way here; you are going to 30 days here. So, if we have, so now,
we need to start. So, I am going to take, I am not going to draw this perfectly to scale, but this
is going to be five days here. What are we going to do here? When are you going to start
publicity?
Student: (refer time: 08:03) after...
Yes. So, at least one day after this, you are going to start one and then, when are you going to
end publicity?
Student: Just before this.
Yes, somewhere here you are going to have, and somewhere in between, I am going to
distribute.
Student: (refer time: 08:31) if somebody is going to.
No, the question is, are you going to put effort? If you are going to put effort and your
resources required; by all means, put it, but if you, I am going to put poster here and then, I
am going to leave it, and I do not need a resource to do it, it does not mean. See, when I draw
this bar basically, means what? I am committing resource on each and every day. So, a bar
chart can also mean more than simply time. So, this is one of the things. If you read the
history of the paper, I mean, the paper on the history of Gantt chart, you will see how Gantt
just did represent time on it. He represented resources; he represented things like a bonus for
people, the productivity of people, lot of things went into his representation. Fine, now, we
are now, looking at let us say 1, 2, 3 and this is the end of the 4th week. Make bookings for
the room?
Student: 2 weeks before.

So, somewhere here.
Student: (refer time: 09:42) milestone events.
Yes. So, I want to make sure make a booking for a room or it is like, it is almost I mean,
does it take a whole day?
Right, it only takes half an hour to do it.
Student: But, it should be before after the (refer time: 09:59)
Yes, you know you can do it. So, actually 2 weeks, this is giving an adequate buffer, but
ideally, I should just finish it here.
Student: (refer time: 10:12) before the publicity is started.
No, I am going to make a booking for a room. The room is available; yes, you are right. It
should be before the, I mean, always you can have publicity with this room or without the
room.
Student: Update the publicity
Update the publicity, but really it makes the best sense to have all the information. You fix it;
you merely out of these speakers confirm; you book the room. Why do you want to wait for
the last minute? So, we will go with it there. And again, we can see, another thing we have
done; that publicity for talk, we have actually given a whole day effort here. Is it a whole day
effort?
Student: Just for half an hour.
Just for half an hour, which means we should do market in that manner. When we take the
second example, you will see how that becomes even more relevant, because if I take; it is
easy for me to put the whole day and say, I am locking the whole day, which means you as
the resource, the resource you allocate; that is not available for the rest of the day, or you
have to say this, and you have to say one fifth of the resource. So, that is also another way of
going about it. Make transport arrangements? Same, you can do the same thing; once a
speaker is fixed, you can, I might do this; I might confirm this to say that we almost need to
do this, right. We almost always have to do a follow-up, because last minute; some things can
change. So, you will say yes, I am going to make the booking here; I am going to make the
booking here; I am going to follow up before, or you know, is something goes wrong, then I
am going to take?
Student: Preventive.
Preventive, control actions I have to take, but it is better that I built in a little bit of
monitoring also here. Audio video arrangements? It will be the same thing. So, we have seen
that a bar chart is not simply drawing bars, taking duration and you know, if we could, we
would have been tempted to do this five days and then, draw all one-day bars before the 30th
day, but that is risk here. First of all, you do not need that one day; two, it is a risky thing to
do. So, when you start making a plan like this, we can say that. So, now, I have fixed this
speaker, and I am on this day. If I am not taken care of this task, I know that I am behind. I
am now on this day. I have to make sure that my publicity has been done. All these tasks
have been taken care of. I have a way to now that I have developed a plan that is fairly
realistic.
I have a way to monitor it. Instead of this, let me say I have done; I am going to do publicity
all of the time. There is no monitoring pass over because you are not going to do publicity
every day, every hour at this and you assume, you have not really represented it the way you
intend to do it, and so, there is going to be difficulty in monitoring. Is that ok? Any
questions? So, you will find that even a simple tool like this can be used, if used you know,
appropriately it can be very powerful for planning and then control. I want to take a second
example. The second example is something which you do quite frequently, which let us; how
much time do you get to studying for the final exams?
Student: 3 days.
Three days. So, let us give yourself five days to study for a final exam. How many subjects?
Student: Five (refer time: 14:42)
No, we will take five days. So, let us keep this simple. We will take five days to study for a
final exam, and we can either have, we can have two finals in a day or three finals on one
day, two finals following it. So, let us take. So, you got this scope. So, you have five days to
study. There are five finals; three on the first day; two on the second day. Think of what is
your activity structure.
And how are you going to plan it? You think what your activities are first of all? To me, there
is a naturally restricted way I am thinking about it. You decide what your activities are. So, to
make sure that we are all thinking the same way, what do you think your activities are? How
many activities will you have?
Student: (refer time: 15:42) activity.
Like what?
Student: Studying for x subject (refer time: 15:50)
How many subjects are there?
Student: (refer time: 15:53) five subjects
That is what I am saying. So, to me the problem itself, unless you say pre-preparation,
preparation, post preparation, studying from this book.
Student: If we are going on the 8-hour basis or something, you want to include the other
works that. Suppose, you know means or whatever.
No, we just take study. So, here you are only going to put your study. You are only going to
represent your study time. Other time is other time. So, the schedule, basically, like you have
a timetable, right. You have a timetable for these things. This is going to show you; it is a
time table basically, but in the form of the bar chart, and you have to be able to use the bar
chart. Remember, your time scale here becomes something, which you have to think about,
which you want to think of yes; equal weightage for all subjects and you want to probably,
spend equal time for all the subjects; one assumption.
Student: (refer time: 17:28) revision time
So, if you want, I call all of it as study time. This should be your revision; 5 days is for
revision. You should have studied throughout the thing and these five days is for revision. Do
you want to include time on the day of the first exam as not for studying? We will assume
that also.
Yes, whether you can; you probably will study for the last two, but we will not account that
time to be included in the other time.
So, if we take activities; we have let us say subjects A, B, C, D, E; duration is one day.
Basically, your whole effort is we are saying day 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, right that is the total effort you
are going to put. Now, the question is how are you going to plan that effort. So, you have day
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and then, you have exam starting. So, tell me what is yours?
Student: Even such as day 1 and day 2, we are studying (refer time: 19:31).
So, we have A, B, C will be under the first day; D and E will be under the second day.
Student: (refer time: 19:40) the second-day exams.
Yes. So, now you come; you have to come up with the strategy, and each of your strategies
can be. So, one strategy, a very straight forward strategy can be this; very straight forward
strategy. Would you use it?
Student: No.
No. So, now, you are coming with saying no; I do not like that strategy; that is a strategy I
will not use. So, remember I have each of this, each of the bars represents a single day. What
would be other strategies?
Student: So, you could actually.
How many subjects could we study in a single day?
Student: Two.
Two.
Student: (refer time: 20:20) you would want to split your time into 12 hours of each and
whatever.
12 hours of each or it could 24 hours of studying?!
Student: No, in the twelve hours you have your extra time.
So, 12 hours of total study.
Student: No, I am saying you have your split up (refer time: 20:34)
Right. So, basically you will spend half and a half, which means how many actual days will
you take for a subject?
Student: Two.
Yes, two actually, two calendar days will be taken for a subject. I could represent your plan;
go back with white; it seems to be the same color. I could represent a plan like so, I can now,
if you are saying, yes, I am going to do that. Here, where do you want to start? You want to
start with D and E, or you want to start with A and B?
Student: D and E.
So, you might say I am going to do D, E; that is done with. Then, you have three more days,
three more subjects. It is up to you, but you have actually now, under this; you have actually
got it discrete; it is not a continuous activity, and you are going to, you can do it any way you
want. You can do it as 1, 2, but this is your time chart; yes, half a day; that is what is
important to understand. You could do 1, 2 and I could probably do; will that work? So, this
is over; A is over. What about B; when would you want to do?
Student: (refer time: 22:25) on the fourth day.

So, I could do A and C on 3 and 4 and just do B continuous; so, this is the possible plan.
Again, bars are noncontinuous; allows you to control fractions of time; allows you to split
work; allows you to monitor. So, now, I am on day after day 3. I can actually monitor and see
what I have done and whether it is completed as per planning. So, again, the reason I asked
you for these exercises is to kind of; we commonly think bar chart means continuous bar.
Especially, when you are using a bar chart independently, for a small task such as this, the
continuous bar is not needed, and it makes more sense to draw bars, where you are going to
put the effort. Now, let us just so, I can now use to monitor this. I can start filling out. Let us
say I am on the end of the second; I can say yes. This has been completed. This has been
completed. I am representing progress. Now, I am on this day, which means I am falling
behind; somehow, I do not like E, and I have not completed E for this particular time. I mean,
at least, this time, it is common sense based.
Student: (refer time: 24:15) now the D and E if we give the time on the day one whole, I
mean, it represents the whole day.
Let me try to represent what you are saying. You want to; you can then do it based on what.
You want to give two days or 1 day? Do you want to give two days?
Student: Yes, two days.
That is what you want.
Student: Now, the thing is that in this, it does not represent the 12-hour format; it represents
that.
Partial effort.
Student: Partial effort. (refer time: 25:05)
Right. So, here the level of detail is less. So, how can you control this? How would you
apply control on this?
No, that is seen, if you have something in your mind; it is certainly not expressed here. I
come in, and I want to control it as an external person; where can I apply control? Can I apply
control at the end of the first day?
Student: No.
No, I can only apply control at the end of the second day, and that control can be applied
only if, I mean, once I apply that control, I will know whether you have finished both
subjects. So, my ability to control is less. If you are able to take care of things, no problem.
Now, I can also control now if I take partial effort. So, basically I am saying my effort here is
not 1, 1; it is half, half; effort here is half, half. I can monitor you on the first day by actually,
seeing what effort went in, but then I have to so, I will put in here half, half, half, half, but
then the representation becomes; basically, I am putting the same information as we had
earlier, but if the time frame is not divided, if the effort frame is divided into a smaller
fraction. Then I can control.
Now one advantage of the continuous bar, but it gets more complex, is I do not need to go
half, half; I can go one by 4, three by 4. I can go here; I can go yeah, whatever fraction of
effort I want to do I can put. So, there is a certain lot of what do you say; when we get just
using software, a lot of the software goes in this method. I can specify how much effort I
want to put in each time slot and then monitor with that, but when we are using a bar chart
more in a manual way, it is better that your visual representation is what you are monitoring,
and not some numerical representation, embedded in the visual representation. Any other
questions?
Student: (refer time: 27:30) then we can apply the monitor on the first day itself?.
Yes, you can, and that is what when you start using project management software, you can
actually do this because it allows you to put one-fourth, three-fourth because everything
behind is a model; it is the mathematical model. The visual model is less. When I look at this
visually, do I think of this is one-fourth and three-fourth?
Student: No.
No. So, when we want to; I am talking about non-continuous bars mostly, in the context of
using a bar chart alone for planning and control. If the bar chart is the result of software,
which you use CPM and things like that, all this other flexibility will be able to; numerical
modeling will be part of your package. Other questions?
Lecture - 12
Bar Charts for Resource Usage, Pros, and Cons
Let's move on. So, here is the another way of improving the features of a bar chart. So, here
we have four activities. You can see four activities; you have duration and then actually, have
specified the cost. So, you can see there is a cost; this is the total cost associated with each of
these activities.
Now, as we go here, we can see that the activities now have been put in a bar chart in the
following form. So, what we saw earlier that are the cost curve can be plotted, right. So, how
would I now go about plotting a cost curve? So, here is some other data.
Yes. Yes.
So, that is one; I have to assume that my cost per day will be uniform. So, if I assume that it
will be 3000 divided by 3. So, it will be 1000 per day here; 2000 per day here; 1000 per day
here, and I will be yeah; it will be a fraction of the other one, and we will now distribute it.

So, you will find that so here it is 1, 1, 1, 1000; here, 2 2 2; here, 1, 1, 1, 0.4, 0.4, 0.4 and
when you sum it up totally, what you get is the cost for that day. I can plot this in the form of
a histogram. So, I have a bar chart for how much money am I expecting to spend on each day.
So, I might have to mobilize. So, let us say I am you know it is a small construction project
and this cost I am talking about might be something like you know, the wage for daily labor. I
might have to bring this much money to me to the site each date help me to plan my amount
of money I have to spend; very simple example. Now, the same represent, the same values
can be represented as a cumulative cost. So, basically all we are doing is that in the first day
that is 1; the second day, it is three plus 1; that is 4. Then add 7; add four plus 3 is 7, and it
goes on. So, this is how my money is flowing through the project at least, for that component
over time, and this is a rough graph.
We can do this in excel, but this is a rough graph of how the cash flows for that component
over time for each other days. Now, the same thing can be done in Excel, or you know; I have
a demo in Excel, which I will show later, but this is just to give you an idea that bar chart is
more than simply bars, which do continuous bars with related to activities. It can actually
represent resources; it can represent cost; it can represent a lot. It represents depends on the
power, which you want to give it and the kind of information you want to represent in the bar
chart. And again, I urge you to look at the writings of Gantt, because that is what available to
us and you will see that he actually used it for all these purposes.
Now, we are coming to probably, I should ask this from you; what do you think are the
advantages of the bar chart? What do you think are the disadvantages of the bar chart?
Student: Precise relationship (refer time: 04:05)
Yes. So, that is a disadvantage. That is when I have a representation like this; I do not know
the sequencing is what the planner put into the bar chart. As a third person, I cannot find
relationships.
Student: Shared between two activities (refer time: 04:23)
What resources are shared could be specified, but not that simply, yes. So, that is another
one.
Student: (refer time: 04:33)from this progress can be shown. So, that is for say; the project
has got delayed some three months. Now, the project was to be finished by (refer time: 04:42)
finished by November, but it is now in February. So, the progress; we cannot show that
progress actually.
I do not; you mean the delay?
Student: If the project is going on its schedule. So, the February, at this point, it will show,
today is February and the project is showing this progress. Right, but if it was delayed so, on
February 5th, we could not progress it. We have to show it in the November calendar only.
Right, I am not sure I fully understand your question or the point you are making well. You
will see that there are some very sophisticated ways you can show delays and projected
finish; will come to that. So, please write this down I mean, in terms of showing where is that
currently and what is the projected finish, can be actually shown. It just depends on your
notation and obviously, that is not something that we can calculate manually, very easily and
do it, but there are notations to show that in a bar chart.
Student: One slide was there actually, back.
I go back here.
Student: Back by one. Yes, in this one. So, if the project XYZ, right, is now in January; no,
July right. So, if say that the development(refer time: 06:02) is delayed by March; so, it
would not be showing.
You mean, it cannot show historical.
Student: Historical (refer time: 06:12)
If you are talking about yes; I cannot show the delays that happened historically; in this bar,
no, but if I have an earlier bar chart of that period, it will show what was the delay at that
time. So, you are right; I cannot show my everything that happened on my project. So,
actually if I have caught by July, then I will not be able to see what the status was in March in
today's bar chart, but I can go to March’s bar chart and see the issue.
Student: If so the development is delayed.
No, let us say project x y z. Right now, let us say it was delayed so when I was in April,
there were some delay. So, I mean, I would not have been in a good situation, right. If I am
taking July’s date, I cannot find out that situation today. That is, but I take back April’s bar
chart, and I will know my situation at that time.
Student: (refer time: 07:09) different color codes
I can use, but then it becomes so, again we will have to see; bar charts can be, if we I mean,
basically through color coding, through symbols, through these, we can make a bar chart
mean a lot, but again if the bar chart is nice, because it is simple enough to visualize, but if
you make it too complicated, then we lose the purpose of the bar chart.
Student: (refer time: 07:33) it is difficult to use the bar chart.
Right. So, if there are lots of activities, I mean, projects have 1000, 1500 very easily; unless I
start subnetting it and putting it. I cannot use just a bar chart for planning it. I may need some
other methodology, which then I get parts of the project in the form of the bar chart. Other
advantages or disadvantages; so, if we look, go through the list, it is certainly, an intuitive
representation. We all can relate to what should be happening at what time and without too
much of training or reading; we should be able to do that. It communicates to any level of an
organization.
So, typically a bar chart; you will find that is used at the field execution level. We will say
this much work should be done in a week, and it is also used to present results to the top
management. Again, you are making a management presentation easy to represent. I do not
want to show complicated networks or things like that; so, very very good communication
tool. It is excellent representation for final planning and monitoring information because you
can actually summarize all that quite well in a bar chart. Ideal for projects that are simple and
sequential; simple sequential activities, yes, then bar chart. Now, problems; dependencies
cannot be represented; we discussed that. Limitation in a number of activities; we discussed
that.
It cannot be used as an analytical tool. That is all of the information that represented in the
bar chart, the way we are doing it now; meaning, yes, we process the information, and we put
it over there. There is no inbuilt analytics in the bar chart. When we move to more
sophisticated techniques, you will see there is lot more analytics in the technique and again,
when we have large complex projects with a lot of inter-dependents, lot of activities, lot of
sub-activities; it again, very much related to limitation in number of activities and in logic,
but it becomes unveiled, and we will not be able to use it(refer time: 09:40).
So, we have done these exercises from the planning point of view, and we have also
discussed these from the control point of view a little bit, but we would probably, as we go
more into the course, we will take up examples which are from the construction domain.
There are any further questions or comments?
Okay, Thank you.

Lecture – 13
Duration Estimation – Types, Inputs, Methods Parametric Estimation
Lecture today is on duration estimation, and the objectives are to look at the methods by
which we estimate activity duration, different examples of parametric methods, which we
will use for the duration estimation and the end, we will have a discussion on the applicability
of different methods. So, we have covered quite a few topics so far and all of these things like
especially, when we did bar charts, we had to use duration. We are now going to see how,
what is the way, method by which we can actually, calculate the duration of these activities.
So, if you look at why do we need duration; any suggestions why do we actually, need the
duration of activities?
Student: To calculate the whole duration of the project.
Yes. So, we actually come on the top-down approach. You remember, the work breakdown
structure has leaves, at those leaves, are their activities, and only we calculate the duration of
these activities; can we calculate project duration. That is the approach we are taken. Any
other reason?
Student: (refer time: 01:21) based on the durations of each of these activities to drag the
progress for example.
So, what we talk about is estimating intermediate milestones. So, it is not, we are not just
interested in project duration; we are also interested in the detailed milestones of our
progress. So, we needed for estimating milestones.
Right.
Exactly. So, only if you know duration at the activity level, we will be able to control the
project and the resource perspective also. So, if we know when to mobilize the resources;
when to need to demobilize; what kind of equipment are required at what stage; how much
material should I order; all these things are also can be planned only if we know detailed
activity level durations.
Now, if you go back to the PMI, which is the standard for project management, they have a
section on activity duration estimating, and as per the PMI organization, you have inputs; you
have tools and techniques, and you have outputs. If you look at, I am not going to spend a lot
of time on this, but just to give you a list of the different inputs, which constitute our
requirements for calculating durations. So, you can see, enterprise or environmental factors;
organizational process assets; so, these have to do the company, what type of processes; what
are the different tools and techniques we have in the company itself, you know, to do this.
Then as you come more detail project’s scope statement; what is the scope of your project;
activity list, activity attributes, activity resource requirements, resource calendars, the project
management plan. So, I am just covering this to give you a broad idea of the various aspects
that go into estimating duration. We will only look at a subset of this as we go ahead and then
when we get into the tools and techniques, you have really a fairly wide range of tools. So,
you have expert judgment; you have analogous estimating. So, the expert judgment means
that basically, it is heuristic, you know, there isn't a calculation that I can do; I ask somebody
who has done this before, the recent data, and we get his judgment on it. Analogous
estimating is there is some data available, plus expertise. Parametric estimating is what we
are going to cover most of this class, and that is a typical calculation, based on basic
parameters. We will get to that. There is three point estimate, which we have seen PERT kind
of applications. We will cover that also briefly. There is reserve analysis as PMI defines it,
which is the buffer you give to your project duration. So, some of these like the reserve
analysis is not very well documented, but I put it there so that, we are aware that these
techniques exist.
When you get to the outputs, you have obviously, activity duration estimation, estimates, and
attributes, such as resources and other things which are required. Now, what we are going to
cover like as I said for most of these classes, parametric estimating and I want to, and this is
probably, the most scientific way, but it has its limitations. Let us get into a little more detail.
So, you take a simple example. You can see; there is a car there.
And it is supposed to do a track, and the total distance of the track is 300 kilometers, and I am
putting this in term of duration, right. Here also, the duration is an issue. I am drawing an
analogy with something, which is very much more in physics, and we can build on that as we
go. What do I need in this state to determine the duration?
So, I am giving you speed alternatives, and I only want the duration. I am not looking at the
cost. I only want the duration. So, yes; I have my distance; I have my speed. For each of the
speed, you can easily calculate, right; whatever the time and you just mentioned a very
keyword, average speed. So, if we took we are assuming that all of the speeds, when we take
the speeds, assuming it is an average speed; it is certainly not constant speed, but through this
process, there have been lots of durations at the curves, especially, that speed will be much
less; straight sections, speed, will be much more, and we need really some way to measure
average speed. In this example, it is not that difficult to measure, because we have very good
tools to be able to clock the speed at every time period. At the end of the circuit, we can say
what the average speed is, but coming back; what actually influences the speed? We know it
is not going to be constant. So, what actually influences speed?
Student: The technology of the engine and the motors.
Is that beyond and then I mean I can.
Student: If it is a straight road then (refer time: 06:12)
So, track influences the speed; what else? So, it is certainly the track.
Student: Driver also.
Driver influences; the driver, track, anything else?
Student: The environmental factors.
Yes.
Student: Really have the (refer time: 06:27)
Right. Environmental factors; wet track versus dry track; anything else during a race?
Student: The other opponents.
The other drivers around you will also influence speed. So, it is very dynamic. So, yes, if I
knew the track, and I knew wet or dry condition, I can still estimate speed for the point, but
now when I bring in other factors like there are others, who are going to be around me;
someone is trying to overtake me; someone is in front of me; someone is behind me; all of
these also influence speed. So, it is very difficult to predict the speed at a given state, but
again, this whole concept of average speed might be easier to estimate. And if we have an
estimate of average speed only then, we can determine the duration.
So, now taking this analogy to construction context, here is an activity; it is a masonry
activity. The total quantity of work; let us say 300 square meters of block work. What would
be the time required to compute that? How would I estimate? What do I need to estimate the
time?
Student: Number of man-hours.
A number of man-hours is yes. So, I need the equivalent of my speed; there is something
here; it is my rate. It is again a speed; the speed with which I am laying bricks. So, if we go
into this, I am calling a production rate; what do you call? Units are really this, you know,
very similar. So, I have 10 square meters; it is 20 square meters; 30 square meters and if I am
given this kind of data, what are my, how many days?
Student: 30, 15 and (refer time: 08:18)
That is very straightforward; very straight. Now, where do you think the challenge is?
Student: We cannot work the entire day.
We cannot work an entire day (refer time: 08:29) take a day we will see. I mean that is, when
I say entire day, what is a day? Is it 24 hours; is it 10 hours; is it 12 hours is it 8 hour: that has
to be defined. In this case, let us say when we say day, and we have defined that.
Student: We are assuming you can work on all days continuously, at a stretch then
weekends.. (refer time: 08:49)
So, I do not have a calendar here. We are able to say, when I say 30 days, it means 30
working days.
Student: Again, the rate need not be constant (refer time: 08:56)
Rate need not be constant. So, what is 30, what is 10 square meter a day mean?
Student: The skill of labor.
It is not just skilled; it is the average output for that crew or that person over the day, just over
the day. It means in the morning; you might be slow; afternoon, it might be faster; evening
might be slow; we do not know, but we are saying, and this is not just the end of one day. The
average of productivity of the average output is so many square meters per day. I am using
the word productivity; we will come to that a little bit later. So, the same question as in the
speed, certainly, the production rate is not constant. Now, we can have a lot of things that
affect the production rate, and we will get into that. We look at these; what are the things that
affect the production rate?
So, fatigue.
Wait, let me go to the board and I think I write these down.

So, one is fatigue. What else?
Student: From the organization of tools and (refer time: 10:15)
Organization of work. Experience and skill, environment; I am putting environment; weather.
Student: Mental conditions, psychological.
Mental and physical conditions.
Student: Availability of resources.
Yes, very important, because the labor might be there; the workspace might be there; either
the brick is not there; the motor is not there, or you know, the something to level my wall is
not there whether, it is a plumber or leveler or whatever; then again, workers idle.
Student: Different parts of regarding post lunch, before lunch (refer time: 11:34)
Yes, those might be we can call it environmental factors; we can call it mental and physical
conditions.
Student: Can it also be dependent on (refer time: 11:41) you have different types of
advantages.
Organizational work. So, we can go on; there are certainly many more factors that they would
come in, but what we are basically trying to highlight here is that there are serious of factors,
which actually affect production. And given an average, when I am getting a new job, and I
have to estimate what is production, you know, of my crew on the job; it is not that easier
task. There are so many factors which influence production and let us get; now, one thing we
have not actually because being masonry, we have not discussed is, you know, what are the
work factors; what are the materials? If I use block work versus bricks, what is my
production? You know, if I am working at the height versus ground level, what is my
production? So, the point I am trying to make is there is a just number of factors, which
influence, which make some of this kind of estimating, a challenge.
Yeah.
Student: The number of factors actually, fatigue to mental and physical conditions or relate
to a person or a crew right, but the availability of resources is related to the project; it has to
be provided by the company.
Right.
Student: So, that is the demarcation between, I mean a crew, its production rate and a
company based production rate.
Yeah, but ultimately, what; mean all of it affects what?
Student: Productivity of labor; the output.
The productivity of the labor; it is all reflected Finally, in the labor productivity. The reason
might be different, you know, we do not see much equipment usage here, and another thing is
equipment maintenance and equipment breakdown. If the equipment breaks down what
happens? You know, it is again, corporate level policy and you know, maintenance routines
and things like that, but it again affects the crew. So, actually productivity measurement and
improvement in construction is a whole area on its own, and if we can take any of these
factors and go into root causes and how to eliminate things like that, but as far as the context
of this lecture is, we have to understand that this is the base on which, our estimate is built. If
this, unless we can actually understand this, you know, be able to estimate what is the
influence of this; we will really not be able to come out with a good duration estimate.
Lecture -14
Factors influencing Productivity, Example for Ideal Productivity,
Factored Productivity and Working Time Factor
So, as we move, so now, we look at this in a very summarized form. So, we can see a, we put
few of these skill experience of work crew, construction method, so because masonry((Refer
Time: 00:28)) we did not list construction method here, because it review, assume it is a
single method, local practices, site characteristics, all of these what happens is there we come
up with the factor called factor productivity.
So, I might say productivity of I go back, I might say productivity is you know 20 square
meters a day average, but I have actually to get into the site, look at all of this and then, factor
it appropriately to know, what is the, what can I expect out of that site at that period of time.
Now, my factor productivity and when I take a number of crew I actually get the production,
I get the production and this production, and when given the quantity of work and production,
then I can estimate activity duration.
So, productivity the way we are defining productivity is production per day for the crew.
Productivity=Production/ Day / Crew (or Person)
So, I want to take again this opportunity, a lot of times I mean we have projects where they
say, they have to improve productivity and so. What do you think the control action is? They
have to increase the quantity of work to catch up with the schedule. So, they tend to increase
the manpower on the project, increasing manpower on the project increases what.
Student: Cost.
Cost
Student: Increases production.
Increases production, it does not necessarily increase productivity. Then, so there is a

difference between production and productivity, and ultimately duration depends on
production and productivity. But, I mean depending on you know if time is the, is really the
most important issue there, sometimes rather than you know and try to slowly improve
productivity, the project manager might only have an option of improving production, and
that is what sometimes happens, you know quite often.
So, now we move to when we have to calculate duration, what are the influences that come
into play. So, we have an activity duration here, we talked about activity productivity, we
talked about construction methods, site characteristics; all of these are influencing the
productivity to get a factored productivity. We have a quantum of work, and we know that we
can change, you know we can might decide on the number of crew to be able to change
production and thereby change the duration.
So, what is, so for example, I mean I will take an example later, but just discuss this here,
what of this is constant, what of this is variable? What are the factors here which are given to
you which you cannot change, what are the factors which you can change?
Student: Duration ((Refer Time: 03:26))
Is it fixed, yes
Student: Sometimes we made the fix the duration in the ((Refer Time: 03:34)).
Exactly, so you might fix the duration and which case, what do you have to vary?
Student: Productivity, the number of crew.
You could vary productivity, but let me tell you it is more difficult to change given a certain,
given a construction method, given a site characteristics, given a set of labor you can change
management practices to improve productivity. You can certainly do that, but like we just
discussed it is just easier you to increase or decrease the number of crew to change
production and when you change production, your duration
Student: Decrease.
Decreases or increases, it changes. So, again I am reiterating we could work on changing

productivity, but that is really a little more difficult than changing production. And if you
really want cost effectiveness on your project, you should be changing.
Student: Productivity.
Productivity and not production and that is the next term. So, if we, so we can go two ways,
like we have been discussing. One is if a duration is given to me I can change; I should be
able to find a number of crew for me to achieve that duration. If the duration is not given, you
know I have flexibility on duration I can with my current number of crew I would put in, and
I can find, how long they will take to do the activity.
So, if we go with duration driven, so let us take an example here. Excavation of soft soil on a
site has to be completed in 2 days. Now, you are fixing the duration, the total quantity of
excavation is given. Based on the previous what we have discussed, we are going to try to
factor crew size.
Let us take this flow chart here, so this shows you the example. So, we have two days which
is the duration of the project 1000 cubic meters is the quantity.
Student: Total quantity.
The total quantity of work. Now, so if I have to do 1000 in 2 days, each day I have to do 500
cubic meters; taking an 8 hour day, so that is, so much per hour. Now, so this gives me if I
am bringing it down to an hourly basis. Now, I am come in from this side, if I am have two
options, I am looking at using an excavator or using manual labor. If I am using an excavator
this is the cubic meter per hour I can get, which means in order to achieve my required cubic
meter or I need 2 crews, whereas if it is manual this is the cubic meter per hour I can get and
this is the number of crew I will need to meet the requirement. It is pretty straight forward
analysis.
Now, I can go the other way around which we are saying is resource driven; that is my
methods all of this is fixed, only my duration shift change or I mean, I cannot mobilize more
crew. This is what I have, and a lot of companies face this problem or face this issue. They
actually say this is what I can mobilize, how long will it take me to do the job or to do the
activity.
So, if we go in this direction with the same example, so you have a backhoe loader and it is
the same example in the reverse direction, where you have one unit; 35 cubic meters per hour
and so with the backhoe loader you say 4 days is the total time to with one unit, with the
manual crew you get 63 days of work. Now, what is going to cast you more time-cost trade-
off all of this is can certainly be discussed, but that is all it is a different issue.
Any question so far? Now, let us take an example, which I want you all to solve; it is again it
is not very complicated, but let us make this let us take it step by step and see how we bring
in different factors.

So, here we have a masonry block, a masonry activity. There are two crews of one Mason
plus one helper, the total quantity of work to be done is 600 square meters, productivity is 20
square meters per day per crew, working time here is 10 hours. What do you think is the, how
long will you take to ((Refer Time: 08:21)).
So, if I am going into the, from a productivity perspectives, I am saying duration is quantity
by production. Production is productivity in a number of the crew if I am a production, and I
find a duration.
Duration=Quantity/Production
Production=Production*No.Crew
Now, we… Any questions? ((Refer Time: 08:40)) I am sure there are no questions on this,
very straight forward. We get into; now we bring in these other factors we talked about. The
challenge in this earlier place is not the certainly not the calculations, but productivity.
Student: Productivity.
No, how do I actually calculate production? How do I come up with this number? You know,
which really represents what is happening on my site.
So, when you go into this, when we extend this example it becomes a little clearer. So, here
we have, now the same crew is going to work at a height of you know 8 to 15 meters on a
scaffold. Before they were working on the ground they could walk around is no problem no,
no safety harnesses is nothing was require, now they going to work on a scaffold as you can
see here. And, what you think other factors, now that influence productivity.
Student: Working in the scaffold.
So, why should they productivity we more or less, less, less why? The working area is less
they have to be more cautious they cannot move around as freely as before.
Student: And getting the material from one more effort.
Yeah, getting the materials up is a little more effort you know that has to be done, if the
mason has to walk to get some other tool or material he has to claim down that is more time
require to claim down and claim back up and all of this. So, this is the pretty common when
you actually take on multi-story buildings you find that as the building gets taller and taller
productivity keeps decreasing. Even a simple think like, I mean, so you know if the work
mean needs you to come down for materials the travel time itself just increases significant.
So, of course, there are many ways to counteract it. So, in this particular case, all we are
taking is, now we have to come up, so we know that productivity at the ground floor crew is
20 square meter per day per crew. Now, we come to this scaffold, how will be estimate the
productivity, we will have to factor the productivity. So, we know it is not going to be 20,
right? So here are some numbers I came up with scaffolding equipment we are factoring that
0.9, movement of metrical 0.9, safety precautions for working at height 0.95, like we discuss
these numbers are I mean on what basis do we come with these numbers is really a question.
But, if I have data if I have a means of actually collecting data of you know productivity of
masons at this height productivity of Mason it is scaffold of a certain height, then I could
probably come up with more rational ways of coming with this estimate, and that is really
critical. Now, given this data how would I factor it?.
Student: Multiply all these factors.
Multiply directly are each of them is independently reducing the…
Student: One by one reduction.
Ok,
Duration=(Quantity of Work)/(Factored Productivity*NoOfCrew)
They are all reducing the productivity 20 is a base each factor is, is reducing it independently
we assert now. So, you get 15 square meters per day, and now, what was taking 15 days the
earlier is now, talking 20 days because it is a working on height. So, this is the factor with
this is one way of factoring and if you actually go into corporate, what you say productivity
((Refer Time: 12:41)) norms, they will have factors like this and those are such, you know
closely hell secrets, because this, based on this is what your…
When you originally make a bid for it if you have these factors right, then you get your
bidding and your target price correct if you do not have these factor right you can be
anywhere on the over the cost part, and you will you know you might make a big loss you
might overbid and not be competitive at all.
Student: Sir, these factors are nearly based on historical and experimental data.
Unfortunately, there is so much experimental data, but it is mostly based on seeing this is
where, how can we make a factor like this based on an experience is difficult.
Student: It is based on the importance of the factors which influence the ((Refer Time:
13:36)).
But, how do I come up with the number that is still the critical thing? So, it is let us just take a
minute off what would be the most structured scientific way to come up with this ((Refer
Time: 13:48)).
Student: So, you got on a particular project test project we check out for a particular kind of
task given a certain number of crew members, how much is the productivity that is coming I
mean depending on various factors such as the height or you know the materials is the site of
construction fine all the factors you take into consideration compare it with standard test.
So, first is there will be no test projects as such you have to take a project which is going on
and you do if example on campus we have, so many buildings being constructed I have to
now make sure that when I am recording the masonry crew or when I am I know where they
are working at the end of each day I have to record what they are productivity output is how
many man hours went in and where you know and then you know, so then at the end of the
project are somewhere when I have enough data I have to say, I have to sort out the data and
say and this much of height this is the average productivity as I get higher this is the average
productivity you know.
So, we take a 3 or 4 story building we should be able to take we should be able to find out a
productivity at different floors you should be able to find out the total productivity average.
So, 3, four-story building, but coming back is one is we have to collect almost daily data, and
we have to get the data characterized by location and by the crew and by various other
factors, which are then required for the analysis.
So, lot of times data is not available of these factors are not available today because people do
not collect data at that level of detail people are saying output for the day, so, much fine total
number of people work is, so much and you will get average productivity on that site for that
day, you will not be able to get the final characteristics of the work, any other question?
Student: Sir I think if we are going for final any productivity factor, then we have to make
other variables constant, which is highly impossible.
Yeah, no, no that is what, so remember here, so if you take for examples of someone like I
mean like a lot of the companies like not only productivity factors based on something like a
building and height but will have region will have size of subcontractor they will have
experience of subcontractor they will have, so many factors built into that. So, you are right
there are a lot of factors, and it would be impractical to assume that only one or two factors
are variable, and everything else is constant.
But, the challenge here is there are you list about you know 8 or 10 factors that there are
about 50 factors, which going to productivity and unless you keep collecting data on project
after project with this fineness of attributes you will not be able to do any analysis to get these
factors that're the point. So, you know you take a you take a large construction company
which works all over the country they will have a number of projects they will have to kind
of sort out the data based on region based on type of project in region all of that or in contrast
you take builder who would work only in Chennai.
He also, but he has to do this same thing for him most of the labor everything as you know is
around Chennai-based material supply Chennai-based everything, but still he was to able to
find different I mean find finer details to the productivity influences to be able to actually
estimate productivity. So, which is takes us back to our earlier discussions of project versus
process because we are in a project mode there are, so many factors and like that example we
are discussing the builder in Chennai is more in a process mode can be more in a process,
because his variables are less where as a person, who is with the companies as doing global
construction as much more in a project mode.

Let us take this example further we talked about working time we have set 10-hour working,
but if I am going to take a 10 hour work day it is what is the effective work. So, I think
somebody mentions this point earlier that I am not going to be able to get a full day’s work
you know the person is not only constantly working. So, might be effectively it is only like
you can see that are breaks in the work time you know at least many of our sites we have a
tea break, we have a lunch break, we have an another tea break, and I mean we will get
probably 8.5 hrs of effective working time.
And here we again have to be able to, now modify this form the overall productivity and say,
what should I have taken 15 days now take 18 days, work takes 20 days, it takes 24 days. So,
you will find that there are lot of, so even if we take the, you know 8.5 hrs of work do you
think people are actually working for 8.5 full hours?.
Student: No
So, again how do we factor these. So, it gets tricky and will find that we come in with the
certain productivity estimate.
But, we are simply not able to hold the production to that productivity, which means
ultimately there are something going on in our estimating, which is not accurate, and we have
to take these factors and control these factors to be able to reach our duration, which we are
estimating. Any question on this?.
Lecture – 15
Lesson - 03
Piling Activity Example, Applicability of Different
methods to Estimate Activity Duration
Now, I would like you to read this; it is an example in piling, and I would like you to work
this out. So, what we have here is a piling activity for a bridge. On one side you have soft soil
and the other side it is soft rock. In case, so now, this is yet another factor which can change
your production and productivity and the number of piles per abutment is 20, length of each
pile is 15 meters, the working time for the winch…. So, you can see here, it is a winch
operated system, that they keep dropping the, you know where you pull it, pull the winch and
then you drop the hammer, and you know grab out soil and then you start pouring the pile.
The normal productivity of a winch is 1.5 meters an hour is a progress you will make,
productivity in soft rock is so much. So, you can assume that this is the productivity of soft
soil. Straight forward, why do not you just do the calculation and let ((Refer Time: 01:20)).
So, if you have any questions, ask me.
So, what is our quantity?
So, I can take, so look at the productivity, it is given in…
Student: per hour
What per hour?
Student: Meter per hour.
Meter per hour means…
Student: Meter per hour or of pile length per hour.
So, it makes sense to put my quantities in what.
Student: Meters
Meters, which means it is…
Student: 20 into 15
That is it. After that on your soft soil, my productivity is…
Student: 1.5 meters per hour.
It is soft soil 1.5-meter per…
Student: day
Student: per hour

Normal productivity is 1.5 meters per hour. Where did you get the day from?
Student: 15 meters into hours
((Refer Time: 02:49)) Taking that is what, I am taking, okay there is a point here,1.5 meters
per hour which mean duration…
Student: 10 hours for one day
10 hours for one day, for soft rock…
Student: coming to be 50, 0.5 into 7, 57 and two days and 60 days.
Duration
Student: Duration is 1, 10 hours a day.
10 hours a day, 0.5 meters. So, you have a total of 300 meters.
Student: No, 300 minus 15 to pin out.
300 minus…
Student: 300 minus 15, because already we have…
20 piles on each side per hour length.
Student: 20
20, 20
Student: Piling for each of the abutment, so there will be two different times that will ((Refer
Time: 03:53)). So, the duration for this also is 10 hours a day.
No, no, the duration is for putting 300 meters of piling.
Student: Okay, so that is okay. The notation is same.
What is the conclusion?
Student: I mean below soft soil you written it is the same duration. So, I thought it was, both
the same.
Not duration, so here I am actually going 15 meters an hour or as we said, I mean 1.5, 15
meters per day. So, actually I should do 20 days.
Student: Duration is 20 days.
So, duration of this thing, so total is equal to 20 days. Here it is 65 meters, duration of…
Work duration 10 hours, activity duration, how much.
Student: 60 days
60 days. Now, in one case you have 20, the other case you have 60. So, based on some of our
earlier discussion, what would you do?.
Student: I will decrease the number of working hours.
Would you decrease the number of working hours?
Student: Actually I will decrease it for soft soil, and I will increase it for soft rock.
You can do that, but let say what I mean, let say from our project perspective I would like
both durations to be roughly the same.
If I decrease, see the problem were decreased the working day duration is I am going to be
paying the person the same amount for that day.
Student: Now, productivity and orders.
I will finish this on 20 days and shift the equipment to the other side, and I have two crew
working. So, on 20 days these only finish one-third and I have two crew, they are working to
try to bring this enough, so these are some of the options you will have when you start doing
things.
So, let us go through this, you have a… We have, this is 15… You have 15 meters per day
and going in at 20 days as we calculated. If you look at it for the soft rock, we have factored,
we have taken the factored, and it comes in 60 days. So, here the other part look at is the way
we have said 20 number of piles, but we are looking at productivity as… So, we would, I
mean the term they would use it depending on piles diameter and length, it is dia into dia
length, but here we have just taking length assuming the dia because the diameters are
constant.
Now, we can again take this with the working time factor, and we take it again as an 8.5
instead of a 10 hour day and what was 20 now becomes, 24 days; what 16 now becomes 71
days. So, all these shows us that even something that is so simple can get a little more
twisted, it starts getting more and more complicated as we get variations and uncertainties
from different regions.
Are there any questions on what we call right now parametric estimating? So, this is typically
what we did here productivity; quantity is parametric estimating, the most what do you think
numerically sound way to go about it and you understand the challenges behind it too. We
probably at least as far as the rest of this class goes we will not look at so much as the
factoring, we will mostly take duration as the value given and focus on doing other
calculations with that. But, remember the uncertainty of getting this duration itself is the big
question mark, which sometimes causes most of the disruption in a project schedule.
When you get back into a, now looking a duration; there are certain durations which are
independent of productivity. For example, a pile load test. It has to be done, it will take a
certain time independent of, you know what you do and how you do, or you know, what is
happening. The same thing is curing of concrete. I can change curing based on curing
compounds, but given a certain spec it will take it is time to cure. I mean, the accelerated
curing is possible, but again within that aspect, that is what I have to wait for. I cannot change
it on the site based on a certain; you know crew size or anything else.
So, we are actually now coming back to the various techniques which we had shown earlier
for duration estimating. You can see we had expert judgment, analogous estimating,
parametric estimating, three point estimate and reserve analysis. Now, taking the first two,
you know expert judgment and analogous estimating, these are very much used in
construction, but the only problem is they do not have a real base in which people are using it
today.
It just comes out what we called c to the points estimate and it continuous like that. There are
more formal ways such as the Delphi technique, you know which you have a serious of
experts when you keep asking them a question, now the question to like converge on a
specific number. But, you know we have not used this into in the level which we need to yet,
but that is from the scientific perspective, but from the, here heuristic perspective it is used
significantly, and the main reason for this is as we discussed.
So, you know I will not have factored productivity value, I will not have a number of crew, I
will not know what the number of crew available to me when I go on to a site visit. I will not
know actual productivity, I only know total quantity of work, how can I actually estimate
activity duration. So, all of the arithmetic we did will not be; we will not be able to do, and so
we have to result to the expert of heuristic; that is one, and sometimes it just does not make
sense to, you know calculate all these factors.
When there are experienced people, who can actually give you a fairly good reliable
estimation. I mean we did this kind of duration estimating last week in the earlier class, how
much time you need to study for a subject. So, if I take that as an example, what is… Their
standard estimate will give you a, based on what.
Student: heuristic expert
Absolutely heuristic expert, if wanted to make a parametric, what could I do.
Student: ((Refer Time: 11:12)) parametric type, the number of chapter.
Number, you will start breaking down and the number of chapters, each chapter start putting
times on it you know and then, factor in your lunch breaks, factor in this, factor in that, but
sometimes the effort of making that estimate is more than you know the number that comes
you. So, you will say I am just going to say half a day, and that is good enough. So, that is the
reason the experts estimates were used and it is very practical, and if it is used correctly, it is
something that is very valid.
When we, another fact we talked about uncertainty, you know duration three point estimate,
so this is a certainly more advance. We know there is a lot of duration, I mean all the
durations we talk about are come up with uncertainty, and we have to start using probabilistic
distributions, and we have options. We can, the simple option is a three point estimate, which
says again this is an expert judgment, but not giving a single value; that giving a three value
saying, you we can call it the lowest more likely highest are you know optimistic most likely
pessimistic.
So, you can have values like this, which are based on expert judgment or if you really have
data, you can go ahead and start plotting distributions of your duration and if you start
plotting distributions; obviously, you get capturing much more information than an average.
So, far we have talked about the only average productivity, average and everything is based
on average. Here we have a factored average, average for this kind of work in this height; that
is average on that, and that is how we are factoring it from on a basic.
Now, we start talking about more characterizing it in terms of uncertainties. So, we will see
both of this kind of duration distributions, one for PERT and one for Montecarlo, later in the
course. We will not discuss very much about you know the derivation of the distributional
things that we learn how to use it at that stage. So, if I go back to the techniques ((Refer
Time: 13:32)) you know we have actually covered all of these techniques very briefly; that is
expert judgment, analogous and three point estimate.
We have covered parametric estimate in you know more detail because it is what is structured
and probably easier to use it if those numbers are available. The reserve analysis is again like
I said a buffering technique, which is mostly based on expert judgment. So, I am not covering
that in detail, like I said there is very little material available on how one technically goes
about the reserve analysis.
And to summarize, we have covered all of these methods. We talked about the duration; we
have talked about the way to estimate; we discussed in detail the parametric methods and the
applicability of different methods. If there are questions, I will take. So, this is an important
foundation to the whole planning issue, but a lot of times not given appropriate time and we
will just go with values, which then kind of squeeze the whole thing and sometimes people
actually work backward this.
We say this is the duration we want and without actually going into resources or anything, we
start plugging in the numbers which are expected without planning the resources or the
productivity and when they actually get on to the site and try to meet that duration which they
had assumed, they find they cannot, so very important estimate which drives the whole
project management. Any questions?
Thank you.
Lecture – 16
Lesson - 04
Summary of Key Topics, Types of Networks
Welcome to lecture 6. This is probably one of the most important lectures because it sets the
base for critical path method. And the title of the lecture network representation analysis, this
is part one of the lecture. What I would like to cover here is. First, I think this is being
lectured 6, we have covered quite a few of topics so far; I would like to summarize few of
this topic which you have covered. Get into network representations, look at types of
networks and comparison between the network and then get into the analysis side.
So, we learn about forward pass, the backward pass, no express results in a Gantt chart and
then look how some of the results can be using project planning. Now as we go and take a
look back if you recall, we said that there is a time management standard for the Indian BIS,
and you will see that we have covered quite a few of the topics which are under time
planning. So, we actually covered work breakdown structure, we talked about in identifying
activities, we talked about productivity standards, we talked about duration estimation
resource availability. So, all this we talked in terms of is duration estimation. We were not
spending too much time on logical sequencing, but that will come as we go along the course,
this is very important, will spend a little bit of time in today on it.

And we then have to look at milestones and time scheduling. So, this is the way that the BIS
standard looks at it, and we are looking at the PMI, the PMI, the PMBOK standard; these are
the elements of time management. We are defining activities, we have sequencing activities,
estimating activity resources, estimating activity duration is developing the schedule and
controlling the schedule. So, if you look at the PMI framework what are the what are the
elements we were covered in detail.
Student: ((Refer Time: 02:11)
Yes, sequences like a said, we are come back to the sequence throughout the course the
sequence is important, but until we take the case study you will not be able to get into the
details of sequence, and we get into ((Refer Time: 02:31)) precedence diagram also sequence
becomes important, so it something that will come through the course. What about estimating
activity resources we have kind of covered with duration. So, we have kind of couple that
both resource and duration are very much interlinked, these are very very closely interlinked.
So, as you get into if you are doing the course project or something on this, you are really
getting to the details of that. Otherwise like we said it is moreover practical issue rather than
something which you we can cover classrooms.
So, you really have to do case studies on this, and we do some that later. So, now, we are
actually on the develop schedule, so we are actually moving from this preliminary inputs to
the develop schedule part and later on we will certainly go to the control schedule part.
Now, if you look back, yeah…

Student: ((Refer Time: 03:20)) order...
It is typically ordered, but there can be a cyclic too.
Student: ((Refer Time: 03:29)) Estimating activity duration precede estimating activity
resources?...
It can be cyclic. See, are you going to take, So, it depends like we discuss last time right, are
you duration driven or are you driven by the time you want or are you driven by the resource
you have. If you have a lot of resources, and you want to know the owner gives you the
particular time he wants to finish that is what to do. So, for example, a lot of large
constructing projects go through some other larger construction companies in our country
with almost no competitive bidding ((Refer Time: 04:06)). The reason for that is the duration
of this projects are very critical, and only these large companies have the resources like
mobilize on this projects to finish it in the time is owner wants. So, lots of you can say that
sometimes the duration is given to you the resource we have to mobilize for the duration, you
have to mobilize that. And if you go about it I would not call it theoretically other way is
given a set of resources you can then find duration.
Then we discuss both these approaches last time. Almost an everything critical duration
important, you take Chennai metro which is going on now duration is what is driving it, right.
So, how do you how I mean. So, let us discuss how does Chennai metro manage? Or how
they will think first of all manage to do this in this duration? What is the contracting strategy
in terms of resources, how are they are doing all this to one contractor, no they giving it to a
two, three big contractors, the multiple big contractors because they can mobilize that many
resources they gave it all to the single contractor might be they would have difficulty in
mobilizing all that much of resources for, because it is a very big job. So, in Chennai metro I
mean you cannot take years and years you have to actually finished the job you know, and the
public has to use it. So, there are. So, many projects that like I mean.
So, if you take the real estate market today then the income you get out of selling the real
estate the developer the real estate is far and excess of the construction cost. So, the owner
will want to complete the project, and make money out to the project rather than keep you
know minimizing construction cost and driving the project on. So, you will find in Bombay
there are lot of very high and development projects in which the major contractor in the
country has been called, because that those are the people who can actually mobilize the
resources whether it is formwork, whether it is concreting whether it is earthwork equipment
they are the people who are mobilizing and finish and deliver the project in a short term.
So, again just coming back to the original question you asked sequences generally
reasonable, but there will be iterations. So, you might actually you are not going all way to
6.5 develop the schedule, and then find that yeah you are not meeting the target. And then
you have actually to go back and estimate resources are even changes the sequences of
activities or even redefine activities; I will decide I am going to do not cast in situ
constructions, but prefabricated constructions which mean the sequence itself gets I mean
with the activity definition themselves changed. So, that is an iterative process without a
doubt
So, we had discussed about work breakdown structures, we discussed how we use it to
identify activities, we discussed about duration estimating, we discussed about we spent quite
a bit of time a parametric estimating by we understand that other means of also estimating
duration.
We talked about bar charts and Gantt charts; we talked about the history the variation and
usage the advantages and limitations, we kind of expressed our schedule in a bar chart, we
did this before we did the duration estimation, but it was intuitive enough for you to follow
how it happens.
Now we want to take off basically from here in this lecture So, if you take project planning
tools or the time estimation tools were certainly in a, we have covered bar charts, then we
have critical path method, we have PERT, we have simulation ((Refer Time: 08:15)) Monte-
Carlo simulation, and we have tools and dependency structure matrix. And we discussed
how you know we are going from simple to more and more complex tools, and complexity is
not necessarily what is better, complex does not mean a better tool.
We need to use a right tool for the right situations, and our focus for the next few lectures as
on critical path method. And people have found that critical path method is the right balance,
it is it is a fairly sophisticated tool will see most sophisticated than the bar charts it offers
things which offers methods of calculations mathematical base, which is good enough for
project representation, but not too complex that we can represent uncertainties probabilities
something. So, when we get into the critical path method one thing to realize, actually critical
path, PERT a lot of these other techniques are can be represented in a network form.
Lecture – 17
Lesson – 05
Networks – Introduction, Techniques
When you get into networks, networks are a very, very how would I say it is a very active
area of utilization and research; both computers science, mathematics and in many areas. So,
something like a graph theory or network analysis, it is a whole domain on it is own and the
fact that we choose to use networks to do our time management or time planning is itself
quite an innovation. So, I am got this slide where I am showing you. Basically, I think when
we talk about network all of us know what a network means.
And we, I mean everyday context we talk about road networks, pipe networks, cable
networks, the internet is a network there are so many kinds of networks. And when you start
representing the network in the form I have shown here, which a network consists of a node
and a link or an arrow. So, you have a, so here you have a single directional network, where
the arrow goes only from I to J, or you can have bidirectional, you can have I to J, J to I.
Now, something like a road can be represented, this might be like a one-way street, this is a
two-way street. Now, if you look like I said it has many domains so that you can have roads,
for example, you can see this image here, where you can see nodes and links or nodes and
arrows. So, these are, this is a network. Now, you can imagine, so what are the nodes consists
of in a road?.
Student: Intersections.
Intersections, links are the road themselves; same thing in a pipeline, same thing in a truss or
a frame. You talked about the telephone, if you have telephone networks, the internet all of
these are networks, now you have a social network.
So, is a social network or physical network, is it physical really.
It is not really a physical, it is basically, sees what you see here. Basically, they are saying, so
many people are linked to so many, what is who is on a network. So, in a way it is physical,
but basically what you are saying is you are linked socially to somebody else, and the
algorithms and techniques of network analysis can be applied to social networks also.
So, networks and graphs are a huge domain which is very, very of rich mathematically; we
are only touching the tip of the iceberg in it is a utility for project time management. So, this
is the kind of what we would call it probably when we look at a project, do you see a network
in a project. Is it as natural as a road network?
Student: Certainly not.
Certainly not. It is not as intuitive as a road networking. So, if you take our network from a
project perspective, it is more abstract than a road. We have to start representing the road as a
network is, we can see the junctions we can see their links we represented it as a network.
Representing a project as a network is not so intuitive. So, we really have to plot the people
who thought of representing the project as a network, it is you know it is a higher level of
abstraction, and this was something that came out in the 50’s, and it was an effort by Du Pont
Remington Rand & UNIVAC.
So, Du Pont needed construction and maintenance of it are works and things like that((Refer
Time: 03:53)), Remington Rand was a management consulting group at that stage, and
UNIVAC was the computer for and they got together and developed the CPM scheduling
method. And network planning and though, at that time OR and graph theory and all go you
know in the developmental stages and the team that got together really put you know very
innovative to put this together and use it in the term for construction planning.
And they develop the critical path method, there is quite a bit of history to it, and I will give
you some references at the end, where you can read as to as we know, how the terminology
we use today is not necessarily the terminology that was originally used. But, the techniques
are relatively the same, there is also a lot of debate on whether the original technique is
actually more authentic for construction planning than some other techniques we used today,
but some of this we will take on later in the class, we will go through the basics today.
Now, when you take CPM, the nice thing is that when you compare it with the Bar chart one
of the limitations you remember was that we could not represent relationships. So, here you
can represent the relationship between activities, number 2 is there is a certain mathematical
background to the way CPM is done. The Bar chart, did you have any analysis from a Bar
chart? No, it was a good communication tool, but more than that it did not give us any more
results.
We could, once we applied our mind to the project and expressed it in the form of a Bar
chart, it served as a good communication tool, you could update the Bar chart, you could use
it in many ways, but it was mostly a visual communication tool. Visual communication and
representation, a network offer more than that, and we will see some of that. One of the real
limitations of the network is that it requires training to interpret. You could see something
like a Bar chart; we can discuss it for half an hour or even less and someone can use it
straight away.
But, when I come to CPM you would really need, you know quite a few hours of introduction
and even then a lot of practice to be able to use it effectively on a project. Now, when we
look at, so the first thing when you take a network, and you look at a project in terms of a
network, what you have to understand is, how do we actually represent a project as a
network. So, you know we got a clue so far, we are going to break a project into activities,
you know we are taking those activities, we are sequencing the activities, and you know so
on.
So, we certainly understand activity is one part of this network representation and you know
the other part is the precedence relationship, the relationship between activities. So, in the
original representation which is called activity on arrow AOA, the nodes represented the start
and the end of the activity, and the arrow represented the activity itself. Now, you will do a
small exercise on this problem for you to understand or for you to be able to see, why people
like Fondhal came out with activity on the node.
So, when you take activity on node you will find that the activities are represented by nodes
and the relationships are represented by arrows. And then you have the precedence
diagramming method, which was IBM's extension for activity on the node and this is, even
more, offers more sophisticated features on activity on the node. So, what, we will cover
today is a little bit of activity on the arrow, more on activity on the node, precedence
diagramming gets it is own two sessions later on in the course.
So, like we talked activity on the arrow you have, you know that is an event I and event J, the
event is a start of the activity and the end of the activity, activity is represented by the arrow.
Now, there are some conditions one should follow, we should have all event should have
unique numbers in this representation, activities must have unique I-J combinations. I cannot
have two activities represented in this form; there is no question of having closed loops or
dangling activities, so all activities have been ended with the node.
Now, if we take the inputs for a network what we have shown you here is a set of activities
and a set of predecessors. So, when you take activity A, it means that only after the project
starts we should be able to start, once you start yes, then only activity A starts. To do activity
D, activity B should finish; to do activity E, activity A should finish. So, this is called the
relationship. So, for example, to start activity I, activity F and G should finish.
So, now, you have seen the rule for making activity on arrow diagrams. Do you think you can
try to represent this logic through activity on arrow? Can you try it? Remember the arrow is
the activity, done. We will just take a look at the network, and you can compare, what you
had with what you, what is here. So, this is you can see the, there is a start, you have activity
A, B, C succeeding the start, you can see activity D is after B, E, F. So, E is after A, F is also
after A, F is this and activity G is after C. Now, activity H requires A and C as predecessors.
So, right now if I start activity H out of here, what happens; out of 18 to 26 if I join…
Student: It is no longer ((Refer Time: 10:23))
You know A is not included if I join from… So, what we do is I mean what AOA requires is
the concept of dummy activities. So, we have two dummy activities which enable us to create
this node and then, link 20 to 26 and make it H. So, it is not just the inclusion of dummy, you
find that as even with representing E you might have some difficulty. You would have had,
you know you would have started off with one loop and found there is the redundant
activities coming in and things like that.
So, then you can follow the rest you will see J has got D and E as predecessors, K has J, H
and I as predecessors. Now, this the word, I mean you experience a little bit of the difficulty
of what AOA causes, which is this inclusion of dummy activities, and when activities are on
the arrow, almost always it is very difficult to draw the network logic cleanly the first time.
You will have to keep repeating because only the topology of the network will govern the
logic and only as you do it in a couple of times, you can optimize it to the minimum number
of nodes and arrows.
So, this was a challenge in the past and in the earlier programs which had activity on the
arrow would have around of optimizing the network itself. So, that was one of the challenges.
So, here we have what we called the dummy activity to capture the precedence logic. Now,
so this, so a lot of activity on the arrow, the lot of the activities are also dummies, no duration
only requirement to catch logic.
Now, let us move on to activity on the node, so the activity on node was proposed as a good
way to do hand calculations for CPM. This is what Fondhal had written in this paper, it was
some other work he did for the US Navy and he said, look you can now use a technique,
which is activity on node and you can actually it is so, it is intuitive, so you can do hand
calculations for that and activity on arrow really needed a… For large networks, it needed a
computer program to do here, network representation and calculations. So, here you will find,
you have to tell me.
So, let us, so basically what you have here is you have activity in the node, the relationships
are represented by arrows. So, if an arrow goes from a node to another node, it means there is
a succeeding activity otherwise it is a proceeding activity. Now, here I have made some
statement, so no dummy activities are required is easier to interpret you know, and most
software tools use AON than PDM last statement is true and that is one reason for the real
you know usage of AON growing a lot.
But, I want you to see if this two are something which you can validate if especially the logic
is one naturally represented.
So, let us take the same problem and you try to do an AON, done one simpler the logic flows
and you are able to go through the whole process without, I mean you might get a few arrows
crossing, which sometimes cannot be avoided, but basically you can find here that their
activities are on the nodes arrows represented relationships as you go through the network
you start drawing your arrows putting your remaining nodes, and it flows thing.
Now, this representation ((Refer Time: 14:05)) and this representation contain exactly the
same information same topology ((Refer Time: 14:10)) from a human perspective this is
much easier to interpret, and you will continue with this for the hand analysis when we go to
precedence diagramming method you will find that it becomes as tricky as this in some ways.

So, and the reason for PDM being tricky as this that, so for we have been talking in the in
AON, AOA only talked about finish-start relationship that an activity should finish before the
next starts; that is the only relationship we can represent when we go to a precedence
diagramming method the key differences there are other relationships. So, you can see there
is something like a start-start relationship which says that you know, and here I have included
a lag also which says B can start only 4 days after A starts or a finish, finish relationship you
can have the conventional finish-start relationship and a very kind of not, so much used start
to finish relationship. We will take more of this during the lecture on PDM we have a few
sessions on PDM will take more of it then.
And a PDM network will look something like this where you have the various relationships,
which are shown and this can also get complicated to do by hand, because of the different
types of relationships involved. But, again we will take this up later in the PDM lecture.
Now, we talked about network representation, so for and one thing which we have to
recognize is we have, so right now I actually given you the relationships. Establishing those
relationships can be tricky, and we will take more of those sequencing as we call it when we
actually take up some cases. But, when we look at the analysis of a network you will find we
talked about activities, we heard of finding the relationship between the activities, we talked
about durations, will talk about resources later, we talked about resources with respect due do
duration, but we have to have resource management which is a separate area on it is own and
we will take this up a later in this in the course.
But, given relationships and durations these are the outputs we get from network analysis,
what we call early start, early finish, late start, late finish, the project duration, the critical
path, or critical activities we have a serious of floats are slacks, which we get which is total
float, free float, interfering float and independent float. So, what we have to do or what we
are going to cover a network analysis is to kind of illustrate, how what each of this mean and
how they calculated. So, in this session, we will primarily talk about the times the early start
the start the finish and the project duration of the critical path.
So, we take a little bit on the definitions you can see it here the early start is the earliest day,
which on activity can start the early finish is the earliest day on which on activity can finish,
late start is the latest day an activity can start without delaying the project duration we will
illustrate this it will become clearer a late finish is late is latest and activity can finish without
delaying the project, project duration is minimum time require to compute the complete
project and the critical path is the activities on the longest path in the network. We will kind
of illustrate these calculate these quantities through an illustration.
And this is the illustration which I would like to use first it is a very simple network you can
see it has just got five activities four activities A B C D, and you have the durations given
there, and you have the predecessor relationships I think all of you will be able to draw the
network pretty easily.
So, let me take this as, so A has, so I am going to do the activity on node representation. So,
A has no predecessor I have B and D. So; this gets a network through, so you can see D has B
and C as a predecessor; now you have durations and in my notation, I like to put the duration
on top of the activity. So, you have a duration of 5 B has a duration of 4 C has a duration of 6
and D has a duration of 3.
So, I like to keep the duration if and as far as we are concern the duration is constant it is
fixed we are not changing the duration for this analysis, I like to make a notation in this form,
which makes hand calculation easier to interpret and what we are going to do is, now do we
are going to calculate of this is takes care of the first part which you are represented the
activity on node network.
Now, we are going to the second part, which is called the forward pass we take the network
from the left to right, and we use a certain terminology for time we say that this is starting on
0, which is actually the beginning of the first day we put 0 it is going to take 5 days we put 5
here, which is actually the end of the fifth day, because that is the 5 day duration. So, A starts
beginning of the first day which is 0 end of the fifth day, now we have two activity, so when
can B start.
So, we are putting five which is actually the beginning of 6 days. So, we are putting 5 and
five we go to 9 we go to 11, so now, between 9 and 11 when can D start 11. So; obviously, it
has to wait for B will finish by nine it has to wait for C to finish because it is a predecessor
and only then it can start, and D can finish on 14. So, what we have calculated here is the
early start, early finish of the all the activities of the network and ultimately landed up with
the project duration.
So, this is network will take this project will take 14 days to complete and we found the early
start and early finish through the forward pass, now what we do is we actually have to find
out the late finish and late start. So, remember what was the late finish? Latest an activity can
finish without delaying the project duration project, so our project is now fixed as 14 we
cannot change. So, D can't we change 14 and when should D start to finish by 14, 11 it
cannot. So, this becomes 14 minus three that is an 11 how late when we talking about late,
now how late can B finish 11.
So, even if B finishes by 11 we are okay project is okay C 11 now C has to start later it can
start is by 5 and what about B 7 yes. So, 11 it was four days and four is a constant. So, it
comes to 7 we has the latest it can what happens if B starts on the 8th day yeah 8 days this
goes to 12, which means D can only start on 12 and project goes to 15, So, this is 7, now I
come to A, I have 5 what is the latest A can finish 5 if I finish after 5 what happens C gets
delayed and 0. So, this is the backward pass we did the forward pass to find early start early
finish the backward pass to find the late times now can you observe.
So, we have two paths one going A B D and other going A C D and you can see that is there
any difference between any of the activities we can see in terms of time in terms of the
relation 0 5 0 5 5 11 5 11 11 14 11 14 5 9 7 11 here the late times are different which means
there is something different about B compare to C, and that is slack or float we will take that
up later, but you can see that there is something different now what we talk as if I delay B by
1 day what happens it's okay as for as the project concern if I delay C 1 by day project gets
delayed if I delay A by 1 day project it gets delay.
So, these activities are critical. So, activity A, C, and D are critical and it really the critical
path does not mean as much as identifying the activities that are critical. So, if you want to
draw the path you would say the critical path goes through. So, this was a simple example
which illustrates basically how the network analysis is done and we are calculated all the
parameters which we talked about the early start early finish late start late finish project
duration and identify critical activities.
Now, we identified critical activities more because it is a simple network the actual algorithm
to identify critical it certainly depends on the float and when we cover float in more detail we
will come to that.
Now, the same network I can show it you in a brief animation it is exactly what we did by
hand and these are the times now how would you like to see if you like to see the results like
this, or do you like to see in some other form, what would be the best way to express the
results.
Lecture – 18
Lesson - 06
Representing Results in a Bar Chart, AON Example – 2
We come into a bar chart, so whatever; however we do the analysis, it is nice to see the
results in a bar chart, because you will see that you can interpret more things when you see it
in a bar chart. So, this is the same results in a bar chart, where you have an activity you can
see A, B, C, D. Activity A takes five days; you can see it is the start of the first day to the end
of the 5th day. Activity B, it is in a light blue here, it starts activity B and C… Now, you
cannot see the relationship logic here, but because we have got the results out of the CPM we
can put it into the bar chart and here is B stating at the beginning of the 6th day ending end of
the 9th as it put there.
Activity C, finishing at the end of 11 and activity D starting at the beginning of 12 and going
all the way to 14. Now, these we have seen that this, what we call there is activity B, so this is
the early start schedule. Now, if I am going to the late start what happens.
So, I can move B, the only thing I can do when I move to late start is to move B by the, to all
the way to 11 and if I move B all the way to 11, is the project is still okay. So, I can visualize
the late start schedule also on the bar chart and as we get into more complex networks and
schedules, you will find that the ability to move in the bar chart, the ability to move an
activity around between it is late start and it is early, or we know, gives a lot of flexibility in
where resources are to be allocated. So, we will use this a lot more in the resource allocation
feature. Any questions?.
So, let me give you an another problem to do, this is a slightly larger network. Activities A to
H, you have the duration you have the predecessor, can you do the analysis for this
environment. So, let us go with the networks, so I have activity A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, so my
relationships are B follows A. So, these relationships are seen by wherever I have this, so I
have B, C, and D with A as predecessor. Now, I have E here; it has both B and C as
predecessors and F have C and D as a predecessor.
Now, I come to G, it only has D as a predecessor, I come to H, it has E, F, and G as the

predecessor. So, this completes the network, so what the predecessor relationship to the
activities has been represented here. Now, we put in the durations as we did it manually, I am
using the same notation here, I have all the durations now along with all the activities, and
now I start the forward pass. So, with 0, 5 and now all of these can start at 5, and this will go
to 9, 12, 13.
So, now where should E, 12; because it is predecessors are B and C, C only finishes by 12, so
it has gone to 12 and then, F has 12 and 13 as predecessors, so it is 13. G has, it has only 13
as a predecessor. Now, E will finish at 18, 16 and 23, so now, H has three predecessors, and
we have to; obviously, start with the last one, the one and finishes at 27. Any questions? So,
now, if you wanted to come up with a way of, so what we did here is a forward pass and what
we calculated was the early times.
We calculated the early start and the early finish. How would I, what would the formula if I
wanted to come up with some kind of formula, what would my formula for an early start and
early finish, either predecessor or successors.

( )
( )
So, basically it is a max of an early finish, it is not a formula, but it is a notation. What about
the early finish? Early start plus duration, so this is the logic you are applying to calculate
this, and the only place the logic gets tricky is, when you how to find out what is my
maximum of predecessors and when you get a complicated network, away actually calculated
all my predecessor parameters. Now, we go on to the backward pass, so we will find that this
has to complete on 27, we are fixing that working backward, goes to 23. So, what is the latest
finish?
So, all of these can finish as late as 23 without compromising the project duration. So, all of
this can finish as late as 23 and now, I again calculate back to the late start. So, when I am
calculating backward pass we first calculate the late finish, then go to the late start. So, I have
17, 20, 13; now I come to the late finish 17 C, C has two, it has 17 and 20 as successors 17. D
has 20 and 13, 13. Now, further back whether we know to the late starts 13, 10, 5 and A has
now 13, 10, five as successors 5.
So, now, I am going to ask you; obviously, for the late finish equal to the minimum of a late
start. So, this ((Refer Time: 08:21)). Any questions on this?

So, here you have all of the parameters. Actually, I should take you back here ((Refer Time:
08:36)) and ask you, so we know project duration is 27, you can make out what is critical
here without any calculation, which is critical. What are the critical activities? A, D, G, H and
you can see in A, D, this chain of activities all of the early parameters and the late parameters
are the same; that means, any delay to any of these activities will delay the project whereas
on the other chain, any of the any, I mean there can be delays by varying degrees and this is
really the subject of a lot of discussions, which we will take up when we discuss the slacks
and floats.
Now, the same project can now be represented in a bar chart; same results can be represented
in a bar chart and the activities in pink are the critical activities. The others you can see the
amount of delay they can have, but can I for example start moving one of these activities all
the way to end, what will be the impact?.
Student: It will be the succeeding activity.
Yes, the succeeding activity will have to get delayed, only then. So, if I delay for example B,
and I go back to the network; obviously, ((Refer Time: 09:59)) it will impact E. So, if I delay
B here, E will also move down, I cannot delay B without after, I mean beyond a certain stage.
So, how much can I delay? So, here is an interesting question, how much can I delay B
without delaying E. So, if I am going with my early finishes 9, an early start is 12, so if I can
go three days from the early parameters of B without delay E.
If I go by the fourth day, E will start getting the impact, unless I of course, move E all the
way to start at 17. So, there is a lot of play here which project managers used to be able to
schedule resources to be able to… They have to share resources between activities, this is the
kind of play they use, and this is the all about slack or float, and this is something one has to
understand very well to be able to utilize resources effectively on a project. So, now, here is
the early start schedule of this project and here it is a late start schedule, I do not think that is
common.
So, we discuss this. Also, we had the forward pass; we discussed these two formulae. We also
discussed the backward pass and we right now identified critical activities, because the
network was simple and we were able to see easily which activities are critical. But, in the
next lecture what we will talk about is, we will complete some of these issues in more detail,
will talk a little bit about sequencing, but will take up the important issue of floats and discuss
that in detail. Any questions?
Okay, Thanks.
Lecture – 19
Lesson – 01
Introduction to Floats, Types of Floats and Example -1 Discussion
In this lecture, we are going to continue with network analysis and what we are going to
cover is the concept of float and how float and slack are calculated. Now, float and slack are
interchangeable terms, in many places the term float is used; we also use the term slack. You
will find the software which uses project management uses the terms interchangeably, and we
will continue to use the word float through rest of the lecture.
I just mentioned, our objective here is to understand the different types of float or slack, the
definition, the calculation behind this and then the usage of the float for project decisions.
You may recall that we had covered network analysis in this manner, where we had inputs for
the analysis which where relationships, durations, and resources and various outputs. So, we
have covered the set of outputs which are in this box, which is the early start, early finish, late
start, late finish, the project duration and we could, for the networks which we analyzed we
could actually find the critical path without any calculation or any specific identification.
Today, we will cover these other parameters which are outputs of network analysis, which is
a total float, free float, interfering float and independent float and there will be lots of finds a
formal way to define critical path based on floats. So, this would be the exercise or the
objective for today. Later on, we will take resources, resources are extremely important, and
they drive the whole project and we will take, how to take resources as input and do the
allocation and various operations with resources and that will be part of the resource lectures
which come later in this class.
Now, what we want to do is start with these definitions, I do not expect you to understand the
definitions as it is defined here. When we go through the examples, you will be able to
understand these definitions, you know from the basic status, but what we will just go
through the definition of these which is… So, there are four float terms as we discussed
earlier, the total float is the maximum amount by which an activity can be delayed from the
early start without delaying the project.
Free float is the maximum amount by which an activity can be delayed without delaying the
early start of any following activity. Now, these two are fairly intuitive; interfering float is the
maximum amount by which an activity can be delayed without delaying the project, but will
cause delay to the early start of some following activity. We will take this up; you know
through an example, and independent float is the amount by which an activity can be delayed
without delaying the project and even if all the predecessors are at the late finish, and all the
successors are at the early start. So, these are the four definitions and let us get into some of
the details, and the best way we want to do that is through an example.
So, this is an example we solved before, we have four activities A, B, C, D. We have the
durations, we have the predecessor relationship given, and I am just going through the basic
analysis to refresh. I have memories, so we did the forward pass if you recall we have the
durations here and we had the early times, the early start, the early finish and now we went
through and then we found the project duration and when we did the backward pass, we
started with the project duration fixed, worked backward through the network, calculated the
late finish and the late start, you will recall the equations we had for it, and we come back to
the very initial node.
So, this was the analysis of the network and we then put the various network parameters and
we did the early start, the early finish, the late start, the late finish and we went ahead and
defined a critical activity, because we could easily see that if there is any delay in activities
A, C or D, project duration is get delayed, and we could see that, if there is the delay in B
there is no problem. So, this is how we defined a critical activity in the last lecture, now let us
get more formulae. So, how many days can I delay B?
Student: 2 days.
Two days, so I can delay B by two days, and it will not affect the projects. So, if we take the
definitions we had.
So, we had, remember we had four terms, we had a total float which was the amount by
which I can delay an activity without delaying the whole project. So, what would be the total
float of B? two days, so I can delay B without delaying the whole project by two days. Now,
what was free float? Any successive activities, so I can delay B again by two days without, it
is a very simple example without any successive activities, without.
Now, what was interfering float?
Student: It was the maximum amount.
It was the maximum amount which activity can be delayed without delaying the project
because the delay to the early start of the following activity. So, in this case, is there a delay
for B? Any delay in B will…
Student: Will affect the duration.
Will affect the duration. So, it is anyway going to, so interfering float. What about
independent? Again I will go back to the definition which I have to do it this way, if we look
at the definition here ((Refer Time: 06:39)) we have amount by which an activity can be
delayed without delaying the project even if all predecessors are at late finish and successors
at early start. So, in this particular case as you know both the predecessor and the successor
are critical, and it does not affect the way it would do, you know what is required. So, we
would go into, what would it be.
Student: 2
Should be 2.
So, we can now take, so the independent is also 2. Now, you can see you put this into a bar
chart here, and you can see that the B, the bar for B is here; you can see the B, you can see it
in blue and you can see the two days of total float. So, there are two days of free float,
because I can move it here and it does not interfere and anything else and it also happens to
be an independent float.
Very simple example, some other more what I would say the complex issues of float are not
coming out here. So, let us take a slightly more complicated example.

So, we would see this is the results which we have just discussed. So, whatever we; however,
we move it, this is the end we can move. So, we have two days of total float, two days of free
float, no interfering float and two days of independent float.
Let us take a little more, let us change the example now. I am just extending it, and we have
a, we have this network now.
We have A; I am just added another activity, and you can see the network; that is, the
analysis there. So, we have 5; we have B is… B have 2-day duration, D have three days, E is
again 3 and C are 6, the quick analysis is 5. I should have calculated B, but I, because I know
the way it goes into, go that is why I have. So, we did the forward pass backward pass, what
is the critical path?.
Student: A C E.
We can see that A C E, now we just ((Refer Time: 09:50)), we only had the added D now,
that is all we did compare to the earlier network. We have B and D, and we can see that
certainly, the critical activities have no total float or any float for that matter. Now, let see
what kind of float B and D have. So, you can see, let us use total float first.
Does B or D have a total float?
Student: Yes.
How much?
Student: 1
Is it one each? We will come back to that. What about free float?
Student: B is 0, D is 1.
B 0, because the minute I start moving B, it will start changing the early start of D. So, B has
no free float, you can see D is moving into, it is successor is E, and there is a one day
difference. So, even if it delay D by one day it is not going to affect anything in the network,
so D has one day of free float. Now, let's just discuss of these two floats, these are the most
commonly used floats in project management and it is kind, let us spend a little more time
discussing these two.
When we say B has one day and D has one day of float, so what we do on a project. So,
typically if a project has multiple activities, we will subcontract activities to various
subcontractors. So, here is a project, I have you know all of these subcontractors, I now
convey communicate information to them and said, tells subcontractor D; you only need to
start on the 7th day, you need to come to my site on to 7th day, mobilize on the 7th day, and
you need to be there for 3 days based on your decision, because B will be completely and
hand over to you by 7.
I need to tell subcontractor C that you need to come in on to the fifth day because A will be
completing by 5. So, all these early start times gives me a way to break the project and give
responsibility to the various participants. Now, how will I use the float information?
So, can I tell? So, basically B has one day float, and D has one day; that means, even if I
change, is it B as one day and D has one day.
Student: No.
No, so B can, that is a very important thing. So, with B and D, this total float is actually
shared. So, there used to be a time when, I mean when CPM is new, B would look at his float
and say I can take three days, it is okay if I finish on day 8. D will take a look at it is basic
information and say, I have also got one day of float, might be I should take four days, what
will happen.
Yes, the whole project gets delayed by one day, because that float is shared. The minute one
of them uses it, it goes off the network, so we have to be aware of the shared float. What
about free float? Is it shared or is it what or what does B has no free float and D has a free
float. So, if you are giving if you are allowing B or D to give, use that one day of float who
would you give it to.
Student: D
It depends on, but if I give it to D, then there is less coordination between B and D required.
If I give it to B; of course, D loses that float, but it means that D has to now mobilize on one
day later, so the way I use float matters. Now, you have another way of the importance of
float and criticality. So, we have now certainly depended the critical path has critical activity
as an activity which has no float, we know that and if I am, if let said the foreman who is
doing activity B and the foreman who is doing activity C came and asked me for the same
resource and I have only had one of those resources, who would I give it to, C because he is
on critical.
So, decision making like this becomes what you say, easier to justify when you have an idea
of what the float or slack is. Now, if we start looking at the remaining float, so we have
interfering and independent. Obviously, A C E has nothing, what about B. So, we can look at
it on the bar chart here ((Refer Time: 15:24)). So, how much can I move B by? So, here we
have B on 6 and 7, can I move it by, I can move it by one day. What happens when I move it
by one day?
Student: The early start of B is one day.
I am interfering with the early start of B. How much can I interfere with the early start of D?
Student: By one day.
By one day so that you can see in the bar diagram, it is you know that overlap; that is let say
the 8th day will be an interfering day, D will because of the predecessor relationship B will
be forced to move start on the next day and move on. So, that is one day of interfering float;
D has none. What about independent? Do any of these have an independent float?
Student: D will have 1 day ((Refer Time: 16:24))
D will have basically right now you can see that D is influenced by the start of B. If I delay
B, D gets delay; that means it is not independent of B. There is no independent float, so both
B and D have no independent float. Now, if I wanted to… Now… Are there any questions on
this?
Student: ((Refer Time: 16:59)) successive activity should not be delayed instead of doing
interfere.
No, no; it is the amount I interfere by, the amount I; that is why it is interfering. The amount I
interfere into the successor of succeeding activities. So, here I can interfere with a one day,
not more.
So, if we go to the results in the power point, this is the same as what we have got on the
board. Now, let us try to illustrate the concept of independent float. So, I have actually
making the, changing the diagram a bit; what I am doing now is I am adding a relationship
between C and D.
I am just going to change this diagram, I am adding a relationship between C and D. I am

changing the duration of D to 3, this is I would have 5, I have B is 2, C is 6, D is 3.
Student: then it will become 11.
11, yes. So, now, I have, this is the this is where it is. So, now; obviously, because of the
relationship this changes. So, I will rework my times, so five 5’s. So, now, 5 to 6, this goes to
11; now I have here 11 going to, so here I have 7, let me take out all my… So, this goes to
14, here I have 14 and 11, so I go 14 plus three goes to 17; 17, 14, 14, 11 actually this should
go to 14.
Student: 11
11, 5, so this the critical path now changes. Where does it go through now? A, C, D, and E.
So, because I change the predecessor relationship here, now my critical path goes through
this. Now, let us see it is the same example, slightly different relationships, and waits, I did
not finish this, so this goes back to 11 here, so now, this goes to 11, 9. So, again no floats on
these because they are critical, and we now go back and see, take B, so B has…
So, we will have. Certainly, it is B which has the float. What is the kind of float B has?
Student: Total float
Total float. What about free float?
Student: B 4.
Interfering it cannot, because B; if B starts interfering with D what will happen.
Student: Project gets a delay.
The project gets delayed. So, in our definition, remember you cannot delay the project. You
have, how much can you interfere with any succeeding activity without delaying the project,
so it has 0. So, what about independent float? Can I delay A? I cannot delay A, so B is
independent of any movement of A. Now, B can move without delaying D by 4. So, there is
space for B to move so that you can see it in the bar chart, the space for B to move from, in
this whole region without influencing anything else, nothing else gets influenced for that. So,
you have an independent of 4 days.
So, these like, we discuss the usage of total float and free float. Typically, interfering float
and independent float, you will find that lot of software packages today do not even calculate,
they do not give you an option, or they do not give you a field. So, in practice, the usage is
not that much because people rely a lot on software, but it really gives you specially
independent float gives you a certain idea of real independence the activity has to the rest of
the network and how much of really you know float.
So, this float of B is, you know there is a lot of subcontractors can do that four days without
interfering with any other part of the network. So, that kind of information also become quite
relevant, any questions. So, just to wrap up this discussion on the float, we discussed how the
priority to critical activities versus non-critical activities could be assigned based on the
calculating float, and you know and identifying critical.
The second point is very important; we talked about the criticality of a chain of activities. So,
here what is it, what is the float for B.
Student: 4 days.
Four days, earlier what was the float in the last network.
Student: 1
1, so one day of float, are we saying the activities are not critical. What is the uncertainty in
the project? You will find that the durations we are talking about here are deterministic, but if
you had some kind of a probabilistic duration, that one day is very well within the range of
change. So, lot of times you will not define the critical path, where the total float is 0, you
will say total float is in range. Within five days of total float, it is critical, because… So, the
critical activity is not a binary decision it is a subjective decision; it can be a range of total
float. So, that way criticality becomes important, so it is not critical, but criticality.
We talked about how knowledge of float can be used to balance subcontracted work. When
should a person mobilized, when should demobilize; all of these can be structured and
subcontractor out properly, how much extra time could a person be given. Later on, we will
be using float to balance resource loads; this is one of the most important applications of
float, and we will be getting into that in great detail.
Now, the last question is also quite important, which is really I mean in an international
context, this is why float has become very much part of a computation of a CPM from a legal
standpoint. Because ((Refer Time: 24:23)) on this network it is not as illustrative because the
only B has a float. In our earlier network, remove your B and D were sharing the float. Now,
can I give it, is there a contractual term of which, who should I give the float to, both had one
day, why would I want to use the float?
Student: The problem of getting resources.
So, they are all under clauses to say, there is a delay and they are doing something that they
will be, they might be liable to pay some damages or what actually. They will want to use
that one day, or they will want to increase the duration of the project of their sub activity
because increasing duration will be requiring them to mobilize less resources. So, they might
decide, you know I want to stretch because I will mobilize less resources I do not have to pay
for additional resources on that, I can finish it on that time and be done.
So, this issue of how float shared is, you know it is still an issue of a lot of litigation in places
and today when you take a contract document in an international contract, there will be
specific classes on, who will the float belongs to and it always belongs to the owner today
and how the float should be a portioned in case of some need for requiring the float. So,
because the subcontractors or the people doing each of these activities cannot assume that,
they having the float for themselves. So, management of float becomes a very key issue.
Lecture – 20
Lesson – 02
Example 4, Usage of Floats for Project Decisions
Let us take this network now, I would like you to start working on this network we will
solve it in this class. This is a network which we did our analysis on in the last class. So,
the analysis results are given there, I would suggest, you could actually do a little bit of
the analysis of the basic analysis to kind of refresh your memory and then, let us come
back and calculate the various float parameters. You will get a few more insight into float
when you analyze this network. Right now we just all the networks we took, now it is
only introductory. Your question.
Student: When we have a range of floats, when we start calculating, so.. ((Refer Time:
00:58)).
It is not so much a range of floats that your total float should be within, I will not say
total float should be 0 for an activity to be critical. I say total float should be less than
your, only if any total float less than 5 is considered critical float.
Student: It meas that there can be more than one critical path.?
There can be multiple critical paths, so that is something which we will get, we will see a
lot of it in the next session or when we do time cost trade off. As my duration starts
reducing or I have to start crashing, multiple critical path is a really a fact of many
projects. Only in some of these idealized simple examples which we do, we get single
critical paths.
Student: In crashing also, if we do crashing then multiple critical path will be generated
one at a time ((Refer Time: 01:48)).
No, you will get multiple. When we get to that we will see, but the question what you are
asking is very relevant, a lot of times this never almost in all practical case there could be
a single critical path. But, typically people want the project done as fast as possible, in
which case I do not have time for float I am going to even try to get things done in a
starts crunching the critical path itself and as the critical path starts reducing, my float
from the other activities go away, all paths starts becoming critical.
Student: Sir how would you decide upon the number of days .
No, it depends on how much control you have on your project. Now, what is the level of
uncertainty with which you can predict? So, this having total float equal to 0, so an
activity is critical is ideal and if we go only by the definition, let say there is another path
with the float of 1 and you can easily loose one day on a activity. You might find that you
are still tracking a critical path, which is now not critical.
Because, if there is 2 day delay on that path, what will happen? Critical path changes
and you are now pumping resources into what you thought was critical, but the critical
path has changed. So, you have to keep your eye on all of these activities, which are
near critical. And; obviously, when you say criticality and near critical the problem
becomes much more interesting than and more complex than just saying there is a unique
critical path and that is the only one I have to deal with. Ok So, just start of on this
problem, there are quite a few interesting issues when you get into the details of this.
So, you can make the table, , put this in a tabular form, where we have A, B, C, D, we
will have the duration, will have the predecessor, will have early start, early finish, late
start, late finish, total float, we can talk about criticality here, free float, interfering float
and independent float . So, this will be the table, but once you have done the analysis,
basic analysis it gets you back into kind of thinking in terms of the forward pass
backward pass, let us then talk about, discuss the floats.
So, here we know that A, D, G, H around critical path need little more time ?. So, this is
on critical path and we have no floats on that, let us take B,
So; obviously, B, C, E, F have floats I think I will show the output on to this, … So here
we have, so in a basic bar chart we can have the early start schedule, we can have the late
start schedule and so this is showing the full extent of float used in all the activities for
the late start schedule.
So, if this analysis is done let us actually try to discuss this, the different floats on the
visual you can see here. So, let us take B, we know that B can move all the way here, it is
late finish is 17. So, as I start moving B, so what is this whole distance which B can
move?
Student: Total float.
Total float, so that will be the total float of B and how many days is that?
Student: 8 days
8 days, is that total float of B. But, when B starts moving beyond a certain degree, what
happens?. After it starts moving beyond is what happens?
Student: It starts effecting E.
It starts effecting E, actually beyond here, because B is connected to E, after B goes

beyond 12 it starts effecting E. So, one way before it effects E, what is the float of B,
what is that kind of float called? free float. So, B has 3 days of free float, so it can move
1, 2, 3, if it moves of 4th day, then E starts, the early start of E starts getting affected .
So, B has 8 days of total float, 3 days of free float, we can see that. Is there any
questions?, please raise it. What about E? We will come back to the other two floats, we
just take total float and free float first. What about E or we take C next? What about C?
Student: 5 total floats, total float is 5
Total float of 5 days, so here is C, I can move it all the way, but if I when I start moving
C what happens. Does it have any free float?
Student: It has 1
No it has no free float, because the minute I move C to the 13th day E will start moving
and you can see that in the bar chart. So, here is C and E starts right here right there, at
the minute I move C by 1, E will also start moving by 1. What… So; of course D does
not have. Now, we go to E. What is the, how much of, so here is E, so when I am moving
E for total float and free float I am going here, I can move here all the way here for 5
days; that is my total float. Free float is also there, same. Because, it does not affect; it is
converging to a critical activity and I can move it all the way to 23 without affecting H.
Now, F? total float of 7.
So, I can move again, F can move all the way to the end. It can end on 23 and then, there
is no there is nothing; it will not hamper anything else and the free float is also set. So,
any questions on total float and free float that is fine. Now, we come to interfering float.
So, if we take B you can see that end as B start moving it interferes with E, how much
can interfere with E?, so…
Student: 5
5, so the first 3 days it does not interfere with E the remaining 5 days it interferes with E.
So, out of 8 days of total float and 3 days of free float 5 days interfering in float does not
it give any clue to interfering float.
Student: Sum of total float = Free float + Interfering float
And you can see that visually, so that is what do you expect any other activity to interfere
in float C has C have, so now, if you think of total float minus free float is equal to
interfering float you will see that C has total float it does no have free float, so it will
have which same thing. So, I can keep moving C , I will be interfering all the way E until
B and until it that becomes critical, what about F? Student: zero, cannot interfere,
because if it starts interfering that the project duration will change.
And you will find that F that the total float and free float are same, so total float minus
free float is 0, now we come to the independent float. So, we take an let start with C
although we start with B A cannot be delayed. So, A has no influence on B, if I delay B
from the early start of B or you know if I delay B will E get it delay ? no, no it has free
float till 3 days. So, remember the definition when independent float?.
Student: Amount by which an activity can be delayed without delaying the project
Yeah the successor, so we are going to constrain B as much as we can, how we can
strain B as much as we can?, then A should start of the at its late finish and E should start
in its early start. So, E wants to start at 12 A will still finish at 5 still B has room to move
correct? 3 days that is independent float. Let us go to see E, E wants to start at 12, A
wants to finish at? 5 no it has no independent float we go to H wants started 23 there
room there, but C wants to ended 17 , no it cannot, what about F? H wants to start on
with 23 either C can start on 17 which is more constraining? C.
So, C can finish on 17 and still there is 3 days of space, , so if I was going to think of an
equation for independent float. What would it look like?
Student: ((Refer Time: 15:58)) maximum of let us take a, it will ((Refer Time: 16:06)).
So, as far as the late finish of the predecessor goes it is the maximum value you have to
take.
Minimum of the early start of the successor.

Student: So, minus activity,
Yeah Minus activity duration. So, there is a minimum early start of successor minus
maximum late finish of the predecessor minus the activity duration. So, , so the
challenge them becomes you will have the look through the predecessor as successor a
make show you identify them properly and then, do this calculation.
So, this is the table, which gives summaries all what we discussed and we have also
discuss the float terms mathematically.
So, if we put in the various terms we have this is how we are looking at a total float is a
LS-ES early start when we take a free float = minimum ES a successor - minus EF,
interfering float we talked about TF-FF and we just discussed independent float. So, in a
large network you understood the concept of each of this, but you would tend to use the
formula little or more then going and you know checking if you know using the bar
graph for anything like that, but again when you using the formula understand what is
behind a formula.
So, we looked the different types of floats and we went to the definition we did the few
calculations went through examples and I think all of your actually understood it from
the concept perspective. We looked at the equations also we also discuss the use of float
for project decisions and this will come upand this keeps recurring. So, I am not
spending a lot of time and the third point, because in every other aspect of critical path
planning float becomes a very important issue specially the total float and the free float.
Lecture – 21
Lesson - 03
Two- Span Bridge: Activity Identification and
Duration Estimation (Contd.,)
In this session, what we are going to do is discuss a small case study which is the Two
Span Bridge problem. What we want to do is to be able to apply some of the theory we
have learnt and see, what it results in especially with respect to obviously, network
planning.
I want to be able to kind of a explain, how estimation of duration is done for these
activities using the bridge as an example, we will also establish predecessor relationship
and basically, we will really get into the details of the two span bridge problem. Now,
like you can see the bottom of this slide, we will get into a lot of practical details, but this
is only indicator, this is only for class room discussion and this is by no means is a
comprehensive procedure for bridge scheduling. There is a lot more detail one has to get
into.
Now, you recall this, so this was something we had discussed in lecture 3 about the
various elements of the bridge and we had used it to identify activities.
So, let us actually look at this once more, so that you familiarize yourself with the
activity. These are the activities we had identified. We had said there is activity 1. So,
when we look at the bridge it is a two span bridge, so there is span 1, span 2. You have
two abutments, a centre pier, you have piles, so these are indication of piles, we have a
pile cap, each of the pile groups have a pile cap. And then, you have the girders across,
you have a slab deck, the road over it, the abutment has earth work here and then, the
road leading up to the decks and leading away up to the decks on the east and the west
side.
So, these were the components of the bridge and then, we decided that we would break it
down into the following activities. So, we will get into a little, we will this is what we
will get into details of today. One is, I would to the best of what we can do in the class
room show you, what these activities look like and the real objective is to estimate the
duration of the activities and towards the end of the lecture we will see, what is the
sequence in which these activities can be done for the bridge should be constructed.
So, that will give us enough information to do network analysis. So, you can see the first
activity we are saying here is order and deliver piles, then we are talking about casting
the beams, driving the piles in the east, they constructing the pile cap, constructing the
abutment here, driving the piles in the center, constructing the center pile cap,
constructing the center pier, driving the piles on the west, again the pile cap, the
abutment, then placing these beams here, placing the second set of beams and then, the
deck slab is over the beams and then finally, laying the road over this.
So, let us get into, so again just I am repeating; our objective is to understand what
makes up these activities; that is, one and number 2 is to be able to see, how would we
estimate duration of these activities. So, let us get into the first activity order and deliver
piles. So, what we have assumed or when we say order and deliver piles that is a precast
piles is available for you from a kind of a fabrication factory to be able to order and
deliver piles.
So, you can see here, if you have not visited a precast yard, it is something which you
should do in as a part of an industrial visit. So, you will have molds like this into which
concrete are poured , concrete is poured ((Refer Time: 04:13)) and then, it is striped,
cured and you will have piles ready for delivery in this form. And if you place orders,
these are standard length standard dimension and I can base the number of my
foundation design based on the piles and number of piles.
So, if you cannot order piles, you know in your area you might have to set up a precast
yard in your site, which does something like this and these piles are then driven into the
ground. Now, other than this precast pile, what are the other kinds of piles.
Student: Cast insitu
Cast insitu, where you actually pour and then, you cast this pile cap. Here the advantage
here is they come precast, so you can start the way of your operation right away and this
case we have chosen to do precast.
Now, how do I estimate duration? So, this is a, this slide is a bit busy, but let us see what
we can make out as to coming out to estimating durations for precast pile. The simplest
one is let us say if I have to order the piles, what I have to decide is, what is the lead time
for delivery. If I am going to place an order on a certain item I have to know I cant go to
the precast order and say I want 20 piles and he will deliver it to be by evening, it is very
unlikely, he will need a certain amount of time, because he will have back log of orders
and things, I will have to find the lead time and then, place my order based on the lead
time.
What else does time of delivery depend. If I was going to precasting kind of a factory,
what else will it depend. Transportation, location where it is, transportation time, is it
interstate, if it interstate there will be a lot of other things to take care of. So, lot of these
decide whether you are going to do it on site or off site, also a number of piles. If I have
a very large order, it is not single delivery it is going to take time for them to pre
fabricate, ship it, you know there will be many cycles of it.
So, here we are saying there are 30 piles, because they are relatively small bridge and we
are saying the pile group here. So, you can see a 4 / 3, a 2/3 and a 4/3. So, that is the
number, so if I, if you want to interpret what this 4 /3 and 2/ 3 is, we are assuming that
the piles are in the form of a group.
So, you have 1, 2, 3, 4, so this is for one of the abutments for the… So, for the pier is this
way and for the other abutment that is similar to this. So, ………<7.21 seconds> this is
the how we get the numbers, now I have not decided or given you information on depth
of the pile or the dimension of the pile, because you are assuming all that is fairly
standard. We should be getting into that detail if you are doing a real planning, but right
now we are just making an assumption and going for the class room for this.
So, if I were to do a delivery I just find it is going to take me one month to from when I
place the order to get the piles, then I have to place the order one month ahead of when I
want the piles. Now, the other alternative is which I have shown here is that I do not
want lets say I decide to cast the piles on site. What is the operations required? So, you
can see from the earlier things , see it will have certainly reinforcement cage, it has form
work.
So, this is the typical sequence of operation, I have to do, I have to fabricate the
reinforcement cage, I have to cast the pile, I have to assemble the form work, pour the
concrete, remove the forms after one day, I cannot remove the forms immediately. So,
which has set there and I am allowing one day for the concrete to set, I am probably be
needing less time, but I am allowing one day and then, actual time for removing the
form.
And then, I might decide I want to use it, cure it for 21 day before I actually use it. I have
to allow the concrete to gain strength. Now, if I wanted it to gain strength rapidly, I could
use stream cure, so it depends. So, you can imagine now from when my first pile goes in
to the casting I will be able to use it only after, how many days? let us say I start casting
and I am assume that reinforcement fabrication, I will assume that it is all sequential.
Student: 25 days
Above 25 days and how to which, 21 is just going for?Student: Curing.
Curing, there is no activity happening, it just curing. So, lot of time peoples say look at
I do not wait for the 21 days, I am going to steam curing it and start using this value. so
here you can see multiple fabrication beds, if I had only one mold it will take more time.
So, how many molds? So, I need 30 piles. How many mold should I invest in? Is there
another critical, you know driver of my rate of production of piles.
So, here you can see you know if I have, here if you just take a look here, I have one day
for reinforcement fabrication, form work assembly, concrete pouring. It is, so here you
have two and half days, I remove the form after one day. So, here 1 2 3 4 days, after four
days I can reuse the form work, after four days I can reuse the form work so you have to
make a calculation in that form and say that, so in my next pile I would put it back on the
fourth day and then restart.
So, if I have multiple such a forms what will be the way I go, ((Refer Time: 10:51)) we
are leaving the actual what do you call. So, you can see the duration here can be
determined based on the rate at which my bridge needs piles, I could just have one form
and go with it, but is that likely to be good; no, because piling is the first activity. So, if I
want to start my piling work I better have many piles there and so that was one reason
why just ordering and delivering might be an easier approach so long as my lead time is
there.
If something like this, I have to do a casting yard set up and there is many things to do,
before we get up. So, Ive just given you an alternative that we can actually as an exercise
later come back and determine the number of form sets I need to ensure that my project
has minimum delay. Any questions on this? We go to the next activity which is casting
the beams.
It is similar, so here you can see a casting bead; again you have reinforcement; you are
going to actually pour concrete, wait for it to set, remove the form work and land up with
the beam and the I girder something like this. Then, I girder get is then transported to the
place and lifted in place in to the over the as the part of the bridge structure. Now, we
come to the same question here in this case we are saying that beam casting is part of the
project and we are assuming that there is a total of 6 beam required 3 + 3, 3 on the one
span 3 on the other and the sequence of beam fabrication is a like this.
So, you have two days for the reinforcement and when you casting the beam assembly is
one day the concrete poring is one day form removal after one day the time for a moving
the form is one day. Now, curing before usage, now beam is going to be flexural ((Refer
Time: 12:58)) it is you know you are going to take it is going to be challenge by
whatever loads are coming on it, but typically by the time we left in place on 14 days it
will obtain a full strength and you know soon enough before this service load comes on
it.
So, general leave 14 days is enough in again if you really want to take it earlier we have
to use stream curing. Now, so if we take this beam duration for casting beams, let us get
in to little bit of detail and see if if these number here are can we come up with the
different numbers. First of all when we take casting a beam we are taking we need 6
beams cast and how many days does it take the cast a beam.
So, we can assume now if I am going to do, so can reinforcement fabrication be done in
parallel ? yes, which means what you I do? what is the sequence?. So, you will find the
this reinforcement can be tied somewhere else placed here and then, the form work can
be build around it . So, I do not need two days this in sequence to the casting part of it.
So, basically if we get in to detail. So, assume that reinforcement fabrication is available
that takes the 1 2 3 4 days before a form is ready again.
So, basically assume that you know the reinforcement yard is producing reinforcement
and it is available very rapidly I just need to take it or you know as it is I need to take it
put it in to the form assemble the form pore the concrete wait for one day remove it and
then, the form is the ready again. So, in one day I can produce in 4 days I can produce
one beam. So, if I go with you know 3 forms in 4 days I can produce 3 beams.
Now, again we can ask what is the production do it required if I have to get 4 sets, then
means I have 3 sets I have to then invest more have more space all of that is required
does it benefit me it one of the questions we going to discuss will this by going in with
three will it be beneficial towards the, now when does not beam get erected. It is quite
late in the project, you know can I just do it in one set of forms or do I need multiple?,
what is the disadvantage of one set of forms was multiple will discuss all of these in a
later change I thing all of you realize that this is an issue.
So, here we go will a assume a three such a form and then, can you convince yourself
can you tell me this is ok ? or what have we done what is what is shown below what is a
duration how do I calculate the duration, what is it, what is 2 + 14.
Student: 14 days.
For curing yeah, what is two.
Student: Formwork assemblyWhy I am not taking 4 days+ 14
Student: Because formwork removal and all is later, even though when we remove
formwork the concrete is curing ((Refer Time: 16:31)).
Exact, so I have done my form work assembly Ive poured my concrete, concrete has
started curing started gaining strength from that day. So, it is to these two days and then
it is I am allowing it cure for 14 days. So, and on this basically 16th day from the start
that beams that set of beam ready what about the second set of beams these once you the
formwork is free …..I have gone in. So, just that make set of beam the ready four days
late on also cure for yeah 14 day.
So, it goes to twenty days now if you recall when we going, so here I have actually split
this in to two I have if I am taking duration I have a duration of 16 days for first set of
beams what is the duration of second set of beams ((Refer Time: 17:34)) 20 digit
complete by 20 days yes, so from when I start 20 days. So, both set of beams will be
available in 20 days the …we will come, so here I am showing it as tw0 I have not
shown it is to am showing two components to the time. we can decide whether this kind
of breaking it will be useful at a later stage or not any questions ? sir the reinforcement
fabrication?.
So reinforcement fabrication, so you are fabricating all the reinforcement is it ? what

reinforcement fabrication requires is it typically we run a reinforcement yard yeah I
need crew for it. So, so all we are saying here is that it takes two days of fabrication
reinforcement, y I am not doing it in sequence I am doing it in parallel the reinforcement
cage is brought to the to the bed and then this is placed in before the forms.
So, I do not need to wait I mean if I have enough crew I can fabricate reinforcement for
all 6 at this same time and then, place it in where we are going to pour the concrete that
is exactly what it means it means that this reinforcement is not I am not fabricating the
reinforcement on the bed and the fabricating the out. So, the bed is free and then bringing
it and the placing it on the bed doing whatever tying is required and then, doing the form
work around how would it change if I am fabricating the reinforcement on the bed it
will add two days it will constraint that resource of the bed till that in reinforcement
fabrication is also complete. In piling did we assume that we will have to go back you
can you can go back in see in piling it in assumed.
So, we are going to have assume that it was fabricated on the bed it varies, it depends
you known if you if you take reinforcement it depends on you know what kind of lifting
you can do how far you have to move it depends on various issues.
Student: ((Refer Time: 19:49)) Even of the first set is not free you need 4 sets to
fabricate the reinforcement
You need the days to fabricate the reinforcement, you are right absolutely right. But in
the second day You do not need it, yeah you are totally right on that I didn’t put it
because if you had a series of what you do then it becomes the continuous process and
not the initial, in the initial part you really need
Lecture – 22
Lesson - 04
Two-Span Bridge: Activity Identification and Duration Estimation
We now go to the pile driving operation, which you can see these are the pre cast piles
are driven in, you can push it into the soil and you will find that depending on where you
reach the capacity or you know the push resistance that you will find it at different
heights and the driving operation, again if you want to visualize the driving operation,
you go to YouTube.
There are plenty of videos on, you know different types of pile driving and different
operations, I did not I am show you can refer to it, so I did not want to show it as the part
of this lecture, but I strongly encourage you to see what the driving includes. So, really it
depends on soil type and the driving rig characteristics, we will just assume one pile per
day.
So, on the east and west pile, just think you have 12 piles, so 12 days for each side, in the
middle you are assuming 6 days. Let say, we are taking it as a very direct estimate of
duration.
Now, we come to pile cap construction. So, you can see we have a pile group like this, ,
you need to tie the pile; only then the load is transferred to all. So, when you finish a
piling operation you have piles at different heights, you might have to cut some of them,
you have something like this. You have to do and you have to excavate, you have to
provide a flat base like a PCC base here, you have to chip these piles, so that
reinforcement is exposed and that reinforcement has to tie in with the pile cap
reinforcement, it has to be embedded in the pile cap with the pile cap reinforcement.
So, then there is a good transfer of whatever load you have to do, then you have the final
reinforcement like this, you put form work around this and you pour the pile cap and it
would look something like this. So, that is the operation for the constructing the pile cap
and we have three sets of pile caps as you can, as we discussed.
So, again we come in with the pile cap operations, so we have excavation and PCC bed
we are giving 1 day, chipping 1 day, reinforcement placing 1 day, form work 1 day,
concreting we are taking a day, form removal we deciding the removal the form after 1
day. The time to remove the form, it probably could be done in less than 1 day, but I am
giving 1 day time and back filling of 1 day and we as saying that, we need to cure it for 3
days before, anything can be done over it, before we consider it complete.
So, here we have east and west pile cap, we are saying it is 5 days before we can, use it
for anything else. Now, how do we get 5? 5+3, so here you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; concreting
is done and then, whether this is done and not the curing is taking place. And then, you
have the 1, 2, 3 is any way happening, so we have 8 days and a similar approach to this.
So, we have taken 8 days for the pile cap and 7 days for the center pile cap.
Now, we come to the abutment side, so here is a kind of what an abutment looks like. So,
these are the ends of the bridge, so you can see here is the picture of finished abutment
and you have, you can see there is an abutment here, there is an earth fill here, so over
this there will be sloped embankment from the road to be built on and on the side, there
will be some kind of retaining of wall, so the earth does not slip.
So, when you take a wall like this of course, these are different pictures, they are not
pictures with same abutment, but I just put it as, so that you visualize what an abutment
is and how it goes up. So, you have reinforcement that is tied, you have form work that is
put up, concrete that is pour and form work is then striped, cured and then, over the
abutment you will have capping, so that you can and then we can put the barring plates
and things like that.
So, this is what the abutment looks like and so this is and we are also going to one more
assumption here. here you see form work for a or abutment which is almost, it seems to
be the full abutment. But, we are assuming that the abutment is going to be poured into
two stages, they are not slip form work. Basically we have a form work level one, we
will pour it, remove the forms, take it to the next level and do a second pour. A pier or
something can be done, very tall piers can be done in slip forming, but again I encourage
you to look at slip forming in YouTube, it is something which you will understand, a
construction method. This is just two stages, why would you use two stage?.
Student: To save formwork.
One is formwork, availability of formwork.
Student: In order to complete and to prevent segregation issues.
Segregation, because the depth can be so high, if it is that there will be segregation and
things like that, there will also be the form design. Your pressure of the concrete will be
so high if it is so deep, you know that you will have to design your form for that. So, for
all of this makes, you know makes two staging more economical, but time will be more.
So, again it is a balance between cost and time, this is the sequence we are taking here,
reinforcement direction.
So, we have stage 1 and stage 2, reinforcement direction we taking it as 3 days, form
work assembly also 3 days, concrete pouring, form removal after at one day and form
removal time we taking 2 days to remove the form. And curing before the next base is
giving it 3 days, which we say that after concrete is poured 3 days should allow, we
should allow for the before the next stage of not starting with next stage of pouring of
concrete .
So, here we go in, so we take this stage we go to the second stage, now you will notice
reinforcement direction here is 4 days. Why?
Student: It may be because of we are going in soft soil.
We are working, remember we talked about productivity and how it drives duration. So,
here we assume, because it is a higher level there is a lower productivity of
reinforcement. So, again 4 days for erection, 4 days for formwork assembly, 1 day again
for the pour, 1 day for the removal and 2 days, 1 day for after which the removal can start
and 2 days for the removal.
And we are also making an assumption that the abutment cap plus the bearing pad will
take 7 days after this and there will be again a 3 days curing require before this is done.
So, if you total up, I think you will get 10 days for stage 1, 12 days for stage 2+7 days for
the bearing pedestal and the cap and 7 days for curing, so totally we get 36 days for each
abutment.
Now, we come to the center pier, which again I got a mix of photograph to show you,
what I know what pier consists of. Here you have basically form work, here you can see
a pier again in two stages, thus the stage out, different stages of form work for a pier,
people climbing up. You know if the pier height is very high, if the formwork height is
high, you have to pour concrete from all the way here, there are issues with that.
What we are assuming here is again stage 1 and stage 2 and this is the sequence, with
which we are going, where we have again I am not going to repeat through all the details,
but you have concrete curing, I am giving 3 days here before stage 2 starts. So, here you
have 1, 2 the sequence of events and 3 days after concrete pouring here. When you go to
the next level you have reinforcement direction for again at a higher level 2 days,
formwork assembly 3 days, concrete pouring, curing before pier cap here is 3 days and
we are assuming the pier cap and bearing pad will take 5 days of time. So, here we go
with the total calculations as it shown here leading to 27 days for the center pier. You can
look at the details and if there are clarifications you can ask me.
Now, we go to the next, which is place beams Here we see a beam is transported, the
crane will take the beam and as you can see it will be placed on to the, on between the
abutment and the pier and you can see an example here of how beams are placed. You
need a diaphragm between the beams to be able to connect and then transfer the load
properly.
We are not, we are integrating the diaphragm into the activity and we are saying that
each side will take 7 days.
Finally, I mean the deck slab over the beams, we have to form the deck slab between the
beams, we have formworks for the deck slab there will be reinforcement, there will be
pouring of concrete, curing everything.
So, we are going, then we will staging to erect all of this, so staging for 2 days,
formwork assembly for 1 day, reinforcement erection, concrete pouring, form removal
we know after 7 days we say. We are going to allow it to be there for 7 days, because it is
not supported. Once you take it down, it is not a compression member most of the others,
curing for 7 and total 15 days for each side.
Finally, the laying of the road of we have earthwork. So, here we have earthwork which
gets is done we have rolling. Now, again we have earthwork and then you know this kind
of a rolling is for compaction if it is not compacted to properly what happens?
Student: There will be settlement.
There will be settlement. So, this is for compaction settlement and then you have the
black topping you know appropriate layering.
And then, the black topping done and that is what we are going through, where that
assuming that the whole thing takes. So, let us get an detail here, so we are saying 10
days you know filling grading rolling each side blacktopping total length for 5 days. So,
what I am done is the taken 10 plus 10 plus 5 is it or is there a shorter way I can do it?.
So, first I could do compaction on one side, black topping on one side
Right, so I could I could actually do 10.
Student: we start at the other one after erection is over wait So, option here is 10 +10
finish all the earthwork then start the blacktopping 25 days the second option is do my
first 10 start the blacktopping when will blacktopping finish for that ten? in two in a half
days , in two in a half days I will finish blacktopping while the other earthwork going
which means for the next, so how many days will my blacktopping equipment be idle
7.5 days I have it Idle , then use it for the other 2.5 days, which do you think ?. So, then I
reduce a duration to bring it down the 22, 22.5 days, which is preferable?.
Student: Black topping at 5 days because your equipment cost will be lesser in this case
Otherwise, I have rented the equipment I am keeping it there I am not really got any
advantage or there any fluent for, is it worth it for 2 and half day. So, these are the things
which you have to which you have to balance of it. So, sequencing is extremely
important, but sequencing has to make sense with respect to equipment being idle
expensive equipment being idle or not utilized all of it.
Student: Or I can do towards 10 days for one side , then we start the second side, but
after 7 and half days I start the back topping on one side.
So, let, so again it depends on the construction method we are assuming that you know.
So, we are assuming this as a linear progression to the role is that is that how works. So,
in the method you are saying you are assuming that I will finish the roads section by
section has I go, but it might not work that way, but then if you want to go into this micro
schedule, now have to divide the road into sections and say that you know when I am
taking a 10 days for each side is that the natural break is it breaking every you know
every 5 days I have a section complete; that means, if two sections in the road.
Then, we are getting into finer details of the micro schedule and then, you can actually
do what we can how to balance out idle time of the equipment versus synchronizing
between the two activities . I brought it up in this up this particular activity, because we
can discuss, because there are only two, but the same issue arises and almost all activities
and the same issue arises across all activities. Let us take those also into account has
been has been go ahead , so when I mean this same issue arise across the activities what
does it mean.
Student: Whether you want to start the succeeding activity between the… No it is no it
is not, so much as succeeding it is like right now, we are assuming that are I am doing
one set of piling and then, there are other set in the I could actually do all of it in parallel.
Student: One side of piles and one side of abutment from this.
So, is it, but there is on that is at the macro level, now these, so sequences are the micro
levels sequence in the macro level really if you plan that properly with requirements to a
project it will make a big difference . Now, let say this was a very important role and the
2.5 days made a, very big difference to some very big social issue in that area, then I
mean say it is fine I mean I am going to keep that equipment idle for 7.5 days still go
ahead with that.
So, project objective will drive all of this and keeping that in mind is a most critical issue
a lot of time will find the earthwork is done everything is finish there is no blacktopping
equipment available the road is left like that for months before something happens. So,
that is other extreme where because of lack of equipment nothing happens. So, if we
summarize other and overall questions on how we went about the duration calculations ?
we went through all of these activities they some other repetitive in the nature of how we
calculate.
So, I kind of went through it faster, but ultimately we did we going through the level of
detail which we discussed about durations when we discussed class and duration you
were at what is the level detail we want what did we consider we cannot consider parallel
we consider parallel what did we consider if I go back to all of this.
Student: Could be idealized the construction as we didn’t accounts for delays.
We did not account for delays, but the some of these like for example, when say concrete
pouring for one day here might be little there will be you know detail half a day or little
more and that, but I am give you it a buffer that is good and bad, because I am not gone
to the micro detail properly.
But, there are given some kind of a buffer do you remember again recall durations what
was the what was the two types of way we want about duration calculations right. So,
here what are we using this is the resource the sense that we are saying that this is what
we have. So, this is the duration what level of detail did we go into resourced have been
gone in the productivity levels at all here we have not even talked about resource
required not even gone into the level of productivity of the resources , we have just gone
in to a very broad level of sequence of operations Ive given you more of a heuristic
estimate of duration at the at the sequence level and we taken that and gone the more
detail doing this it would be say in a concrete pouring so many cubic meters I have a
mixer which has this capacity it is.
So, many nano meters from this side it will take that person. So, much time to have
travel you know get in to that level of detail I will certainly get lot more calculation to
do and probably that if you have good values to support that that would be the way to
go with it. Why did you say its a resource driven? How did you identify it to be resource
driven? Because, here I assume that that all of this is base Ive made an assumption on
that there is a certain amount of resources that have that is why it takes so many days
what about labour availability ? ive made all the assumptions and given you a value
what is the alternate? about what do we do in the activity I ve not told you that I have
not even given you a project date we will do that also.
Also now they only found activity we found kind of what is say natural duration or
default duration for activities based on some other assumptions you made. And now, you
can do a network analysis and find the project duration when you tell me the project
duration come back and tell you no no this is not what I want it in half the time in which
case you will have to come back how would I change the time either by decreasing the
duration or by more parallel more parallel at the network level yeah at the at the macro
level.
So, these are the ways we can will have to come about in terms of when you going to the
duration level. So, will take a look at both, but again just to reiterate in all of this we
have taken a resource driven approach , but we made of very broad level assumption that
the resource available can do this in this much time we should go to more a detail
productivity level of a estimation it is values are available and if you have accurate
information from your site .
Lecture – 23
Lesson – 05
Two–Span Bridge: Activity-Duration-Predecessors
We came here, now what we needed to do is to actually look at the… I have given the
durations which we have discussed here. So, in the beam casting for example, I given
you a and b, which is for the first set of 3 and the second set of 3. Now, I wanted to take
this also for a discussion after we take a little bit here or take a little bit of discussion on
this issue, let us look at the predecessors. Just we have started discussing this in the
earlier lecture, but we will take it up now, we have order deliver piles is start, cast beams
is start, there is no predecessor as such.
Driving piles is after my delivery, I can construct the pile cap only after driving…, east
abutment after pile cap, pile centre after delivery, pile cap, after that the centre pier after
the pile cap is done, piles west.
Student: Like how it drive one.
Yes one, it drive construct west pile cap. Now, E.span ?…

Student: It depends on the centre and the beam.
So, pile and beam should be available. The beam should be available and the east
abutment should be ready and the centre pier should be ready. Now, west my beam
should be available , centre pier west apartment. Deck slab east is based on the east, west
is west on the beams on the west and then lay roads after the east and west deck slabs
and all. So, this is the finish start relationship predecessor. So, one thing I would like,
you to check is does breaking the cast beam into two activities make an influence here?.
Now, so you can answer yes only if the duration makes a difference. If I took it as one
activity, what would be my duration,… 20 which means I could start placing E.span only
after 20 days, but physically ..16. So, the the abstraction level of an activity can really
control the way you can execute a project,
So, the network need not represent the reality on the project, we talked about level of
detail of activities, remember. So, here the more level of detail I go, I might be able to
represent the project better, this particular case it will depend on. See, this is 20 days
here, you know it is very likely to take more than 20 days, only a calculation can say
that. So, what does early start of place beam E.span. If the early start is anywhere close
to 17, 18, then this makes difference; if it does not then this split does not make a
difference.
So, there are issues like that which will come up again on networks. Should I break a
network into, break an activity into smaller activity, so that I can get relationships better
or we talked a little bit about start, start relationships or should I use start, start
relationships in a precedence diagramming kind of an approach. So, these are really the
tricky issues or what you can call, moving away from the science the art of planning.
How do I represent, what activities do I represent in the network, so that I do not blow up
into thousands of activities, many of which do not need to be represented. How do I
make the network Appropriately represent the project I am doing, if I change in the
network should be reflected in the project, and change in the project should be easily
capturable in the network. Network to project should have a good, they should be
representative by each other and these are issues that make it likelihood.
So, as an exercise, I want you to draw the network, do the network analysis and come up
with suggestions. You know on either the way the duration was estimated or the
predecessor relationships or anything else.
So, you can use this as a base, this shows the basic network, I want to end with one
question. You can see here that we have, based on the relationships we have
predecessors, we have done; we have you know we have activity piles, piles are
delivered and then we have 3, 6 and 9 which is driving the piles. So, as per this network,
it looks like we can do 3, 6 and 9 together.
Student: parallel
Does this mean it can be a… So, I mean, so let say I only have one piling rig, should I
change the network.
Student: Yes………
So, this is something we will take up more when we talk about resource allocation,
because piling rig is a resource and there is a danger of changing the network to match
your resource.
Student: sir, everything down stream gets changed.
not only everything down stream gets changed, that let say now I get a second piling rig,
what will happen. I have to again go back and change my network. So, the network logic
should ideally not be dictated by your resource availability and you know, if you are
using, if you are not going to resource load your network, then yes you have to put
resource constraint as a part of your network logic. But, the minute you include resources
into your network planning or you know scope, then if you put, if you constrain a
network with the resource availability logic, we will find it is a very, very difficult way
thing to manage, you are not making the full use of the resource allocation capabilities of
a network procedure.
We will certainly take this up in much more detail later, but I just wanted to introduce it
to you here, because we are still talking about predecessor relationship and it is always
tempting to constrain predecessor relationship with the resource constrains here. Any
questions?
Student: Why not then just all the scheduling process, once you really aware of all the
resources, then you go ahead with the scheduling.
No, but why would you do that?
Student: Because to avoid all this kind of…
No, but do you want to make a resource, you know network resource. No, did you want
to include resource constrain in a precedence relationship?
Student: No, I want to make it independent of…
So, you make it then just it depends, so then we come to the question, what should the
precedence relationship be based on. In this case, what is it done by?
Student: We assume that there are three pile rigs
No, we are not assumed that there are three pile rigs
Student: But, then that is only reason why 3, 6 and 9 are running parallely.
Right now 3, 6 and 9 are running parallel, because we are not planning the resource load
at this stage; that is why you see think they are running parallely, but if the minute we
have resource loaded, it will adjust itself. So, this is something to keep in mind. Basic
CPM does not take about resource and this is where concepts like critical chain planning
and everything has come in, because ultimately without resources you are not going to be
able to achieve whatever duration you want to achieve, whatever productivity you want,
you know all of that.
So, resources and even your large level sequences govern the resources. So, actually
come back to the basic question, what in the way we are discussing what should your
network logic be driven by,….. what you know activity, yes; what should the logic be
driven by. In the case what is our logic driven by? What is the fact that we say, you know
that 3, 6 and 9 should follow one.
Student: Physical constrain
Physical constrain, that unless I have one ready I cannot do, that is one; second is
construction method. If I prefab, so you know if I did from prefab versus this versus that,
the method makes a big difference. So, for example, here we have said an earth work
will get done at a different sequence or the roads will get done at difference sequence, the
method makes a big difference and when we say that, for example activity 12 can be
done only if 2, 5 and 8 are done. What does 5 and 8, why are 5 and 8 predecessor should
write?
Student: Because if there is no support.
It is a physical constrain. So, ideally network logic should be based on such constrains,
resource constrains should not be brought into the network logic. Then especially when
we start loading our network with resources, it will take care of it. When we do a
calculation on this right now with what we have covered so far, yes with resource and
without. We do not put the resource logic in a, there will be a different answer from when
you actually put resource driven logic into the network. But, this is only for hand
calculation, we have to look at the larger picture.
So, these are the points, I would also like you to think about before the next lecture, what
are the resources needed for each activity, how does resource affect duration, we discuss
this a little bit. So, in which activity does resource affect duration? Should resource
availability affect precedence relationship? We have just had a discussion on this and
how can duration of a project be reduced.
So, this is we will take this in a lot more detail, we have a specialized method for this
called crashing, we will take this in more detail later, but I think this point should be
discussed at this stage itself and then, we get into detail as we go through the different
issues. We will be concluding this discussion on this bridge case and raise more issues
with respect to this.
Lecture – 24
Lesson - 06
Review Network Analysis Concepts, Apply
Network Analysis to Two-Span Bridge (Contd.,)
Today’s lecture, we will cover concepts which we have already dealt with before which
is network analysis. I will do an exercise on this, and then we will actually apply it to the
two-span bridge problem. So, our objectives are basically to review network analysis
concepts, we will apply network analysis to do two-span bridge. And then, I think there
will be lot of discussion which should come out of this and we will take the discussion
forward. Now, you remember this problem?, this was given to you when we did the
network analysis and calculation of floats. What I want to do first is to take this and solve
it. I assume that you have a solution to this and you can help me do this as we go through
the process.
So, let us take the network first. So, as we draw an activity and node network. We have A
with A, B, C. We have three activities. We have A, B, and C and it is when you have you
can see that A, B and C had no predecessor other than start. So, these are activities,
which these might be actually physical activities. It is always good to put a start which
might be kind of a zero duration activity, which is the kind of dummy, which you will
have in a o n. Remember, a o a had other kind of dummy, requirements for dummy
activities. This is the only kind of dummy, you have activity, you will have for a o n. And
from B, you will have D as a successor., E, F and G has.. C; G has C as the predecessor...
And, when you go to H, you have two, …you have A and C. Moving to I, ..I has F and
G; J ..has E and D. And finally, we have K, which have all three. So, sometimes, it is nice
to have it aligned. So, I am going to move H a little further down here, so that we will
connect it this way. And then will connect it from A this way. And then, all these together
connect to K.
Now we will go ahead and add durations with this. So we have, so, the start is we are
calling it dummy. So this zero duration, Ok, A is the duration of you can tell me the
duration as we go. 11, B?
Student: B has 3
3, 9
Student: C has 9, D has 7

7
Student: E has 9
Student: F has 5
Student: G – 5, 19 - H 19 and J- 17, I- 5 and K-3.
Good, so now we will what is our first task?.
Student: The forward pass.
The forward pass... And we are familiar with the terminology. So this is calculating the
zero is the early start, early finish. Now we go to the successor and remember the zero
here and the zero here are different points of time, but one is finishing the other starting.
So, here have a 0, 3, 0, 11, 0, 9 and move on to the next one D is 3, 10
Student: E is 11.
11
Student: 20
20
Student: F - 11
F is 11, 16
Student: G – 9
G is 9
Student: 14
14. Good, now we come to H; H has two predecessors; it is 11 and 9, we take eleven
because it is later one finishing it. Now we come to I we have 16 and 21; J - we have two
predecessors finish one finishes the other 20, we take 20 and 37. So, K has three
predecessors J I H, and we would expect to take later value 37, finish is a 40. So, the
project duration is 40. And the sequence of calculating going the forward pass, we have
completed the forward pass. Now we will actually go to the backward. So, we start with
40 we are keeping this fixed and we make to 37. So, this is the late finish and the late
start.
Now we need to go back as to, so when is late J K finish?
Student: 37
37
Student: 20
20
Student: I – 37
37, yes
Student: 32
37 minus 5 – 32
Student: Again 37
Again 37
Student: 18
So, this is the latest finish latest start.
Now we go back again. So, we can find E should not 20. So, what happens, if E exceeds
20?
Students: J gets delayed, project get delayed.
J gets delayed, project gets delayed, so that is the definition for us in order to for how
late can the activity start or finish so that the project does not get delayed. So, D again
will be here 20, 20 and 13. So, E now we come to now E is 20 and 11. We come now to
F - 32, 27. G, now G has two successesors So, G has only one that is 32 and 27. Now
we come to C, C has two successesors, one is 20, 27; one is 27, the other is 18. So, we
take the least - the minimum value. So, we go to 18, 9. now A has three successor E, F
and H; the least is 11, 0. Here we can really want successors 13, 10, and 0, 0. So, we
have finished the backward pass.
So, now when we will look at critical path we have to identify the activities we can make
this in a network like this quite simple we can see that it goes to A, E, J and K. And we
can make out we know that from the analysis, if I early start and late start are the same
then that would be the algorithmic way of finding the critical activity, and so all of these
activities are critical. So, this we did the basic network analysis found out the early start
early finish; late finish late start, we found of project duration we found the critical
activity any questions on this I think this is fairly straight forward.
Now we come to the floats. So, remember how many floats you have to calculate, we
have a total float, free float, interfering float and independent float. So, we have four
float and let us see how so I mean in a network like this, it might be still be possible to be
visualize especially total float and free float, but as you get in an interfering float is little
more difficult to visualize, but easy to calculate; independent float requires quite a bit of
looking through and finding out what is, what has what does not matter. Let us go
through that exercise; I am not going to make a table and I am just going to see we have
all the numbers here. So, let us just work it out as per what we have here. So, we
certainly know that all of these values A what is the float S, A, E, J, K? all zero, no total
float, no free float, and none of the other floats.
When we come to C, let us start from this side, when we come let us take B of course,
total float 10 days. So, we have a total float of 10 days for B. I am going to write the
float here, does it have any free float?
Students: No, zero.
No, why does not have any free float?
Students: because B affects D
Right, any delay in B will affect D, so there is no free float; I am putting free float is
zero. What about interfering?
Students: 10
10, any independent float?
Students: 0
0, because B any change here will affect D, if you want to apply formula for independent
float what is it?
Students: Minimum of ES if successors - Maximum LF of predecessors - Duration
Late finish of the previous activity, predecessors and early start of the successors, yeah
minus duration I take 3 - s 0 - minus 3. So, it has no independent. So, similarly let us go
to C down total float
Students: 9
9, free float?
Students: 0
0, interfering?
Students: 9
Independent?
Students: 0
0. We go to D
Students: D has 10.
10, free float is 10. Now let us how does do we have free float of ten,
Students: because it won't affect the next activity
Yeah any delay in D will not affect J. So, this is the characteristics; and the characteristic
of the network is you find D is immediately preceding a critical activity and it is not
critical. So, there is even if D gets delayed, my critical path is what is the controlling the
network. So, it will not delayed J; it has free float. And does so if D has free float, how
come B doesn’t have free float?
Students: Late finish and the…
Yes, whenever I move B, D. So, free float belongs to only the activity. So, the total float,
so remember when we talked about total float B has 10 days, D also has 10 days. A
minute as start using up the total float of B what happens to D?
Students: D float gets ..
Yes D's total float also gets compromised used. So, total float like we discuss last time is
a shared float free float is not shared . So, D has a free float of 10; interfering float?
Students: 0
0, independent?
Students: 0
Yeah, 20 13 7 0. Let us go to F, you know actually where are we. Now E is of course,
critical let us go to F. 16 now any delay and F will delay I 0, interfering is 16,
independent 0. We can see in fact, we have two successors, we take the minimum 11. We
have only one predecessor. And in fact you will have a look at independent is a when you
algebraic computation what value you get?
Students: Negative value
It goes into negative value, but you would say 0. G?
Students: 18
18, any free float, two days of free float. So, we have now 14, even two days will not
delay I, so that is two days of free float. Now notice here we have D having free float,
because it was converging into a critical path. How is g having free float, it is conversing
into a path that is more critical than the path through G. So, there is a buffer that is how it
has two days of free. So, interfering 16, independent 0, so that is again 0. We come to H
Students: 7
7, say free float is 7, 0, 0. I?
Students: 16
16, free float 16 0 0. So, the through this, we have solved all the parameters we are
looking for we have solved other any questions. So, this was basically to refresh what we
had done on the float and the network analysis. We would really like to apply this in to
the bridge. So, we just did this as a review. Any questions? Yeah
Students: What is the influence of negative float …?
Yeah, basically what if we look at what that means, it means that algebraically it is
negative, effectively zero. Now actually looking at a physical meaning of what it means
is at least as far as the application concerned it means zero; as far as what do you say the
concept of zero float means that there is something in this network which is if I start
pushing back on this, this will require to go even for the back on what is happening . So,
from a what you say project managemer applying zero negative float is just zero.
Student: Sir what if a predecessor activity is finishing late and a succeeding activity
starting early, then we don't have enough space for duration.
Right
Student: So, if that is the case the activity has not got anything to do, when,
No, then the activity will suffer itself, what you mean by suffer?
Student: Suffer, in the sense it would not be getting finished.
No that will delay the project, yeah. So, we are going to assign it a zero independent
float. So, it is it is independent numerical values zero what you are saying is we cannot
afford to have that happen, but might be the point you are saying is that even if that is
zero So, even if I take it as a value of zero is going to run in the problem right?.
Concept like independent float and not used in this perspective in the application
perspective, but what would probably have to do is to analyze. So, let us take one of
these with independent float with the negative independent that G has how many days?
Students: G has 9 days

No, no G goes to if we take the numerical value, it goes to minus
Students: minus 5
minus 5, is it minus 5? Where are we? We are 32 plus 16 minus 18
Students: minus 7
minus 7, so how would be physically interpret. I mean it is even more negative than the
duration which means if I just so all have to doing that I cannot a effort c to go to the
latest and I to start at the earlier that would be the most general interpretation ((Refer
Time: 19:08)).
Student: It does not show up as a critical activity.
It does not show critical activity.
Student: So it is not an important thing.
So, in fact that is interesting we should probably it see I mean you look up a on papers
you know research in this area there is not that much written on independent float. So,
might be this is something we should do and perhaps of looking at networks with
independent float, crashing and see what happens in the real life situation. But as far as
most applications go independent float is not even calculated . So in fact, this is
something one of you could take as look up for your term paper on how does
independent float affect the project. So, this is what we had wanted to fill up, and you
will find that all the calculation we are done or in these slides, I am not going to go
through in to detail it is therefore, the record. And we have gone through the critical
activities, and all of the calculations which are associated. Now what I would encourage
you to do is to use a bar chart, to draw these, not now, I don’t want to do It in class, but
you will have draw this and see we can visualize various float we are talking about.
Lecture – 25
Lesson -07
Two-Span Bridge; Network Analysis
Now we go to the problem which we want to discuss, which is the two span bridge and
you remember this we have 16 activities in the two span bridge.
And we had actually talked about how do we calculate the duration of these activities
and where we took for the example this was the construction of the pile cap; we talked
about the various sub activities involved in the pile cap.
And then went out to calculate the duration, we have this any question on this because
we have done this ? mostly from a power point perspective, but if you have any question
at this stage, I want to clarify, I will be happy to discuss it. And then we move onto
actually using this duration So, just take a look if there any questions on this, ask me, let
me clear the board ((Refer Time: 01:08)). So, any questions on this issue, no?
So, we will take the durations as this which was given which we came up with last class
and I had asked you question and asked you to do the draw the network, do the analysis
and we said are there any changes in where as we go about the network analysis.
So, if we actually go back to the bridge, remember these network is our base network.
And we develop this network based on what assumption?
Students: Resources are all available
Right, it is written there; resources are all available, so that is why we can do for
example, 3, 6 and 9 are only dependend on delivery of piles or any of these it is all
depend we assuming that means, I should have piling rigs I can have piling rigs 3, 6 and
9 operating simultaneously.
So, if we now take this network, so what I want to do is now that we have a group of
activities which we can relate to there, they not just a, b, c, d. Let us do now network
analysis with these duration; we will assume these durations are acceptable, if I go to
depending on a project again go to some other project which someone doing with
different method and I might say no, no this is not the duration I want or what. It might
come out with different values for specific here, but we will assume these are the
duration which we are doing with. And let us see what the project duration is, let us see
what the critical paths are, how patterns evolve. And you will see that once we do this
calculation, we will be able to kind of want to try to do this in a let see what are the
techniques we would used to reduce the project duration.
So, let us let me get this network on. So, you can also can kind of tell me the network is.
So, that can that is this I was start two one ((Refer Time: 03:46)) to 1, 3, 6, 9.
Student: 3 goes to 4.
3 goes to 4. So, now, what is this chain of activities?
Student: They are abutment
So, this is they are abutment and things like on one side from…
Student: 6, 7, 8
Students: 8 to 13
since this is the…
Students: 8 goes to 12 as well
Yeah 8 goes to 12. And what is this series of activities?
Students: Centre
This is the center, this is the center pier. So, this is the series of link activities which are
the east these are the linked activities which are the west, then I go to 9 to 10.
Student: 10 to11, 11 to 13
11 to 13
Student: 13 to 15
And then 13 to 15, 12 to 14 and both to 16 and 2 to 12, and 2 to 13. So this is the
network. And if we actually quickly I mean, so that not dealing with numbers activities
this was the deliver piles, this was the pre cast beam, this was the pile driving, this was
pile cap on each other sides. This was the abutment the pier, placing the beam you need
at the abutment the pier and delivery of beam, the delivery of the abutment, I mean the
pier the abutment for the other side the laying of the deck and then finishing the route.
So, I hope we can relate to these activities as we go. We should not this look at this as
number.
So, we would start with now I will put out the durations which I had. So, this was 15;
this we had two durations for each side and taking the final duration which is 30. Drive
pile east which was 3 is 12. Let me go on the sequence then this was the each pile cap
was 8. The east abutment was 36. You do not have this value 6. Drive pile centre was 6;
construct centre pile cap was 7, and the center pier was 27. West was 12; we had a
symmetry here; west pile cap was 8, and this was again 36. Placing the beam was 7; deck
slab is 15 and lay road is 25.
Now without any network analysis, you saw the project, what you think will be critical.
So, how many main paths do we have?
Students: 4
We have four, we have one going through 2; we are going through 3 like four main paths.
Intuitively, what do you can you make a call?
Students: ((Refer Time: 07:55))
Do you think this will make a impact?
Students: no
No, so this is I am just trying to bring out the intuition rather than just look at the
number, this will not make the impact. You have two sides at the center, which you think
will be critical?
Students: Center
Center will be more critical except for we will see, we will see if the center is more
critical yeah the only thing when you look at the durations remember the center has, so
this is 12, this is 6, 8, 7, 36, 27.
Student: The relative durations
Depends a lot on the relative durations.
Remember and this we are hitting all of the fronts parallel. So, it would really depend on
which front it is like a race between three construction teams between it looks, so who is
going to control the network for one who reaches the last, the one who reaches the last.
So, that will depend on how much time each of these take in the, so that is a basic
intuitive call. As the network gets more complex, it might be difficult to make this kind
of call, you might have to go based on heuristic of you know for example, form work is
always on critical activity on structure, so things like that.
But let us go ahead with the analysis. So, let us kind of work it out on the board, so that
this is my start activity, I am going with again on 0, 0, 0, 20, 15. So, my piles have been
delivered 15, 21. We will see a pattern emerging .
Students: 21, 28
How much is that 55, 71 this one all the predecessors there; actually yeah 71. So again
because this is the network which we can see we should be able to find the criticality of
the path which so what is your observation?
Students: Two critical paths
Two critical paths, because we are trying to do exactly the same. The middle path the
only reason is not critical is because the durations all is. Now if the pier construction was
in water and I had to do dewatering and this and that and lot of other things which made
this higher, then you would had a probably a single critical path through the middle,
because the others are different. And remember this is a again no resource constraint,
because we going through it in a single sequence. Now let us go back 118, 93 actually I
am going to change color on you here which would have like using a different color for
this details; you can see what, it is pretty straight forward because so far, because and all
through here and through here, it will be just the same because there is no float only
when we come down this has going to be any float and of course, this 71. So, how late
can I start?
Students: 44.
44. So, let me finish this path. So, to expand this one is 47.
Students: 37, 31.
So, 6 goes down to 31. Now here 71, so coming down here again 71, 35, 15, 15, 0,
Students: 71,
71, So, the network is we have the early start early finish, the late finish the late start.
And we can see that likewise we discussed before we the critical path runs through and
you have two critical paths in this case.
Students: 5 to 12
So, on all of these activities there is no question of float and the only the float will only
come for so when we take 2, 51 is the, total float 51,
Students: Free float 51
Free float 51, 0. So, 71, 0, 20, 51 which means there is a lot of a we come down this, let
us start with the another. So, we will take 6, 16, 0, 16, 0; this float 16, 0, 16, 0. Now will
a have any is it 16, 0? 8
Students: 16, total float is 16
Total float is 16, what happens if I delay it, what happens with 13 or 12?
Students: Nothing happens
Nothing happens, 16. So, all of it is free float.
Students: Free float
0. What about independent?
Students: Independent, 44 minus…
0, because it is so nothing else is there to solve. So, are there any question on this? I
think this should be straight forward. And I think you get the physical feel of what is
important on the bridge. And again kind of accelerated construction, let us say we want
to reduce the duration 118 is too much, let say we want to reduce it to 100, what would
we do?
Students: I will allocating more resources…
Yeah So, right now is there any for the parallelization one can do, can I see I am pre
casting the beams, and there anyway because of that is see if I have to cast the beam in
place, that would have added mode, one more activity here. So, by pre casting the beam,
I am doing parallel. I could probably do something like some kind of a deck here which I
could reduce time. Anywhere whatever I am talking about only way I cannot change the
construction method, so drastically in this particular case. I could probably parallelize
sum of my road construction, instead of waiting for everything we get over I could say
that I am going to do start road construction in a particular phase and then only do it is a
ten days of road constructions which is over the bridge something like that I could
probably. So, again parallelizing is one way.
Other way is simply to reduce the duration of which means more resources different kind
of materials. So, all of these I could staying so if you will see 36, 27 this is probably the
largest duration activity right.
Students: Yes
So I could which is controlling and on critical path. So, if I can I mean it will be probably
easier from it to get a chunk out of 36 then out of 8. So, I would look at trying to reduce
duration of these 36, I try to reduce the duration of 25, 15 see if I can and we will take
this up later, how do we compressive a project. Any questions? Now we are going to start
doing the same analysis, but with the resource constraint. We want to model the resource
constraints in the network, and when you do that, we can then compare how the critical
path changes and what happens. So, this is probably the one alternative, and if you go
into the real world all parallelize rarely used; only on probably the most urgent of project
that we would even consider using something like this.
Lecture – 26
Lesson – 08
Two – Span Bridge: Resource Constraints in Network Logic
So, now we will move on to looking at resource constraints in the network logic. So, I
have actually shown a bit of the constraints which I want to use. And I want to discuss
this a little bit before I actually start. So, we have the same network; now all I have done
in this is to say that activity six can start only after the resources from three have been
released, because 3, 6 and 9 are piling, I am saying I need a piling rig, I can only start six
after three is complete, I can start 9 after six is complete. Similarly, I am assuming all of
this like 4, 7, 10 need the same crew, 5 crew and equipment 5, 8 and 11 need the same.
So, I am just assuming symmetry and I am putting this two. Now do you see any
anything in this network which you would change?
Students: these become redundant predecessors
Right, the blue arrows become redundant. So, what do you mean by redundant. So, for
example, we are saying here that we know that piles have to be cast for six to done. We
know that
Students: We can only start once three is done…
Once 3 is done. So, actually I am having the influence of one through both through three
and one directly. Is there anything analytically wrong with this? If I do a forward pass
based on this, is there anything analytically wrong with having redundancy. I like to take
the maximum.
Student: We can keep only one, …when we say that 6 follows 3 and 9 follows 6
So, this is the alternate without with redundancy is removed, this is the network, this is
with redundant. Now will my analysis change with this, if I have this vs this, this will my
analysis change?.
Student: When you actually do it the early start you look, when you are looking the
maximum, it does not…
Ok, it really will not change, but when you have redundancy calculations increase, your
network complexity increases. The number relationships are more and it becomes
difficult, not only for the computer to handle it, but we are trying to decide for the
network just this lot of relationship around and it becomes more difficult. So, you can
check you know and see if there is any change in relationship and any change in analysis
due to the relationship. But you will find that if you start defining relationship with
redundancy this is a lot we can continue keep defining in a real project.
Student: Sir, if like activity one is so large that 3 is very small (one see it this resources
and the resources. So, large then where it might affect then what with what now I think
course completed when you see correct completed.
So by saying that six will start only after three is complete, and three is will start only
after one is complete, makes three the controlling factor. So, now, if you take this
networks, so now compared to the earlier network, there is a lot more zigzag in this, that
is the relationship is flowing in different directions. So, let us a put this network up in try
to solve it. I am tempted to after do this otherwise it going to trouble.
Have my start as earlier. I have 2, I have my 1, I am not going to this, earlier I had six,
this time I am going to have the 6 come from 3. Now I go so this was piling, this was pile
cap, and do this in a different color again ..is this redundant? 6, 3, 6, 7,.. 3, 4,7 think
about it. So, now my relationship between 6 and 9 is also resource; 9 and 10 is a
physical; so 11 this is up to the abutment from again 8 and 11 is the resource driven. My
2 and 12, this is the place beam on the east side. It requires 5 and 8. The crane that is
going to be used there will be released and then I will only then I will be able to do 13
which is placed on a west side which is now 8 and 11. Earlier, we had a 2 to 13
relationship, is it needed?, not needed in this step.
Now once I do this, I have I can place a deck slab, but I have only one crew, I have to
place the deck slab on one side, release the crew and only then the deck slab can be
placed. I had a 14 to 16 relationship not required again. So, I got rid of these redundant
relationships. Is there is what about my 8 to 13, unless if I am doing a 11 it means, so
Student: It is not required 8 to 13…
Not required, because if I am finishing 11, it means I have finished eight. So, this is
relationship is also not needed. So, as a network gets more complicated and as we start
bringing resource flows into it, you have to look out for redundancy in the process.
Durations are the same. We have a 15, 20, 12, 8, 36, 6, 7, 27, 12, 8, 36, 7, 7. Let us go
through the 0, 0. So, we go through this path this is the, so you have you can visualize
this, this is the east side; this is the first side to get all the resources. So, we are going to
go through with this without a yeah 35, 71. So, now, this starts at 27, 33. Now I have a
predecessor here
Students: 35, 25
So, now, this is controlling, 35
Student: 42
42 right. What is 8?
Student: 71
71, it is going to now be been 71, because it there is waiting. So, what does this imply
that means, a pier is finished I am sorry the pile cap is finished, it is waiting for a the
crew from the abutment of come and finish this, 71, 98. What about yeah have here done
with this now we are waiting for 12, I can finish 12 I am right?. What was the duration,
we got in the earlier project?
Student: 118
118, since we something which is changed here 33, 45. So, now, 45, 42, 45, 134. And
here we have 134, 141 correct, yes 141. So, this is so now, we have 105, 141,1 56. So, is
the critical path Obvious?, how does it go? I mean when I compare it to the earlier case,
the earlier case we could physically see how the critical path went., should we do the
backward, so we go through 1, 3; from 3 what happens, it goes to six or 35, I think it
goes to four actually we should do the backward pass, but let us try to make a guess we
can see., 35 is controlling here. So, goes to four comes down here and here what is
controlling?
Students: …..
No, no, let us stop from here. We go this 156 is controlled here and this 141 is controlled
here and 134 is coming from here; 98 is coming from up here and this is coming from 71
coming from up here; 35 going through this. Now here there is a float, here is the float.
So, the actually critical path goes this, this, this. So it so at a certain stage, it crosses from
one side of the bridge to goes all the way across and this is happening at which physical
requirement?
Students: After completing…
The abutments, are what is time consuming and they are resource hungry. so we have got
the critical path you will be able to find that I want to do the calculation on the float, the
various floats and when we start the next class we will briefly discuss the values you got
and issues like how can resources be managed which is a broad discussion. We have a
separate lecture on resource management and resource allocation. And how can
resources managed and how do we actually do what we want to do on a project with this.
Just have a curiosity of management which network do you prefer?
Students: Why?
Students: better resource we can complete it earlier.
Look at the duration, look at the duration. What was the earlier duration?
Students: 118
118 right, so it is a lot more days because your resource constraints accepts them. So,
now, again we start now here there is a lot of a what do you call opportunity for
parallelization if you want to bring the duration low. Now 181 days is not acceptable?…
Students: We will have to get more resources
We will have to get more resources or can I do there are many ways? you can do it; in
fact we are assuming only one shift of work, or something you do multiple shift with
same resources things like that. I will actually take this up more for discussion there are
quite a few interesting patterns in this network. For example, you will find when you
get into float, here you have in the other case how many activities are critical? Almost all
were critical except for a handful. Here there is only what 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 critical,
there are quite of few of the critical path 1; two here the critical path is not so, so after I
actually get my get my east span yeah placed of course, it gets critical, but for a example
this deck then becomes non-critical. So, there has to be a very close management of the
network to understand what is critical, what is non-critical. If we accidentally or in one
of these let us say you exceed the duration, you exceed the float then the other path
becomes critical. So, these kind of issues, it requires closer management the network and
that is acceptable because you are using fewer resources.
So, we will start the next class with the discussion on the float you got on this, and any
questions you have on the floats. And how we would you use the float to be able to see,
is there any pattern or what we can do from project management.
Lecture – 27
Week - 05
Time–Cost Trade–off (Crashing)
This lecture will, we will cover this concept of what we call Crashing. So, crashing is
nothing like, but reducing the duration of a project, by reducing duration of an activity.
And we also call this time cost trade off and we will see in a few minutes why we call
this time cost trade off.
This is the first lecture, there will be another lecture which will again, we will work out
problems in network and project crashing. So, we will cover these topics specifically,
one is the difference between fast tracking versus crashing, then looking at relationship
between activity direct cost, activity durations and the assumption in these. The
procedure of finding the minimum direct cost for crash project duration, this will take
bulk of our time today and finally, the influence of indirect cost and relationship between
total cost and project duration. So, these are the learning objectives for this session.
Now, let us get to our favorite project it is a simple what we called the ABCD project and
as you can see here, we have a we have the 14 day completion and let us assume or let us
say that the person, who gave you this project wants it done in 10 days; right now it is
14. What are your options?
Student: Reduce the project duration between activities.
What, so which project duration would I reduce, what activity duration would I reduce, is
there anything else other then, so one is I reduce duration of activities. So, I have to
focus on critical activities and reduce the duration of critical activities. Now, I can, so
right now the critical path is going through A, C, D, so one option is to reduce either
activity A, C or D and right now, we do not have enough information on what, but for
example, this is I want to reduce it by 4 days, this activity is only 3 day duration.
So, I could actually reduce say this by 2, this by 1, this by 1; there are combinations of
this which I could reduce. Is there any other way? We discussed something yes in the last
class, when we did the bridge problem.
Student: In parallel.
Yes, so I could do, I could try to do more things in parallel and that is what we call fast
tracking. So, it is not a standard definition, but a very well used definition, if I try to
parallelize more things it is fast tracking. So, here is there anything I can parallelise?
Student: No.
Right now based on the relationships no, but you know if I could somehow start D you
know before 11 or you know start B before A finishes, if I could start parallelizing, then I
have to break these relationships.
So, if we actually look at the, the ways you can reduce project duration will get say fast
tracking, where we perform activities in parallel or crashing, which is reducing duration
of activities to reduce project duration. So, what we are going to deal with in this session
is crashing, fast tracking is possible, but; obviously, you know and in practice fast
tracking is something that is used commonly.
But, as far as our network, sequence goes we do not want to change out the relationships
as enough now; we will talk about more from a theoretical prospective how crashing can
be done. We will look at, change I mean change of execution sequence or duration
certainly have an impact on cost, we are again not looking at executions sequence we
going to look at duration. And we will look at this time cost trade off, we will look at the
analysis of this to find the minimum overall project cost for a specified project duration.
So, we will take these elements and we move forward, so like we discussed the focus
here is on crashing.
Now, some terminology when we talk about crashing, so it is very a kind of when you
first time when you hear a project crashing you think of negative things, we know what
is happening, but this is an accepted terminology; basically crashing is reducing activity
time by expending additional resources or there are other ways to do it too. We have
definition of, so far we have only talked about duration. When we talk about project
crashing, we talk about normal duration, we talk about crash duration and this is with
respect to an activity initially. Normal duration is a duration we have been using right
now for all of our CPM analysis, there is also a crash duration, which we will come to
later.
Now, more importantly we also have a normal cost and a crash cost. So, the normal cost
is what we spent to do this in a normal duration, a crash cost is when I start compressing
the activity, what is my cost that is going to happen. Now, if you take a look at these
definitions and these terms, what you think is the relationship between cost and duration.
Student: Duration decreases cost will increase.
Duration decreases cost will increase, why? This is, remember we are talking with
respect to only an activity, we are not talking with respect to the project here. We are
talking with the only respect to the activity. So,
Student: Mostly when reduction duration satisfy employing additional resources.

Right, so when you reduce duration it is by employing additional resources, so we will
come to the ways we can reduce duration we have to employe additional resources, what
else?
Student: Adapt new technologies.
Yes, here we have adopt new technologies, so I know instead of using a particular
method I will going for a more, let say prefab or something that reduce the duration
there, in which case I have to pay more for it for the activity. Over all project we’ll have
to see how the reduction of duration affects; that is coming later. I might use alternate
construction materials?
Student: Manpower and all the material is reduced, I mean we have to procure it in a
very short period of time.
Right, so I will be paying a premium. If I want to mobilize more people on side I might
have to pay a premium, if I need more material etc. I might have to pay a premium for
that.
So, if I use alternate construction material for examples self compacting concrete will
reduce my durations, but I might to have to pay additional cost for getting that in my
formwork have to be different. I can work in multiple shifts, but every time you work in
multiple shifts it is not the same cost people who work in the night shift have to be paid
more. So, it will cost for the same output I’ll have to pay more for it, but my duration
might my calendar duration reduced overtime work again I have to pay more for
overtime work bringing in higher capacity equipment.
Again between I can get more output for a, but my cost might be more most likely it is
going to be more we talked about this putting in additional workers which means, now I
have a fairly crowded work site or work area and which case the productivity will be
now lower output, might increase, but the productivity will be lower. So, in all these it is
been found that reducing duration of an activity will typically result in increased cost.
And if we look at the relationship, so here I have activity and you know have the time
and the cost and again I am very I want to you know this is activity time cost relationship
we will come into project time cost later. So, we look at the curve here, so we typically
you find that the relationship is as time increases the cost will decrease and then, you
actually might does continue this way if I am taking only direct cost and that is a normal
duration, which is we based on normal productivity we will call this is the normal time or
duration and this is the normal cost.
And as we reduce a duration we come into the crash time or the crash cost. Now, while
this is kind of I mean people have shown and calculated this is a actual relationship
you’ll have to make assumptions on this if you have to work with it kind of in a
classroom context. So, one assumption is we take a piecewise linear we assume this is a
piece wise linear relationship in which case it is two steps or a simpler assumption is to
make a fully linear relationship in which case its one step from normal time and normal
cost to crash time and crash cost.
So, this simplification assumption we make it for our calculations further while be as we
know that this is actually some kind of a non linearity is there we know there are any
effective ways of making piece wise linear to model the non linearity or model the non
linearity directly for our purposes right now, we just going to make a full linear
assumptions. Now, if I what will the slope of this line indicate.
Student: Cost per unit time
Cost for unit time being cost the unit time.
Student: Increase in cost.
Increase in cost per, so for each day of crashing yeah, each day of crashing how much
additional money do you have to spend for that activity. So, we have this term which we
have use, which is the, you have the cost per unit time and we are looking at it from a
cost you have to spend point of you. So, we are just defining it as
𝐶𝑟𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡 − 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡
𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 − 𝐶𝑟𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒
So, that will give us the how much money have to be spend for each day of decrease in
duration, so this is a basic concept.
Lecture – 28
Lesson – 05
Time-Cost Trade-off: ABCD Example Project, Steps for Crashing
Now, let us come back to this project I have given you, so this was the earlier we were
dealing with the first three columns. We had activity, we had duration, we had
predecessor. Now, we are also dealing with we are calling this a normal duration, right?
now I am giving you crash duration and I am giving you normal cost and crash cost,
these are the inputs we need to be able to do a calculation to find, what is the, how much
should I what is the cost of crashing.
So, we had the 14 day project duration and what we are going to do is to determine
minimum cost of completing the project as the duration starts reducing. So, how much
would it cost in 13 days, 12 days and what is the maximum I can crash the project to. So,
as an initial exercise we will go through, we’ll take this simple problem and work it out
for each of the days of reduction in duration. So, what do you think when you look at this
intuitively, what is the first step you would do.
Student: Crash those which cost lesser.

Crash those, I mean crash those which cost less and on the critical path, so you can see
the, you know A, C, D is on critical path. So, I’ve to find the cost of crashing A unit cost
of crashing A, unit cost of crashing C, unit cost of crashing D and then, use that as my
benchmark.
So, if I go into the next level I have actually calculated the days, so here you can find you
will see that we have all these, we have all the values we had earlier I’ve used these
values to calculate crash days, crash day is the normal day minus crash day; that is how
many days can I crash the path. So, for example, we are making an assumption A cannot
be done in less than 2 days, I am sorry less than 3 days. The maximum I can crash A is 2
days or C cannot be done in less than 3 days, so these are assumptions that go along with
the network.
So, let us take this, let us get to the board and see what, how we would work this. So, we
have the network A, B, D we have the 5, so that is on one side. So, now, if I look at the
crash cost, so what are my options of crashing, I have option of crashing A at what cost.
Student: At 25.
At 25 per day and I want to take it stepwise, I want to go all the way from 14 in steps of
1 to the last, because that will illustrate what we are trying to do. I have an option, so in
my first step I have A at 25, B should I use B at all.
Student: No.
No, so I do not even want to use B, because B is not on critical path. C?
Student: Equal to 175.
C is 175 per day, the value is there and D 50 per day. What would I choose? I will choose
to crash A and for now, I am going to choose to, so basically what I am going to take A
and move it down to 4 days. So, my duration here will go to 4 and this first step has
basically cost me 25 rupees or units of cost. I put units of cost as U there, because I did
not want to use a currency value are as of now, we are just looking at the value.
Now, what has, so we have managed, so for third for doing this in 13 days, so at 14 days
it was my basic cost, 13 days I had to spend plus 25. Now, as my second step, again what
is my critical path A, C, D options are.
Student: Again A, C or D.
It is the same options, again this there because A can go up to 3 and in my second step
also I use A by 1. So, again it cost plus 25, cumulative is 50 from moving from this step
to this step its 25. Now, I want to go to my third step. What are my options?
Student: C and D.
What has happened to A now?
Student: A is crashed out.
A is fully crashed, so I cannot touch here, 3 days is the duration in which we have to do I
cannot crash A anymore. Now, my critical path is going through A, C, D and my options
are either C at 175 or D at 50; obviously, it is 50 D, D by 1 at 50. How it is, so D has now
moved from 3 to, I am going to use a different color here and this has gone down to 11.
What has happened to D now? It is I cannot, so D has also reached the maximum crash I
cannot move this anymore.
And we are now going to the fourth step, where what are my options. A is fully crashed,
D is fully crashed, my critical path still goes through C and how many days can I crash C
by, 3 days. Can I crash C by all 3 days, what will happen?
Student: Then, B will also become critical
So, if I start move this to 3, 3 plus 3, it will go to 6, but then you can see B has already
become critical, before C went to 6. When C was at, how much C was at 4, when C went
to 4 itself, when C’s duration is reduced to 4 itself you have two critical paths. So, even if
I spend all the money and reduce C to 3 I am actually wasting a day, because now B is
controlling the path. So, I can do step wise reduction of C, so let me get this value here,
so when I went down to 11, I added another 50.
So, now, my I can take C and take it down to 5 let me go step by step, so that is my only
option my fourth step is I can go C by 2, yes I can set C by 2. I can I just want to take it
step by step here, C by 1 at 175 per day. So, I am taking it down to 5 and 8, 8 and this
was now 2 going to 10, so to go get it 10, there is another fine. Now, I can go again my
5th step will also be C by 1 day, I am going to write my 5th step here right? So, now, I
am going to move this down to 4, 7, 7, 9.
So, now, what happened, so now, let me get this, so this at, so 9th day I am down to 9
days and I have spend another 175, now both paths have become critical, so both are 3, 7
and 7. So, B has also become critical and I by crashing my A is fully crashed out, D is
fully crashed out. The only way I can reduce duration is by reducing B and C, so from
my 6th step I have to do B and C by 1. So, B can go maximum by 1, B can only move to
3, take it a 6 and after that B is maxed out, C also goes from 4 to 3 goes to 6, both them
come on 6 here plus 2, 8 and the cost is how much? B plus C.
Student: 75
That is 75, B is 75 plus C is 175, so my 8th step I get at plus 250, so this is my variation
of my direct cost, so I my additional direct cost additional direct cost. Now, let me put a
table here which says, let me put a column which says a direct cost. So, you can see that
my, if I did this within 14 days, what is my total cost, base cost is how much you can add
up. So, that is a normal cost 250, 300, 350, 300, 1200 and as I go down my cost keeps
increasing.
So, I can now do this computation let us do it. So, remember, so if I, so to do in 13 days
how much is it going to, I am going to do cumulative 1225, 1250, 1 1 5, no this is plus
175, 1 6, 1 9. So, this is my total direct cost on the on what, so on the project. So, this is
my whole project cost and if I plot a graph I will, you will see that as the project duration
decreases my direct cost is increasing.
So, I have a graph on the power point let me just go through the power point, so that we
go through this in a in this way So, we did it all of this as we when through we first
crashed A as a step 1 and we know, so when what was 14 became 13, then in the second
step we crashed A again brought it to 12, and then next step we took 12 and we chose to
crash D 11. And then, we said A and D cannot be crashed any further we found critical
path just still A, C, D we had to crash C we crashed C by 1 and then, we went back again
crashed C again by one now both path became critical and then, we had to do C and B by
1. And we reach the maximum crash duration which was 8.
So, this was the maximum crash and we now have a plot of the, what we have done here
we have a plot of the for the project duration versus project direct cost and you can see
that this is the nature of the graph.
And what I’ve shown here is the, is the slope of the graph as it for each step in which we
crashed, so we went you know this was a first steps of A, D, C and B and C. So, this is
typical and; obviously, because we are looking, so this graph shows the minimum direct
cost of the project as we reduce duration. Now, you this is the outer envelope this is a
minimum graph I can reduce as you can see here I do not need to reduce A first I can
reduce in the in my first step, if I had reduced C first, what would have happened I would
have still got a reduced project duration, but at the expense of additional money.
So, I mean I can have different graph of as of relationships between project direct cost
and project duration, but this is the envelope of minimum. So, for example, you can have
a similar envelope for maximum, what would be the maximum cost to which means
when I come down to my first crash, what should I crash C I could do the total reverse
and will I get the envelop for the maximum.
Now, if I crash B and C together will there be any use now, in each thing I would go with
the maximum and I would get the envelope of maximum. So, just remember that this is
only one of the curve you can plot for cost time direct cost versus time and, but this is the
minimum and this is what we are interested in. Any questions on this one?
Student: It is the maximum crash cost.
So, might not need in a specific project, but you might want to be know extremity of,
what let us say you do not go through the procedure very systematically, what is the
border what is a envelop of where your cost can go to having said that I should also say
that if you go in to practice very few times is this procedure used while it is a, what you
say a nice procedure from a network analysis point of view and from a mathematical
relationship point of view it is not very much used in practice, because of issues and
quantifying all of these costs.
And then, if you are using a linear assumption it might not even hold good in a practical
situation and, so all the analysis does not really yield you a result and then, you know
people do not go into the problem. So, fast tracking is used very much to reduce duration
and if they are going to do this it is probably still done more heuristically until we can
get much better models of cost time relationship for a activities it will be limited from
using this in practice.
Now, let us move on we now add something called indirect costs, so far we have talked
only about direct cost, but there are many other cost on a project. So, for example, the
salaries of the project manager the project engineers establishment of facilities on the
project things like tower crane, batching plant you do not build this to an activity. It is
general costs on a project which is the, we are going to electricity on the project we are
going to pay for you know facilities all of these are generally called indirect cost.
And the indirect as in they are not direct to an activity they are general project overhead
are other expenses. Now, what it you think about relationship between project duration
and or let me ask you this way, what you think is indirect cost and how it is vary with
time on a project each day I it would be constant each day I would expect to pay about
the same indirect cost, because assuming my staffing levels are the same my electricity
usages is about the same you know I have to pay for a site establishment charges and all
of this.
Student: Obviously,
That is at when the duration, so I what I am saying is on a daily bases I will pay the same
amount rate per day is about the same total the total will; obviously, change the total;
obviously, change. But, my rate in per day is the same and if I actually go into the if I
take rate per day the same and as I start increasing my project duration, what happens
cost goes up and if I start decreasing my project duration; obviously, the cost goes down.
So, while are direct cost is how is the direct cost is changing the direct cost is changing is
increasing with decreasing project duration the indirect cost is decreasing with project
duration. So, now, is there should be some area in between where the total project cost,
which is direct cost plus indirect cost will reach an optimum or a minimum value in
between this. So, let us see if we can calculate a let us see, how this behavior takes place.
So, what I have here is that is a table and you can see the values we have a put out here
are the total project direct cost that is the values we have 1200, 1475, 1650, what I have
now added is I am assuming indirect cost of 100 per day.
So, every day there is a charge of 100 for which the project is active, which means if I
am there for, 14 it is 1400 as my project. So, if I am going to put these values here so that
we can also, so kind of see, so as my project duration decreases it is straight forward and
I’ve made the numbers straight forward, so we can think through it. So, here you find
increasing and here you find this is indirect cost here the numbers are decreasing, now if
I sum it up I get ((Refer Time: 23:13)) 2, 5 can you read it out to me, so that I can write it
down you know 2450, 2400, 2475, 2550, 2700 what is the pattern you see.
So, this is basically a sum of direct and indirect it that is what we are doing, what is a
pattern you see 26, 25, 24, 50, 2400 and then, it starts increasing again. So, this 11 days
if I can finish if I can bring my project to the 11th day I have actually this is higher this I
have the optimum value. Now, the graph can be shown this way, where I have my direct
cost we saw this graph my indirect cost going up and decreasing as the project duration
decreases this is the total cost and you have the total cost decreasing and then, increasing.
Now, can you we talked about cost per day reduction in cost per day and all of that I
mean the crashing from per activity we talked about crashing cost per day on in overhead
cost we talked about the constant value on each day. So, can you rough guess when,
where this optimum, where this minimum occurs I am going to actually go back to this
graph, what is the relationship between?
Student: Activity C has been considered.
Yeah, no no, what is the relationship between my overhead cost value and my cost slope
value
Student: Drastically…
More than drastically can you can you quantify see here right now, here the cost of a cost
of 1 day of crash is 25 how much do I save on my indirect how much I save 100.
Student: 100.
So, my total saving is 75, so here again my total saving is 75. 50 once I cross this my
how much I pay for indirect the slope the amount is more than what I save on my I am
sorry what I spend on my direct is more than what I save on my indirect and, so that is
why the graph then starts increasing.
Now, this is an interesting relationships and I mean, so this is a this is true in practice
challenge is really to get the good value good data to find, where this project duration
lies, where I will experience minimum cost.
Now, let us just summarize when we look at the steps for crashing we have to identify
the activities on critical path have to compare the unit cost of the activities on critical
path and they have combinations to select, what we need for crashing. And then, we
finally actually select the activity combination with minimum cost and in case of a tie if
there is a tie between few activities it is always better to select the activity, which has
more influence on the network we will come we will see this, then we come to some
examples which we will do later.
So, then we reduce the duration of activity combinations and ensure no other path
becomes critical if the duration is reduced by more than one day we saw that in B you
know C we cant reduce C by too much because by more than two because B will become
critical. And then, once you do the reduction recalculate the network go to step one go
back to the process repeat the step until there is no further crashing can be done. So, in
two you will have to find out you know is there any further crashing possible and if not
stop.
Lecture - 29
Time–Cost Trade-Off: Class Exercise – 2
Now, I want you to draw this network and I am going to give you some values.
I want you to draw this network; I will give you some values to be able to practice this
crashing exercise.
So, draw the network and then get back to this. So, I am going to now give you this as an
exercise.
So, you have to… So, here is the normal duration, the crash duration, normal cost, crash
cost; you can assume an indirect cost of 125 per day and let us go through a… I mean
first do the exercise for a few minutes and then we will solve it on the board. Got the
values done?
How will you find… You can find the optimum point by comparing slopes; but, why do
not you crash it to the maximum. So, we can draw the cost – time curve.
Shall we start, so that we can then solve it. So, my… I have done only the forward pass
here; but, that gives us an idea; simple network – we can see where things go. And,
critical path is going through B and F. So, my first step – I want to start crashing. What
would be my first option? What are my options? B at 150 or F at 50; obviously, I will
choose F at 50. And, how much can F… F can go all the way from 5 to 2. Let us just
decrease this; we will take a stepwise again; 5 to 4, 4 to 8 goes to 8. So, my second step;
again I am here. So, now, what has happened is F and D have both become critical,
because this is going through 8. So, now, my critical path is going through D also. And,
what are my options?
Student: ((Refer Slide Time: 06:17))
Yeah; I have B – still B at 150 or F and D at 200. And, again B now affects both F and D.
So, crash B is more economic. So, I go down to… How much can B go down to? 3. This
goes to 3; I will use a different color for this step; 3. And now, this starts at 3, goes to 7,
again 3, 7 and my project duration is at 7 ((Refer Slide Time: 07:11)) My third step – and
now, my B has fully crashed. So, I have to crash…
Student: E is also….
Yes; now, here is sixth; here it has come to seventh. So, now, with coming to 7, you find
that A, C, E has also become critical. So, I cannot crash D and F alone anymore; I have
to crash combinations. What are my combinations? So, I certainly have to crash D and F;
right? So, there is D, F, A – one combination – D, F, A or DFC or DFE. What are the
values? DFA – 225.
Student: DFC at 350.
350
Student: DFE at 400
E is expensive to crash. So, D is 6 – 550 – 600. My choice would be D, F, A. And, I am

going to crash it. So, now, what A can go? Only up to my… So, I am going to crash… A
goes to 3. So, this goes 0; and then, my D goes to… All are going to 3. So, this path
becomes 3 – 3 to 5; 5 to 6. So, this becomes… This nothing changes; only the duration 3
to 6. Here again 3 to 6; and, this becomes 6. So, now, my A is also fully crashed, B is
fully crashed. My combinations left are… Is there anything more possible?
Student: ((Refer Slide Time: 09:48))
So, now, what about D? What is that duration of D can go all the way up to 1. What
about F? F can go up to 2; C can go down to 1.
Student: F and C are ((Refer Slide Time: 10:05))
F and C are limiting; I cannot. So, I can take only one more step and that will be that. So,
from my – on my fourth step, I have option DFC at 350 or DFE at 600. And, I will
choose DFC at 350; which means C goes to 1, 4, 5. This goes to 2 and this goes to 2. So,
if… So, this would be the sequence in which we crash and we have… Let us just go
through the slides again.
So, we can see the options for crashing; we first crashed F and then we found there is BF
– BF and BD work becoming the path went through D and F.
So, in the second step, we have to crash B; we crashed it to the maximum and we could
not after that take B at any further.
In the next step, we went on to with these options and we took the ADF option and could
not be crashed.
Now, we have all of it. And, in the last step, we took the CDF and we finished it in 5
days and we could not crash any more. Now, if we add the… what is the duration you
got as… for minimum cost. Did you come to that computation?
Student: 5 days
No, that is the minimum duration.
Student: We have to calculate the indirect cost
You have to calculate the indirect cost.

So, here we go; we have put the indirect cost per day – the total indirect cost. And, we
started with 2475 as a total; comes down to 2400; then, starts increasing. And, we can see
the… First cost we incurred was 50; after that it went to 150 second day. Remember –
increase in cost in the second step, by bringing it down for 2 days, it went to up by 150;
whereas, the slope of the first one was only 50. What is the indirect cost? 100. After that
any reduction cost has more indirect cost than savings indirect cost. That is why the first
step is where the savings come. And so, this is the optimum total cost and the optimum
duration of 8 days; optimum in this case being minimum.
And, this is the relationship. So, if you plot the graph, you will find that, in that, this is
how the trend goes. You see in the first step, I mean after we reduce it to the first here,
this is where we get the optimum… Every other time we reduce the direct cost slope as
higher than the indirect cost.
So, to summarize what we have done in this lecture, we looked at a relationship between
activity direct cost and duration. We saw the assumptions that need to be made. So, if
you recall, this was the graph which we showed how we make this linearity assumption.
And, that really limits a lot of things, but it is only for the ease of calculation. We went
through the procedure for finding minimum direct cost for crash project durations; then,
we included the overhead cost and we found the duration at which total cost is a
minimum. And, this is a very interesting relationship. And, we have to see how this can
be applied on projects, so that we can actually find minimum overall cost. We will
continue with this topic for one more lecture especially with different calculations and
also various other variables like say liquidated damages, which will come and change as
you change the whole equation as you start reducing duration.
And, this is a problem which I am going to assign as homework. We will start out the
next class with a solution to this problem.
Thank you.
Lecture – 30
Lesson - 04
Time-Cost trade-off: Problem- 3, Tabulation Approach
In this lecture we will cover Time Cost trade off again, we will look at some different
aspects and we will first review, what we had done last time, we will use an example, so
that the process of how we go about time cost trade off is a kind of reinforced. We will
look at a tabulation approach; this is a systematic way of doing this. You know we will
look at the, how we can use the tabulation to systematize it and then we will look at other
influences such as bonus and penalty and how it can affect the time cost trade off and
specially overall project cost.
So, if we you recall this was a problem that was given last time. We will just go through
this problem; we will first solve it by hand, because we will be able to review the process
through that.
Now, if we go into the next level which is, if you recall the process of time cost trade off
was to be able to the various steps if you remember. First we had to identify activities
and critical path and then, compare the unit cost of crashing for each, for the different
combinations of activities and critical path and then, select the combination with
minimum cost and in case of ties, which you know in case of a tie activity select the one
which influences the path.
And then, they reduce the duration, then you have to redo the network analysis and then
go back to the step 1 and as we had, as it is specified here. So, if we take this problem
((Refer Time: 01:46)) the first step is to actually go ahead and calculate the cost slopes,
so you may recall that we calculated the cost slopes here. Do you remember what the
cost slope was?
No, no, what is a cost slope?
𝐶𝑟𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡 − 𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡

Student:
𝑁𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 − 𝐶𝑟𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
So, we are looking at the cost per day of crash. So, that was the slope. So, here in this
table you will be, we remember we go back to the problem that was given; we had given
you crash cost, normal cost, crash duration, normal duration. We have added two more
columns to that, one is the cost slope and two is the maximum amount by which the
duration can be reduced. So, these are the two columns that have been added.
So, here we will see a number like 300 is obtained by subtracting 3900 from 3600 and
the number of days is only 1, you can reduce it only by 1 day, so it is 300. So, similarly
the remaining values have been calculated. Now, the value here 44500 is the total value,
total cost of the project if it everything is done in normal duration. So, this forms a basis
for a crashing process.
And we have this as the basic network diagram. So, if you follow the precedence
relationship that was given there, this is the basic network diagram. Now, let us use this
as a basis and solve the time cost trade off.
So, we have A, is that ok? And we have the durations at, we have actually written it in
the box system we have duration of 7, B has the duration of 5, C has the duration of 9, D
19, E 10, 8, 11 , 5 and 7. We have the values as you can see the forward pass and
backward pass have been done and if you can tell me the values as we go, so that you are
doing the participating in it, so 12, 12 and 21, 12 and 31, 21 and 29, 29, 34, 34, 41. Okay.
The backward pass value is also given in the network on the power point, but I am not
going to calculate that here, because we can do this with this simple forward pass itself
we will do this and then we will do go to the tabular method.
Now, we can see the critical path A B C F G I, so you can see in the slide here it shown,
there are three possible paths, you have A B C F G I which is 41 days, A B D I which is
38 days or A B E H I which is 40 days and we see that; obviously, the 41 days Is critical,
which means my next step will be to take the activities on this path okay and…
So, if you see I have put the cost of the activities of the crash cost of the activities per
day on the side. So, we can see if I take the activities A B C F G I you can see the various
costs 300, 500, 425, G cannot actually be crashed and I is 200. So, we know that we have
to select the minimum cost and yes, minimum and on critical path and this case it could
be I. So, if you go back to I and we will see why, how many days can we actually reduce
I.
Student: 1 day.
1 day, so we will go to I and we will reduce it by the 1 day will make I 6 ((Refer Time:
07:45)); which means this goes to 40, so that was the process we use. Now, we know that
also if you go back to the basic where we calculated all the parameters, you can see I can
only go up to 6, it cannot go any further, so I has been crashed to the maximum. So, we
now, once we crash the I ((Refer Time: 08:18)), has the critical path changed?
Student: No, to critical path change.
Has the critical path changed? See I is now with the, if I go back to the diagram you will
be able to see that, yes now I change. I change 34, this to 6 and it became…
Student: 40
40, will it change anything else?
Student: No.
No, critical path is still the same, every activity in before I has remained the same. So,
the critical path leading to I will remain the same, the critical path will only change if I
change any of the activities which are in the parallel paths. For example, if I change B,
nothing will change, because it is predecessor to all the other activities, it will all be
pulled; similarly I is successor to all the activities, so there will be no change in the
critical path.
So, right now I we have taken out and the path is still the same and we still have this
table value. So, we took I last time, now with 40 days what is the activity you would
choose. Your choices are A B C F and remember G, G was cannot be crashed any way, so
G also cannot be crashed. So, we have F, F is at…
Student: 250
250 days, F is at 250 is the amount and we can crash it by how much.
Student: 2
So, I can take F straight away to 2 days, no.
Student: By 1 day.
By 1 day, because if I take F to 2 days what happens.
Now, before F goes down to 6 ((Refer Time: 10:11)), by the time F goes down to 7, E
and H also becomes critical. So, I have to take it by one step first, so I take F to 7, now
this goes to 28. So, what has happened now? Now, we find this path also, so this is at 33
this is at 33, this E and H have also become critical. So, any further crashing requires
what.
Student: Simultaneously.
Simultaneously, so my combinations now are A alone, B alone or C, E C H, F E or F H.

So, let me write that down, so now, that it is getting a little more involved.
I will write it down when we take it to the, so if we… Let us just recollect, step 1 was
what, I by 1 day; step 2, step 3 we have a choice, either A B, we have then we said C E,
C H, F E or F H. So, what are the costs? You can read it from there, A would be 300, C E
is 575, F E.
Student: 400
So, we have all these combinations and; obviously, A at 300 is the least expensive. How
much can we move A by?
Student: By 1 day.
By 1 day, so we will move A to 6 and this will impact the whole network. Any change in
critical path?
Student: No.
No, because it an activity A that moved, it is predecessor to all of it. So, now, we have
and we have actually crashed A also to the max. What are all options now?
Student: F and E.
F and E, so in the next option it is F and E, so I will have to move F to 6 and E to 9. So,
if it is F and E there, so F to, yes. So, now, I have reduced, ((Refer Time: 14:22)) say F
has gone down by 2 and E has gone down by 1, so both are crashed to the maximum, let
me calculate the result 20. So, here we go to 26, 37, so, now we have crashed out E and
F. What is the only, so if you look at the combination now what do we have left.
Student: We have B.
We have B, so I am, this is basically for us to recollect the process which we went
through, so you get the idea. Now, we have B; once I take B in, I can take it by how
many days, I can take it by 2 days, again predecessor to everything, it will come down to
35 and if my step after B, I am only left with.
Student: C E.
See, E is crashed to the maximum, so only C H. F H is also gone, because F is crashed to

the maximum, we will come to C H. So, we can do this process and you know the
principle on which is based. Now, as we do a process like this you will see that we could
put it into a series of diagrams of what we have shown.
So, here is we have reached, up to here we have crashed A by 8, we have brought A

down to 6 days and then we just brought E and F down. We can go to the next step which
is to reduce B and the final step is to reduce C and H, so you can see in this we can go
through the series of processes and finally, the all three parts become critical. Now, D is
also become critical and there is no further reduction possible, because everything has
been, the other two paths have been crashed to the maximum.
So, if we were doing this the way we did it in the last class we would go through this
network diagrams and it is very good to understand the network, because that is really
the basis on which crashing is done. But, sometimes it becomes really messy to be able
to do it in this form.
So, what we have introduced is a tabular approach. but let me show you this tabulation.
So, here what we have is the various activities of the network, the possible paths. So, you
remember the three paths A B C F G I, A B D I, A B E H path and we will write a cost
slopes for each of these and the available crash time and for each step of reduction, we
will go through an iteration and we will update it as we go. So, let us see first we enter
the basic values, you can see that these are the, this is the amount by which I can reduce
the activity and this is the current path length.
So, for example, D does not participate in the A B C F G I activity and F does not
participate in this activity, H does not participate in this path. So, take a look at the table
and tell me, ask me if you have questions. So, 1 indicates that, that activity takes place is
participating in the path, the cost slope you are familiar with it; that is the 300, the 500
all that you are familiar with it, the available time is the maximum related crash, the path
length is what is given at the bottom is the length of the each point.
So, our base is that this is the length of each path and we know that G cannot be crashed
any further, so we have putting an X and this is the total cost of the normal duration at it.
So, we go to the first step which was, now you have to still use the network, you have to
understand from the network what is happening, because you will have to keep path, but
basically you have to, it gives you a way to express what you are doing. You have a crash
I by 1 day; which means you update what happens here.
So, you are going A B C F I now, you have crashed I by 1 day, there is no more space left
with crash I and your path is reduced to 40 and this path is reduced to 40, all the paths
are reduced by 1 and so your cost is increased by 200 come to 44700. Similarly, we did
the second step, so this was the, this is the stage next and then we remember we had I
crash to the maximum, then we crashed F if you recall by 1 day and this is the same
process it is iteration 2.
It went up by 250 and this is the resulting direct cost, then A by 1 day and this is the
result. Now, we can keep track of cost, the cumulative cost, direct cost as we go to the
process. We then crashed F and E by 1 day and resulted in this and you can see the
changes in, as we go through each iteration the available time in each activity has also
been updated, then we went B by 2 days and the duration went down to 35 and the final
was C and H by 1 day and we will and end up with this final path.
So, it is basically a systematic way of entering the values as you crash when you are
doing it in a manual approach, if the network gets complex. I would still recommend
using this approach if the network is small and you are able to understand and you are
able to keep track of the numbers as you go through. Any questions ask.
Student: The network analysis without network we go for it.
You can, but as your network, what to say, as your network critical paths change and
things like that, it is also nice to have a visual as to seeing where the critical path is going
and how it is going. We will take a class later, where we will do all this in a spread sheet.
So, you can set up things in such a way that you have been very algorithmic in your
fashion and not using a pictorial representation at all, but then you have to be very
systematic in how you go about it in the algorithm fashion.
So, what I would say is different people have different preferences, if you want a very
structured approach where we are looking at just the tables and the numbers and
computing this would be preferred by some of you. Others who prefer a more visual
approach and seeing what happens might be, this would be people prefer. But, without a
doubt this can get extremely messy and prone to mistake if the network is large and there
is a lot of crashing options. So, which case then the tabulation is preferred, but setting up
the table can take quite a bit of times, especially if you are doing, in an exam situation.
Now, this is what we land up with as the, our total. So, you remember the indirect cost
was given at 200 per day. So, you can see the, we have done this calculation where we
are showing the direct cost as it increases through the indirect cost with 200 and the total
indirect cost and the total direct plus indirect cost and you can say from here that there
are two durations at which the cost is minimum amount, why is that.
Student: optimal activity increase in cost.
Yes, I have two durations.
Student: I, the crashing of I, the cost was 200. So, if you take and if you crash it I by 1
day and pay 200, you gain another 200.
So, because it was 200 and say same as the slope value of this, you added up with two
solutions. So, it starts a unique minimum solution, we have two minimum, minima in
this particular case. Are there any questions? So, this is pretty straight forward and you
can, if you go to the 41 or 40 both give you the same time and same cost.
And you will land up with the total cost graph which looks like this. So, both 40 and 41
the value of total project cost is the same. Now, let us take say the indirect cost is now
300 per day. So, take a look and say what would you, what I mean what is the change
that would happen.
Student: It gone up 39 and 38.
So, it has gone up to 39 and 38 and again you have two values, because one of the slope
values have direct cost change happens to coincide with your indirect cost. So, because
the value is exactly the same, like you said earlier what you lose by charging for the
direct cost you gain exactly the same amount, so both days it remains the same. Now,
what if the indirect cost was say something like 350?
Student: It has a unique cost between 300.
It will have a unique between 300, because so long as I spent 300 and gained 350 am
gaining, I spent 400, gained 350 am losing, so it would be on that line. So, here we have
the same values, now this is we have seen this is shifted to as because it is 300. So, you
need to get a feel of how the indirect cost influences the overall project cost and why the,
how the value of the indirect cost and the relationship of the slope of the direct cost
values.
Lecture – 31
Lesson - 05
Incorporating Factors Such as Bonus and Penalty: Problem – 04
Now, let us move on to the next kind of variation of this problem, which is bonus and
penalty. We want to now include bonus and penalty and all of you are aware, that in
many contracts there is bonus and penalty clauses in it based on, what the owner requires
and typically, it is on a daily or on a weekly basis saying, if you finish so many days
ahead we get a, we give you a bonus if you finish so many days late, it is a penalty.
And the reason for this is the owner if he gets a facility early can actually generate
revenue out of the facility. So, passes on a little bit of that to the contractor or in the other
side if we actually cannot use the facility, he loses money and he penalizes the contract
for this. And this is certainly an incentive for the contractor to be able to try to finish
earlier.
So, if we take a problem of which is given here, so we have given a precedence

relationship, you have an activity, the predecessor, normal duration, crash duration all
these usual information. In addition I have given you an indirect cost of 400 and this is
the addition norm. If the project finishes within normal duration there is no bonus and no
penalty, if each excess day there is a 300 day penalty and each reduced day, there is a 300
day bonus. So, can you set up this network and start working on it, we will solve it.
So, it is fairly, so if B with I mean you might have use the tabulation or you might have
use the network. You know, so setting of the tabulation takes little more time, for a
problem of this nature I would suggest, you can use the network. So, we would do 0, 0,
20, 60, so it is 140 is rather. Again I am not going to do the backward pass, let us just go
through it, it is critical path is B C D E, so it goes through...
So, if I want to reduce duration I have to crash one of these, so what are my options D, D
at 60 it is so much less than the others and by how much can I, by 10 days if I take it by
10 days I am safe, I would nothing else becomes critical mean while. So, I take D, I
make it 20 and this goes to 80, you can keep, you must keep track of the cost. We will
show the tabulation and the cost in the end, so I am not going to write it down, we will
go through, but there will be cost; obviously, D is 60 into 10, 600. So, it will be 600 and
D is also crashed out to the max, I cannot take D anymore.
What would be next and what is my critical path? Yes, now I have B C D E and B F. So,
any change, so my... Now, this is the important combinations, what are the combinations.
So, if you miss the combination and you do not calculate the cost of the combination,
then you miss the whole thing, so you have to actually look at the combinations.
And to see the combinations you can either go to the table or here you can just look at
the network. So, if I take D one of the advantages it will pull both paths, because it is the
part of both paths, but right now B is 400, C if I take C I would take C and F or even if I
take E, it will affect both paths.
So, my option is E at 120, B at 400 or C and F at what is that 900. So, I will go with E
and how much can I reduce E by by 10 days, I can go the full 10 days this goes to 120.
Now, what is happening? Activity A has also become critical. So, now, I have all three
parts in the, all three parts becoming critical and any further crashing will require A also
to B and A B independent of everything else it has to be a part of all other parts, all other
combinations.
So, I can for example, have A and B, so now, E is also gone out of contention. I have A
and B or A C F, so A B or A C F, so AB is 600 sorry AB is 500, A C F is certainly more.
So, I will go with A and B, how much can I move A by and how much can I... B can only
go by 5, so I am limited to that 5. So, I move B to 15 and A cannot go more than, cannot
write at this step I cannot take it less than 5, so it gets 115.
So, here we go to 15 and here I take it 115 with that B is also gone out of it I am only left
with ACF how much can I reduce ACF, what is the maximum? C is limiting C can go
down to 10 days. So, I will go take, so everything and go down 10 days only, so this goes
to 30 there are a 50 I should actually done this path before, but we know that they are.
So, you can we can put the cost associated with each let us just go to the tables, because I
have a cost table.
So, you will find that this is the steps you have taken and we had a normal duration and
we reduce D and then, we reduced E to not this is not by 20, but it is 220 you reduced E
to 40, then we reduced A to 115 and B to 15, then the last step we took A C and F and
reduced it and we have the direct cost shown in the table for each and the. So, then in the
in this column here we show how the direct cost increases with each step. Now, in the
next column we have the total indirect cost we said 400 per day and we have it as each as
each have as the period decreases; obviously, indirect cost will reduce.
And then finally, we have the total cost and this follows us are pattern which we are use
to in this kind of relationship and we say that this is where the the minimum is, so for we
have not included the bonus and penalty. So, now, what happens we remember bonus and
penalty is,
Student: (Refer time 13.41)
So we had a value of how much should we say the bonus and penalty was 300 per day
remember it is 300 per day. Now, can you do the calculation can you add can you add the
bonus and penalty it to this and see what how would you add this and see how would the
results be.
Student: 20 into 300
No
Student: We need to know the schedule first.
Yeah. So, we has to now saying a if say if we take 100, so I normal duration is 140. So, if
it is 140 there is no bonus no penalty if it is 130, 10 days of bonus. So, it will it will go to
3000 will be plus if it is goes to 120 it will be another 3000, now what if I exceed 140 if I
go to 150
Student: (Refer time 14.38)
Correct. So, my question is can do you see given this cost structure do you see any
change in where the bonus will take place or any change in where the minimum cost will
take place minimum total cost of the project any, what is the influence of the bonus.
So, let us look at the table this is how the bonus structure puts in so if I have 150 I mean I
have 140, which is my normal duration, which is this which is 0 the minute I exceed I go
higher that is fine, as I start as I start going lower as my project duration start decreasing
my bonus starts increasing, but my direct cost is also increasing yes, so as my direct. So,
now, I have to take three factors into account increasing may direct cost, which is
depending on the activity I crash my increasing my it my increasing bonus which is
depending on the bonus rate my decreasing indirect cost, which is decreasing at the at the
daily rate of the indirect cost and decreasing with duration project duration.
So, if I take all these three into account this is the minimum value, so in the earlier case
where how what was that minimum duration 120. So, you can now you will see when
you add the bonus to the indirect what is the slope 700, right 400 and 300. so I am
basically reducing it at around 700 per day and, so you will have to will have to take that
in to account and see, where am I actually going to make that difference this is from a
contractor perspective.
Now, we are looking at it from the contract and, but who who makes a contract the client,
so the client has decided on the bonus value based on his benefits. So; obviously, he
finishes early he is making something also out of it is the not just a contract also. So,
there are any questions or discussions on this we can take any further discussions
otherwise just quickly to summarize we kind of re visited the time cost rate of procedure
we saw how we have to go through the steps and calculate the minimum direct cost of
crashing of the you know the network we then added the indirect cost and then, saw that
minimum total cost we kind of introduced tabular approach for calculations we will do a
few more examples on this.
And then finally, we saw how you can incorporate factors such as bonus and penalty or
any other cost that might come up and it is only an algebraic addition right now, we are
not looking at it as a function or it is just an algebraic addition, but it had it has to be
done systematically. So, you can see where your total cost changes and you have to, then
capitalize on making use of that.
Thank you.
Lecture – 32
Resource Scheduling
This lecture we will cover, we will start with this important topic of Resource Scheduling
and as you all know, we have looked at this figure before, where we have basically we
used it to introduce network analysis, where we had relationships and durations. We did
the analysis and all of these outputs you see box; that is early start, early finish, the late
start, late finish, project duration, total float, free float, interfering float we have learnt
how to calculate.
Now, you would have, we would have we also discussed a little bit about resources
earlier and the focus of the next few lectures are on, how do we consider resources as
input to the network and what is the kind of allocation and leveling operations we can do
with resources.
So, when we use this term resources it is a very common saying in construction that there
are all these M’s. So, materials, man power, money, machines are all the M’s of
construction and if you manage these properly, you have a good project and that is really
very true, that resource management is the crux of good project management. And if you
are able to use resources appropriately, there will be a lot of things which go right on
your project.
And you can see in this slide we have two types of resources, one is consumable the
other is reusable. So, for example, something like materials is a consumable resource, it
gets used up you cannot reuse it, whereas something like man power is a reusable
resource or machines are reusable resources. What about money? It gets consumed. So,
when you use of money it gets consumed. So, at a later stage it is a kind of important that
distinguish whether resource is consumable or reusable.
So, when we get into resources we see they have very important influence on the
schedule. We have, do you recall when we have discussed resources and its influence on
the schedule.
Yes, when we took up the two span bridge we discussed it, when we talked about
duration estimation we talked about the influence of resources and duration. So, here you
can see one of the critical influences is duration of activities are dependent on usage of
resources and availability. So, when we take construction projects we talk about the
usage of the resource, the type of resource and all of it and see. So, we say we have more
sophisticated equipment might be the productivity is better, might be the duration can be
reduced or if we put more equipment or people, we can reduce duration we talked a little
bit about that on the crashing met, which we did in the last sessions.
Now, when we talk about other kinds of project, where people are the resources, skilled
man power is a resource; something like availability becomes important. So, let us say
you have you wanted to do a design and the designer is not available or his schedule is so
tight, that he is not available on that day, then the availability becomes. You cannot put
multiple designers and start reducing the duration of the design.
Just that you need that particular person for the designs, so skill and availability become
a very important issue and we talk about people human resource and skilled highly
skilled human resources. And other very important issue of resources, there are
significant component of the project cost, most of the project cost is derived from
resources. So, if you can keep track of resources and you can actually look at, what has
happened with the resource, you actually keep track of the project cost or you can even
plan, how the project cost is going to vary with time.
So, as we discussed if you schedule resources properly, it will have a positive impact
both on the time and on the cost. So, the first influence here is more on the time and the
second is on the cost and improper scheduling is the reverse, you are going to really land
up with problems and this is one of the most common issues on projects, where the
resource management is not proper. So, resource are idle, if resource is idle like people
are idle, which means that you are paying them, but no work is getting done and as a
result the project will be losing money or even equipment. So, as we say we go to a
project and the tower crane is idle, which is a valuable resource it is sitting there and
losing money. So, management of resources is very important.
Now, we discussed this before, so if you take the two span bridge example, what are the
resources here, what are the resources you see here.
Student: Casting operation
Yes, for the casting operation you need formwork you need all these forms, you need
equipment and mixed concrete, you need people to pour, yes, you have reinforcement.
So, you have people resource, we do not see the people here, but people resource you
have you know formwork equipment resource, you have material resource like concrete
and reinforcing steel. You have an equipment resource here, you need a truck to
transport, you know so you can cast all these beams and keep it there, but if you do not
have a truck to transport it, it is I mean you are not going to achieve the objective.
And then, you might recall this calculation where we found the duration of casting beams
based on number of resources we mobilized. So, we said if we want to you know reduce
the duration; that means we needed more form work. So, if you have more form work,
which means your mixing operation has to be a, your concrete output has to be done
faster, which means you have to have an appropriate mixing machine to be able to do
that. So, if you know all of these matters, so resources really drive the duration.

Now, we come to this question, so we understand the importance of resources on a
project. What decisions do we need to make about resources? You know, so here as a
project manager we understand there is materials, there is man power, there is machinery,
there is money, what are the decision we would want to take. We know that we, that
resources drive the duration, we know that resources if not used properly will lead to cost
overrun, what are the other, so what and then we also seen, so far how we get time as I
mean time based output from a network analysis.
Now, if we combine this network analysis and the knowledge of resources, what are the
decision we will be able to make.
Student: quantity of resources
Yes, so I will, so for example, when you say quantity of resources if I take a design
drawing and I do a quantity take off, I do get quantity of materials for example. Is that
what we are talking, what you mean by quantity?
Student: No, no. Yes.
Yes, so I have my total project quantity, is that…That is yes, that is useful, but is that can
we get more than that on a project.
Student: Time of entry of resources into the site.
Yes, you can get a weekly resource plan. What is the point you were mentioning?
Student: man power
Yes, same thing. So, I can do either materials or man power on a timed basis, I want to
know how much material I need this week. Yes, how much material I need for the whole
project is certainly useful information, but I need to time it I need timing wise
information and as he mentioned inventory is then becomes important.
So, if you take a look we need periodic order quantities, only if I note time I cannot order
all my material in the beginning of the project, it is going to come in periodic lots and I
need to know the order quantities. I need to know storage requirements and locations, I
might have a specific capacity in my warehouse, I cannot I should be able to know that
and if that capacity is exceeded I should have alternate places to store.
You will find that large companies will try to get material requirements from multiple
sites, because they will get volume discounts. So, if I am buying 10000 bags of cement
versus you know one lakh bag of cement, the cement manufacturer might give me a
discount bigger discount on 1 lakh. So, if I can, if a large construction company I rather
go with that, if can coordinate between my sites rather by the large one rather than each
site buying small one.
So, now, if the sites do not give me when they need what quantity I will be not able to do
this. So, again when I put a time line on my resource requirements and say on a weekly
basis and here specifically material requirements, I will be able to take those decisions.
The next point is custom order and delivery. So, custom equipment is something which is
specialized for example, a hospital might have a special MRI machine.
If you know when the MRI is going to be installed as far as your schedule goes, I will
know when to make when to give the order. I cannot go an order and MRI within a week
or two it, might take a year for delivery. I have to know when it is going to be installed to
be able to make that order, sequence it is delivery. I will show you an example.
So, for example, this is vessel that goes into a power plant, now for something like this it
will take quite some time to make it you will have to ship it there has to be received it
has to be erected now. So, something like this is what we mean by the long lead time for
equipment which we are calling materials here. ((Refer Time: 10:40)) So, this is some
forms this is called equipment I have used the term custom equipment it is not the
construction equipment it is the equipment that goes into a plant like a boiler or a
cracking tower for a petro chemical plant.
So, so only if I can get scheduling information with resource loading I will be able to
take all these decision correctly, when we go to man power you said we need
mobilization requirement for each period how many workers do I need, what is a skill of
workers I need it is not just workers I will need people like welders, I will need masons, I
will need carpenters a worker is not just worker.
So, I need to know this kind of skill, skill level I need in this each period of time we need
to able to understand I mean if it is highly skilled work like design as such people might
not be available of people are not available we need to be able to substitute people or
reallocate work during that period in some reasonable form. If we are talking about
construction work typically the festival seasons are the time when worker availability is
low we should be able to understand that resources well dip man power resources on site
will dip during that period and planned work in that kind of a method.
So, these are some of the decisions when you go into machinery the equipment that is
used for construction there is a lot of specialized equipment requirement. So, for
example, you have an image of a crane this is a crane, which was not that easily available
I will have to schedule it I will have to say that you know either if it is a company owned
crane I will have to tell my plant and machinery people when I need it and when I will
release it and or I have we are going to higher it out again I will need to know the crane
is available and this is not just crane it is.
So, much specialized equipment today we will have to know went to mobilization in
went to demobilize that equipment. Then, preparatory work for example, if we were
going to move this into a site you will have to take a look at all the bridges and all the
culverts its going to cross and see it if can stand the load, which is going to placed
sometimes they will have to put there are there are kind of drains and everything on site
and this travels on it, it could just break.
So, a lot of times there are perpetrator works for equipment requirements. So, if you have
a heavy lift crane coming into the site I will have to do foundation preparation and to
prepare the foundation for the crane it is self is going to take time only, then I my crane
can we placed on the foundation and only than the lifting operation can take place. So,
you really needs, so these resource based decisions have to be planned carefully.
Now, another one is sharing equipment with other sites, so if you are large company and
you have large equipment pool I need to know just has we said material wise a volume
discount on material my equipment sharing is also very important I can not a lot a
equipment of one site and keep it there forever I need to specially specialized equipment
I need to use it all around when we go to a money this becomes extremely important lot
of times not I mean emphasis is not meant not put on the money management of a
project.
So, we can have people management you know as a material management you can have
a machinery, but you might have heard the term that you know this business is very
good, but cash flow was the problem what is that mean.
Student: Input of cash flow during every month or milestone might not have come
during the particular stage when expected
So, the sales was good, but sales is usually on a some kind of credit and, so the person is
able to sell material, but he is not getting cash for it is. So, he does not have money to
buy and or sustain you know pay his salaries and everything else like that. So, then cash
flow t’s a very simple example of saying where cash flow is a problem.
So, in a project there is cash flow right? if the company buys all of this material
everything it has to buy how it is that is cash out flow how is what is inflow, how does
cash come in from the client on a periodic basis the client has to pay. So, you have way
you have to able to understand. So, if your contractual term has certain inflow conditions
you have to make sure that your out flow conditions are in a way that you do not face a
cash flow problem. So, that is again it is a question of money and time right.
So, how does money flow with respect to time and unless you have an understanding of
that on your project you will not be able to you might be doing a very good engineering
project, but if you do not know if you have final cash is this is not there to buy materials
or other things because you built a lot of it put it into building the for some reason for
some contractual reason you are not getting it back from the owner you your project is
going to be in trouble.
And if you look at the second point credit planning in some many situations the
construction company might be borrowing money to move things forward and there
might be a credit limit. So, if my negative flow is more than the credit limit my creditors
are not going to give me money I do not want to be in that situation to. So, there are
ways I can change my cash flow and this has to do with your network and if you recall
we talked about floats. So, when I will see how it is, how can we use floats to vary
equipment and resource loading and cash loading of a project ultimately all these effects
profitability even taxes.
So, in the end we how do you actually pay tax you know on a project you know what is
what is billed what is all these kind of when you get a tax break or what you get a tax
break tax is also time based right. So, all of these things are very critical and have to be
related to the time and hence to the project schedule any questions.
So, we will start with the basics and we take this, this example which we have worked
with earlier we you and you very familiar with the, the basic numbers of this for now.

And we have seen the results in this Gantt chart if we recall we had we had the four
activities we had ABCD and we said that B has here two days float. So, if I go back to
the network diagram this was the a network analysis we did forward pass the backward
pass we have 14 day duration and we have the all of the critical path analysis times and
this is the resulting early start schedule and late start schedule is that okay. So, when we,
we have that A goes an all of these days B is here.
So, when we load resource load the schedule what we are basically doing is putting. So,
in this particular case we have said that one man power resource records per each day we
just keeping it very simple to start. So, all we have done here is put the number one in
each. So, you can see each activity is loaded with one man power resource based on the
early start.
So, now what it allows as me to do is simply to calculate the total resource for the project
and this is a single resource. So, you can see this is going to be, so I can I can take this
and put it in the form of a histogram and this is my if what is very simple example this is
my man power loading chart for the project. So, I have you can see an all these days one
increases to two then goes back to one and you can see the two is because there are two
activities each requiring one I can have a cumulative plot.
So, all I am doing is cumulating, so I am just adding keeping a cumulative value as I go

and therefore, it mean it just adds up. So, for man power sometime cumulative is not as
meaning full as for money, but a lot of time cumulative is done to look at the progress.
So, you can also then plot the cumulative.
So, these really form the basic or basics of where how we load resources and look at
resources from a Bar chart and once we do the CPM analysis. Now, what would be the
next variation we want to do?
Student: ((Refer time 19.55))
yes either that or this was remember for the early start. So, so I should be able to now see
this.
If I move this in late start you can see the profile is changed, so this was the early start
profile this is the late start profile, so all I have done. So, for example, if if I went to the
early start profile and said locate. So, here I have two resources you know and these two
days have two resources, but people are not going to be available on day six and seven I
have I can only mob mobilize one then I would actually going for a late start and say I
will still keep it at one for these two days.
But, the people will come back here on these on day 10 and 11 and I am okay of course,
activity B as you know now becomes critical, but I can still finish the project within my
original duration. So, this is a little bit of how you use the float of the activity to change
your resource profile any questions. So, now, you can see what we have here is the
resource cumulative resource taking the early start and the late start. So, you again have
an envelope, right now there is probably just one if I move B by 1 I will have a in
between point, but again this is the, this is envelope of the extreme points of my resource
loading.
And this is called a banana curve by some in some areas because it will represent a
banana another important use of this histogram or of this resource is to understand over
allocation. So, here you can see that we are saying that I have only one person available I
do not have two I only single person available and that is the maximum resource I can
mobilize and immediately we can visually see that that we have over allocated and there
is one extra I mean one resource we will need which we will not be able to meet.
So, in this situation what are our options?
Student: The project will get delayed.

the project will get delayed there is no way I even if I used my late start of B I still need
to do B there only way, now is two either do B and then, do C and if I do that I will have
to all these 4 days will get it get delay by 4 days.
So, in some resource, where since some cases when resources are a constraint, there is no
other option, but to delay the project.
So, we will take another example, so this is also an example we have worked with before
and you can see the results in the Bar chart this is for the early start and again it is a
single loaded resource it is a slightly larger example and you can see the cumulative the
total resources required for a day in this first row at the bottom here and you can see the
result in graph histogram. And, so here we are going to its like as the maximum I need is
three, but there is a profile as such and there is also.
So, if I go into the late start this is the profile early start this is the profile and depending
on you know what my availability and everything else is I can, then choose between the
late and the early.
Now, in addition to this we are also looking at the now going to add cost to it we are
saying that its say two fifty rupees per man power resource per day. So, the minute I put
in cost I am able I able to, now take you I will factor in the cost and now this is this what
you have below becomes cost its cumulative cost. So, then this becomes a total cost of
my man power resource for the project and you can see the line in red is the early start
cost curve and the blue is a late start cost curve.
Now, when we say cumulative cost it has a lot of meaning which means if I go on to this
day here I should have spent this much money is my as per my plan or my man power
resource, which means I should be able to mobilize the I mean I should have mobilized
that much money by that period. So, you will find that in some cases people might just
from a cash constraint point of view go in for a late not from not from the precedence or
from the resources or anything just that I mean resource is a cash is in way that they
might decide to delay things, because cash is will be available much a little late any
questions on this.
Lecture - 33
Projects and Resources, Example of 2 Resources,
Exercise, Two Span Bridge Example
So, we have now discussed, a single project single resource is a scenario discussed, but
you can image in there are other scenario like single project - multiple resources,
multiple project - single resource or multiple project -multiple resource, which do you
think as a project manager what do you think you should be dealing with.
Student: Single project multiple resources
Yes, as a project manager certainly the challenge we have a single project multiple
resource
Student: There are project managers who deal with different projects at a time
So, if you are for example, there are many builders to build homes, they will have project
manager will have project managing multiple project, but sometimes when we have look
at as what do you say this. When we are talking about single project multiple resource
we mean a large project, typically is a single project manager, but they are right they we
can have a single project manager with multiple medium as small project. And in which
case he has a some ways dealing with multiple projects multiple resources, but again in
terms of scale that might not be as challenging as a single project, that the volume or the
repetitiveness typically multiple project a single project multiple projects are residential
buildings and things like that. Now who has to deal with multiple projects multiple
resources?
Student: Large company.
Large company. So, like we said when we are taking about a buying materials in bulk, or
you have a plant and machinery division which itself is the profit center, that my plant
and machinery division owns equipment in the company, and I have to you know give a
equipment at different sites I have to charge the site for the equipment and I have to
show profit of the company for charging the site for my equipment. So, then you have
these then there really are challenge with multiple project multiple resources. Another
example of multiple project multiple resource, which is happening today is what we talk
about metro ((Refer Time: 02:37)). You take a single company they might have multiple
they they have multiple projects just on the metro rail in the city. So, they have a station
building here, a station building there or a rail section here, and they have to share
sources between these multiple projects that might be and its is a challenge, if you get to
a.
So, if you really get to a sum of a large construction company there spread all over the
country, they cannot there are very few resource, they can share across the country. You
know very heavy cranes thing like that, but with in a region there is a lot of resource that
sharing that needs to take place and really, it is quite a challenge, any question?
Student: It is when you have very valuable resource.
Yes.
that is not from a vendor’s perspective, I have to take get material for multiple projects,
and that material if I can get a bulk discount on the material.
Student: Equipment.
Yes, other example is equipment and typically it might be, it is a I mean there was for
example, in some case you might have some, some kind of pumps which are heavy duty.
And you can only use it we such high volume you are not going to have many of those
on a in a company, but you will need it on a certain projects. Common example is cranes.
Cranes.
Yeah, just heavy lift cranes, company will need it it’s a very valuable resource because if
you have it you can use it get on the side do a and leave the very efficiently, but invest an
crane is a crores, but its usage has to be across multiple project, you cannot write it of on
a single project. Any other example you can think of…
Student: …………
So, sometimes the owner decides that he has, so many project not its not the contractor
who does the resource sharing it is the owner who actually invests in the crane, and all
the equipment and then does it. So, our focus will mainly be on on single project single
resource to illustrate how resources are modeled and the basics of it, but we will go on to
the challenge of looking at a multiple project multiple resources in a later lecture. You
will find there is a lot of subjectivity that comes in it, it is when we are trying to do
scheduling, when we are trying to do the, an optimal schedule there is a lot subjectivity,
and that’s what still makes it a challenge.
So, now let us go on to 2 resources everything remains the same, what we have taken as
a resource one, resource two, and we are here we are taking a scenario where there is an
equipment, and man power we are saying the equipment is required for the first half of
ach activity. So, the equipment will be used for sometime, but the man power is required
throughout in principle everything is exactly the same all you are doing is adding up the
total for each day here.
So, we have resource 1 resource two, and you will see this is for that day what the
resource load is. So, you can see for equipment it goes up to 3 for man power also it goes
up. And here we using unit quantities just for a illustration. So, everything kind of
remains you know the number remains small.
And if you want to visualize what is the histograms, we can kind of visualize the
equivalent histogram in this way, and this could be the cumulative resource graph for
the two.

This becomes the cumulative becomes meaningful, when we put cost into it and we
going to be. So, we are saying the cost of the man power is 250 per day, and the
equipment is 500 per day. And now we have cost loaded the bar chart. So, all of these
values now relate to cost. So, here you can see all of this, this is 250 for the resource one,
and for resource 2 you can see the values and the cumulative values for resource one,
cumulative values for resource 2 and the equivalent graph is over here. So, this is the
blue line, shows you the resource one, cumulative graph the red line for resource two,
and the green line the total. So, if this was my project I will have to be I will have to I
can know, what my cumulative cost is how much money would have spend by day 10 for
example, now let us do a small exercise.
This is a network you are familiar with the durations are little reduced. So, that you can a
get it within a reasonable time and you will able to a plot these do the calculations for a
lesser number of days, but go ahead plot the network. So, give a given you the duration I
have given you the resource I have given you as trucks, and we are also a going to ask
ourselves question what if only 10 trucks are available what would you do, but before we
get to the second question, lets just plot the resource histogram for the early start plot the
resource program for the early start
Student: we need to draw…
We need to draw a network. How else are you going to do it.
Student: Gantt chart

Yeah how will you draw a Gantt chart? Try it
See if you can do it without the network analysis its something which you want to try.
Yeah you want to try doing this without the network. You can draw it because it is simple
enough, but we see that the any way doing a network analysis in your mind.
So, what we do not to plot what will do is will come out with numbers at the bottom just
put the numbers a plot will be and does we will take it we will get. So, this is the network
gives you bit of practice to do your network analysis. So, what I have here is basically a
table which we are going to enter values in I have the resources number of resources, so
when we take A what it goes from. So, that is the bar chart for A and we are entering 2 in
each what about B, B goes from and we have 1 C
Student: 5 to 9,
5 to 9
Student: 6 to 10
That is what 6 that is that is when we say 5 here this is the end of 5, this is the start of
day 6. So, this is day 6 to and it has 6 D is same, and it has 4 E is 5 to 7 F 9 to 11, I am
going to it to 11 to 14, yeah which 1
Student: E….
E should have 4, thanks.

So, we are at G now we go to H H goes from 7 to 10 and it has 1 and I is fifteen and it
has one. So, it becomes 2 1 1 1 14 14 11 11 3 2 2 2 2 1. So, this becomes the resource
profile now which are our critical activities we know that, so the first thing. So, this is
answers the first question this is the profile. Now the second is are there any questions on
this once the profile is determined. Now I know I have a trouble right I will not able to
do this early start profile, because I have 14 and 11 is there anything I can do about it?
Student: Utilize the floats
I have utilize the floats. So, in order to utilize the floats I have to the understand first of
all which activities have floats, I know that A this is critical, B is critical, C is critical F,
G and I. So, all of this I cannot there is no float on B, I had it is fixed I cannot move
this at al F right G and I. So, whatever profile change I have to do is with by moving D
E and H, and H that’s it. So, now, we can see that we can see from the network and from
here that the D is able to move how far can I move D I can move D all the way uptil
here right?
So, I can basically move the float allows me to move D, all the way there right? So, if
I move. So, I am going to put this in orange. So, now I am moving D all the way so this
is my 4 days I want basically this is getting overloaded, here because of the 6. So, I am
moving D out of the influence of C, and I am going to that is let us take it lets give it as
much float I am going to move D here 1 I can move further, but is this enough 4 5 6 7.
Student: Its enough

Its ok. So, if I do this what I have basically done is move D away from the influence of
the 6 so basically I land up with10 10 7 7 7 6 6 6 2 1. So, I have I am now within my
equipment constraint the amount I have 10, and because I was able to use my float I
am able to do my job still within my project duration. So, here we have talked about
single resource single project you can imagine. Now if we are trying to do this with
multiple resources where this might require more of another resource something else
might recovery more of another resource and. Now I am trying to balance or and all my
resources to be within my available the problem becomes more complex any questions
on this.
So, we can now you know you can put cost plot the cost curve all of this becomes just
procedural you will need to do it so that you get a feel of it, but it is it is relatively
simple the key here is network. So, network again network analysis is what provides us
the bar chart network analysis is what gives us the float we are only resource loading the
results of the network analysis, we are calculating total resources on a day and that gives
are lot of information to able to manage the project, let us a kind of look at the
application of this into the two span bridge. So, this is its its you remember what were
the resources we considered here, the key resources so if you remember this had things
like delivery of piles, you know beams casting beams piling.
So, we are just taking a few key resources, which which have to do with the crew.
We are taking we are going to take just the concreting crew the piling crew and the
bridge lunching crew and here is the bar chart of the two span bridge and if you recall
this is with unlimited resources we have put it on to a project planning software. So,
you will start slowly getting introduced to the project planning software tool, and you
remember we had 2 critical paths, we had the 2 abutments that were critical the
middle was not so critical you can see generally that is here.
And we are using these resources we are using you know the precasting gang we are
using a piling we are using concreting we are using a group of resources for girder
launching and road block. So, these are the key resource group, we are going to use.
And we have basically loaded the resources, and you know we are taking about multiple
resource single project, and you have to get it in you can see the software does it for you
shows you the resource histograms for each of the resources, which we are considering.
And if you have if you are going to say we cannot see the unit here, but if you going to
say that only one gang is available for each each of the resources, only single is
available the over allocated resources are shown. And now you have to take a decision
If I really want to finished the project in that time it means I have to mobilize that
amount of resources or we have to go to shift work it, If I had only assumed 1 single
shift here I might have to go to multiple shifts If I finish it within the same a calendar
days. So, these are the decisions a project manager has to make and resources have a lot
to do with how there are made effect.
So, kind of s summarize what we covered here, we looked at the influence the resources
on project cost and time we discussed it, and you know that it has significant influence.
We resource loaded a schedule saw the histograms, saw the cumulative, cost curve, you
know the cumulative. And then we actually used the histograms to find overloading of
the resources. We looked at the curve the cumulative cost we discussed the S curve, we
saw how it varies with early start and late start how that can influence the project. We
also used in their example here we used float to resolve over allocation, and this is a very
important step as to how to use float and how we can not only for over allocation, but in
the later lecture will see a how we can use float to level resources.
Thank you.
Lecture - 34
Review Problem 1, Problem 2 (Cash Resource)
Resolving Over-Allocation
Yeah, in this lecture will continue with resource scheduling. We will look at resource
allocation, we already covered this last lecture will look at how resources are allocated
and over allocation problem. So, we will review this then we will go into the different
ways of using float for resolving over allocation. We will try to use a spread sheet, so that
the calculation will be done in quickly for us to see how we can really resolve over
allocation problem different ways to do it. And finally, will take a look at a multi
resource over allocation and see what strategies one can use for this.
Now, let us review the problem we took last time, if you recall we had a problem with
trucks as a resource, and this was the problem statement we said we should find the
network parameter plot the resource histogram, and then we limited saying only 10
trucks are available. So, if you look back in your notes you will find that we solved this
problem last time
This was the network, we had 15 day project duration, we had the critical path going
through ABCFG and I
And we when we actually took the early start schedule and we put resources required for
each day, we found that there is we said there is only 10 trucks available, but we found
in a few days be needed more than 10 based on early start. So, if we actually go back to
the problem statement, we have talked about the number of trucks being required in this
column of the problem statement. So, again just to refresh and review. So, if A needed 2
trucks we said its actually 2 trucks for each day of A, B requiring 1 is 1 truck for each
day of B and this was the early start schedule which we got. So, what we did was
actually add up their requirement for each day for various activity. So, when came in
here you have 14 trucks required on day 6, and 14 trucks on day 7, but only 10 is
available. So, what was solution?
Yes, we have to utilize floats, and if we go back we can see that ABCFG and I are
critical. So, we could only move we chose last time to move D. So, we actually move D
all the way to the end, and that actually resolved this. So, this 4 actually moved the end
that resolve the over allocation form. So, we had this come down to 10, and this went up
to 6, now the question is… So, what we did is actually moved D all the way and moved
it to 14 that is what we did last. The question is, is this the only solution.?
First question does D need to use all all its float. So, right now when I brought D here, I
have made it actually critical. So, does D need to use all its float.
No? what are my options with just D.
Student: Day 10…
Yeah, I can start it from day 10. So, there are 2 possible solutions with just D, what if I
started on day 9? Over allocation - 6 4 1, it would have gone to 11. So, if I chose to move
D I have 2 options, are there any other options,
Yeah.
Student: C is an critical.
C, it is critical. So, cannot move C. So, I can move E and H, can I move E right.
So, if I moving E I first have to move H first. So, you can see E is here, H is here. So,
there possibly another solution moving E and H, we will explore this at a later stage, but
realize that when we move D last time it was only one of the options, and we chose to
move D all the way to the late start, but again that is only one option, within D itself
there is 2 options, but in addition to D there are other options of resolving over
allocation.
Now as a in planning engineering or project manager when you look at these options,
you have to now there are other constraint which will work into which option you have
choose. So, for example, D might be done by sub contractor who is not easily available.
So, you will say that look I, I fix this person to start on the early start day then I am there
is no way I am going to change my schedule on whereas E and H are sub contractor
types of work in which more kinds of people are available to do are the subcontractors
flexible or not. So, there are many constrains that come into finally deciding which
activity to move, but the important thing here is to realize there are multiple options.
Now, let us move to another problem, this time we are taking cash as a resources, and
you can see the problem statement here, the network is a little different from what you
have done earlier, but I would like you to start drawing this network we will not solve the
whole, do not want you to solve the network in first, but I want you to get a feel about
the network, and please try to drawing the network.
And you will find I do not want you to solve the network as of now I just want you to get
a feel. So, there are if you look at there is path going ABCD to J, then there is A E F G J
which is critical and AHIJ, and then there is a actually another path ABFIJABF there are
few more paths then are simple network we consider so on. So, the project duration here
is 19 months and once we do this, if you go back the problem statement says a total value
of money for activity A is 45000 is spent over 2 months. So, unlike where we said the
daily requirement of a truck was 2 per day, here this is the total value of that activity. So,
if we want to find the monthly monthly expenditure the cash money that is going to go
what do we need to do, how do we need to apply the same principles of resource.
Yes.
That is the first task. We will assume that the total value is equally divided to the
duration activity, that is for our purposes in class today we are going to assume it is
equally divided, in reality it is certainly not equally divided. And one of the challenges
becomes actually finding what is the how will you divide this over the time period which
you are doing that one. So, they will be different variations some others simpler software
only allow you to do equal proportioning of the resource or cost or whatever it is. Most
professional software will allow some function or some variation where you can talk
about how you are going to actually, how you are spending the money how it varies.
And there need not be a function is can just it can be totally based on, you know factors
which is totally discrete it will depend on the activity, it will depend on other activities
you know it will depend on, so many things; some activities you might want to load it in
the beginning and ease of later you know. So, it is discrete, which you it is I mean you
can have a function, but in general it is this discrete. So, here we have assumed equally.
So, we have taken just the total value here and then divided by the number of months to
see monthly value. So, this gives you the monthly value of the monthly expenditure on
each to the activities is that is ok.
Now so the first point be want to address is to find out the month, if I am going to be
spending if I am going to be doing this activity on this schedule how much money will I
be spending on each activity.
So, here we go we have taken the schedule, this is the early start schedule, we have put
this in the form of bar chart, we have loaded the bar chart with the value. And all we do
is in the first total here what we have done is just added up, just as we did for trucks we
are just added up, but this is money. And you find this is the bar chart you get for
monthly outflow. Now you can see that the outflow here is in certain months has
exceeded what has been allowed. So, we can say that you know you are only can you get
100000 rupees to spend a month, if you exceed that limit I cannot allow you to do it
might be there is some kind of a credit limit or something, which is which has exceeded.
So, this is when we look at it from an early start perspective.
Now when we go to a late start perspective what we have done is moved all the
activities is float. So, you can see I have the area here which is all the white area shows
float, the grayed out area is where there is no float. So, what you have done in a next step
is moved everything to the late start, this is everything to the late, and this still does not
resolve the problem. Now the question is there a solution in between these 2 which will
resolve the problem, and what we would like to discuss here is there might be is there
only one solution, multiple solutions, how would we go about finding the solution. So, I
think when we look at this when we look at this representation we should be able to find
a solution right, but one I mean one is can we come up certain set of rules or can be kind
of what are the ways and which we solution points should go about looking of the
solutions and now we will do it manually, but at a later stage is if a computer is going to
do is how do we automate such a process.
Those are some other challenges actually in the resources allocation domain, but as of
now let us see how we can do this manually, what I have done is put this into spread
sheet, you can see the early start, the the loaded bar chart, and the the equivalent bar
chart is below. So, put it into this forms, so that we can move things around. So, as I
decide to move this here the bar will change, and you know the limit we have is 100000.
So, let us. So, you can make suggestions and we can actually move the bars around. So,
even now we have exceeded 100000. So, what are what let us explore the possibilities
with which we can works so that this is below 100000. So, now let us discussed how far
can I move C?
No, remember…
Yeah, it is still constrained with the…
Student: D
D, yeah, exactly. I cannot move C beyond D, we have to go back to that, I cannot move
B beyond C, if I am move D then I can move then it give space to move C. So, remember
that you have a BCD they are linked and H and I are linked. So, here you have B C D.
So, right now here C can move, but it has to stop here, because it cannot move beyond
that once C moves B can move. So, what would be the order of... So, right now if I look
at look at what is being over allocated here is C, that is loading right and right now E, I
cannot move E at all; the other option I have is to move H, remember H can also move
and H has free float on its own. Now, how did H get free float on its own, without even
though H and I are link how did H get free float on its own.
Student: I is linked to H
Yes. So, F has a critical activity and that precedes I. So, I early start is controlled by F.
So, that is how each got free float. So, I can move this now does it resolve my problem
does it solve my problem no, it is lot a bit better. So, now, I can move this 1 more step
no. So, looks like here there is I can… So, this is a bit of what we call a trial and error
process. So, this is now again exceeding. So, should I move it here and move this out.
So, I have resolved this path, now I can just move.
Yeah, does not matter in this particular case. So, this now is this the only solution.
Student: We can shift H also
Yeah I can. So, if I can go back to my old, let us take back all the moves you need. And
now I am actually going to bring this back to the early start, I am going to simply move
H more. Now it that did not solve my problem. So, here I have what can I do now?
Student: I
Yes, move I out all the way at the end and then now move D in between. So, yeah I have
to move it by 1 more. So, here is a second solution, now because this is a simple network
and because we are we have only one resource here we are able to shift these things
around and find solutions and obviously we are not adding context to the what activities
are ABC. In the real world we have like we discussed early we have to see what we can
move and the cost of taking of float and things like, but the ultimate goal would be to
find some way of associating cost with these moves, and find the least cost solution to
resolving the over allocation problem.
So, in this particular case look at this slide resolved over allocation by moving, this is an
was this was the solution we came up with right, yes this was the second solution, which
we came up with any questions?
Student: We can formulate a linear program
Is it a linear program, think about are these, what is the dependency between the value, is
there any kind of dependency between the values. Assume that the cost is equally divided
per for each activity, that is fine other than that what is the what is a relationship between
the activity precedences are relationships other than the… After that there is almost no
relationship between you know… other than if they each activity has its floats, each
activity has its free float. And there is a dependence between the successor and its float.
Other than that the critical activities or I mean there is a very complex dependency what
how is E dependent on for example, C what is the relationship between E and C? There
is no specific relationship, but there is a relationship between E and I, yes there is a
relationship, but when I come in here and look at E and look at I in what way do I is that
relationship modeled or how will model it in a linear program.
So, this the optimization when you model it is an optimization issue, it is it is one of the
toughest optimization models it, but again when we say trial and error; that means, what
would be the solution space for something like that. You know in this particular case it is
reasonable, but as number of activities grow and number of steps you can move it grow
will become very large, it is programs. So, this is something which you can try if you
know solver, solver is not just linear programming, it goes into you know a more
advance algorithms, but spaces like this are good for genetic algorithms and other
techniques of optimization.
Student: Variables…
Yeah. So, how many variables are here, how a what are your decision variables cost is
here, no no; cost is a objective minimizing or I mean actually we are not changing you
want to make. So, you have you want monthly cost to be less than 10000 is an object,
what are the decision variables?
Student: Total duration of the activity
Right now we are not changing duration,
Student: Start and end date
how much to shift an activity right. So, if you look at the combination of shifting
possible, how many combinations are there?
Let us tell me of we can start counting so for each shift of this of example in a right now
this cannot move any. So, this I can move this by 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, and for each of
those shifts 10, I can move this independently, this independently. So, that is the
solutions space we are talking about, its going to be very large, and that is so that
ultimate the decision variable is how much should I move each activity. And in some
some solution might be all 1 2 3 here we have 5 activities which could be moved. So, my
decision space is you know activity B comma number of steps number days by which I
should move activity C number of days activity D number of day, that is my decision
variable and the number of days might be 0.
So if we go into the solution which has got the solution says C by 1, D by 1 2 3 4 5 6 7,

and I by 2, and H by 1 2 3 4, so that would be the solution which gave a acceptable
result. Now solution which says B by zero C by zero will would that given acceptable
result, I bring C back here yes it could also give an acceptable result C by zero and D by
the same amount H by the same amount I by the same amount would also give an
acceptable result. So, we a kind of... So, that would that is the more advanced areas of
looking at resources optimizing resource allocation, and here again we are taking about
the cash resource and a single resource in a single project. Now when we scale it to a
multi resource multi project can your problem it becomes more complex.
So, when we look when we need actually put all of these the 3 charts, we have the early
chart here in blue in purple we have the late start, and then the balanced chart here you
can see how again the emphasize is how float can be used to vary your resource profile.
So, far we have actually talked about, we are talked about mainly looking at moving a
whole activity, what are the other possible strategies, yeah. So, now, right now we are
moving a whole activity by 2 months, we were keeping the duration constant. So, one
other very, very in other possible way yeah, yes I can increase the duration in which case
my cost per month, and no I am assuming my total cost will remain the same, yeah no
my total cost will remain I am assuming my total cost remain the same by this so mine
cash required each month will decrease.
Student: Increase the duration
I am going to increase duration, I am going to increase that duration, yes.
Student: cost will increase….
The cost will increase, but my monthly cash flow will decrease. So, my total cost might I
mean even if in the assumption, which one could work with the saying cost won’t
increase, my monthly cash flow will decrease and then I could bring it within the limit I
want.
Yeah, and a lot of times.

Student: …total cost of the project so if we increase a particular activity duration by a
month and the cost increases slightly it won’t affect because we are able to optimize the
cost
And if see if you are going to increase the duration of a critical activity certainly the
project duration will increase, right now we going to increase the duration of a non
critical activity project duration won’t increase, but overall cost might increase. And right
now that is we are not looking I mean that is one possibility the other possibility is that
increase duration by just mobilizing less resources and my monthly expense declines,
and this is very, very commonly done on projects. They do not have the cash flow to
sustain a intense activity, they will decrease the level of the activity it might not be a very
most efficient way to finish the project total cost might be more.
What about compressing instead of trying to do this in 2 days, I try to do the whole thing
in 1 day in 2 months, I tried to whole thing in 1 month, it will spike my cost, but if I have
a slot I can fit it in that will also help me to manage my over all monthly expenditure. If I
have a 1 month where there is low and my float can overlap that then I will do that any
other strategy you can think of, I could split I can take. For example, something like C
and I can say I am not going to do it on 4 in consecutive time I am going to do 1 part of it
here and then another part of at later, does not apply in this case, but I could actually split
an activity meet expenses in different stages. Again not necessarily the most efficient
way to do it, but if my cash flow dictates that is what I am saying.
So, I mean we can we can kind of illustrate some of these things I can take this, let me
take. So, I can just decide to take this and split it here, this would the splits and this can
actually move all the way to here, if I had a even you know if I had a different bench
mark, that is what I could do. So, that would be this way.
Student: ….rules for the solutions so that we can get better solutions
Yeah, right. So, now you need rules. So, their depending on project situation, yes there is
based rate solution. And ultimately what you want to use minimum amount of one rule
you can says I want to use minimum amount of float. I want I want my solution to be in
such a way that I do not go to the late extreme, but I use minimum amount of float of all
my non critical activities, that would be a simple way to write.
Now, what we have here is just the cumulative the s-curve, this is for the early start, this
is for the late start, and this is for the balance, what the balance solution which we got the
s curve and if we want if we put all 3 curves together this what we get So, you get an
envelope, you can we know we said this is the early start curve, the late start curve and
this particular case we have decided the cash flow which is in between. And all of the
other flow, so long as we are within the floats will be between these two s-cuves((Refer
Time: 29:07)).
Lecture - 35
Problem 1-Two Resources; Resolving Resource Allocation Problems
Let us now go to, we are taking the same problem the same network we took in problem
one, but we are going to go with 2 resources. We are going to now we have remember,
we had this problem with trucks as the resource, I am going to now add workers as
resources and you have you have solved network. So, I am not going to ask you are of
familiar with the network, that is why we are taking this problem. Now we are going to
look at multiple resources and the possible complex multiple resources can cause, and I
am limiting now with same 10 trucks and 15 workers, because we limited the same 10
trucks and but 15 workers.
Remember this was the network.
And I am going to the spreadsheet this resource loaded Gantt chart, what you have here.
Let me explain this you have the bar chart, this is for resource 1 for trucks, this for
resource 2 for the workers. So, you can see that this is the early start schedule, and you
have the truck, so you remember here the 10 trucks, 15 workers, the trucks are over
allocated, no workers actually are 15. Let us understand the network, we have be seen
this C F G. So, we have C F and G, C F G is the is the critical path. So, you will find the
C here, it is highlighted in red. So, A B C F and G cannot be moved; all of the other
activities have float, and when you look at D it has float all the way till the end, we
have and then E. E right now as no free float unless H moves. So, to get any float for E I
have to move H and H moves only upto 14, let us go to the spreadsheet. So, here is the
spreadsheet for this and actually this also goes out.
So, you can see these are the critical activities we have here, which we cannot move and
what we have here right now is D has shifted. So, now I let us in the early start solution
what did I have, I had D here.
Yeah, and which k and I have to go down here and shift D too. So, in case I forget to do
that remind me. So, this is for each of the resources. So, we have we have 14 trucks and
13 workers the truck is over allocated, because I am only allowed 10. So, now my first
reaction at least as a simple, might be it go to the late, if I just do that how am I? It is
Fine yeah, but now but I have to do this too. So, now my trucks are okay, it is within 10.
Yeah, the workers have exceeded like 15. So, you have conflicting resources not
conflicting resource you have 2 resource with balancing conflicting, if the balance one
other seems to be unbalanced.
There is no relationship between them.
Student: Independent.
Independent.
No, because I have got this, I have got this in to F. Now let us question need to ask,
because that is, you know I model this as 2 spread, 2 parts of the spreadsheet one
showing the resources of trucks other showing the resources of workers. If I could pull
this and this could automatically good go with a macro, I would used what I am just
using at in this form for now.
Student: …In the spreadsheet we can place one with another
Absolute, I could just use a factor for that.
Student: Yeah.
So, right now they are not necessarily related for example, some might require 4
workers to load up a truck and other one might require just a backhoe, I mean a fork lift
operative might just need one depending on material on what we are using I think ((Refer
Time: 05:33)). So, right now we are assuming this no real relationship, but you have seen
the problem which I want you which I am bringing that, there are 2 resources resolving
the over allocation of one now causes over allocation of the other. So, how do we now
resolved this. So, Is there a trial and error procedure I can use. So, let us take this back,.
So, it is the almost like…
Yeah, . So, E can now move because H has actually go gone to the end. So, lets us… So,
moving E to the late start and it can move all way to here. So, 10, 11, yes. So, the
solution here is that I move H all the way to the end, and then move E to the end now, H
is now what has happened to my path, yes. E and H have become critical in achieving
that E and H is also become critical, any other solution.
So, right now we cannot see anything else, but this is where an automated system would
be used. Now for argument let us say that. So, we were able resolve this with you know
you can find a resource profile here. So, for example, something here which will make it
impossible, which will make it totally contradicted, the minute I resolve the worker
issue become over allocated and there is no way there is no solution possible within the
floats, it is possible its possible I give you exercise later to work out which we will
contain such a situation, what you do then?
Yes. So, one is to be able to go in a multiple shifts of work if that is possible.
Yeah or we draw remember the strategy has been discussed earlier, I can say that I am
not going to instead of taking I can use my float to stretch out, either split the activity..
Student: So that will dependent on activity.
It will depend on the activity it certainly depend on activity, but these are potential
strategies. I can take the float, I can split the activity, I can stretch the activity. So,
something like this for example, So, let us take here I have I mean I have I need 4 trucks
and I will finish it in 4 days what if I give it only two trucks. So, if it is a linear
assumption. So, I can then I can go with this saying 2, it might change certain things in
some places it might not, but I can I can do that and now it has actually brought my
whole truck load down to 8 trucks, but it is a it’s a potential strategy which a project
manager might choose to use. And this is this happens in reality something is not
available they say let the activity continue but we will continue at the slower pace is,
but it will quantum of work will take longer to get done.
The other option like we said is to take the 4 from here, I could move it elsewhere now I
have to obviously, move this also, yes yeah. So, now the workers are assigned, but these
are I mean these are, you know strategies which you have to do and remember when I
moved it 2 here, this will also it will not stop here, this bottom will also exceed. So, let
me go back to that. So, here what did we do…
Student: 2
We did 2, 2; in which case I would reduce this to it’s a strategy. Now I have to decide if
that is workable or not. So, these are the various options we have.
So, when we look at what we have covered today. We looked at resolving resource
allocation problems, the basic way we learned was to use float to shift the activities. We
also discussed that we can increase activity duration by reducing resources, and that
gives us control on the overall allocation, and its possible e strategy. And other one is to
decrease the activity duration by increasing resources, we are not done this is an a
example, but you can visualize that this could also be done. Split activities we have over
time or shift work where we increasing effort then other ways is to substitute resources,
you say I am not going to use a truck, I am going to use something else, I am going to
use people to shift what I am going to do I have workers I do not have trucks it is going
to be slower but it is going to work for me kind of a real thing.
And finally, if you have no option, you increase project duration, and you know kind of
justify why the project duration has increased in this ((Refer Time: 12:17)). We need to
cover more on this topic in the next lecture we will take up mostly on on the cash flow
problem, but looking at cash outflow and inflow. And how do we balance are… the cash
is a resource when we looking at billing the client and spending on work.
Lecture - 36
Resource Profile Requirement
In this session, we are going to look at how we can level a profile resources, and this is a
extremely important function which a scheduling engineer has to do on a project, and let
us take a look at some of the basic requirements in what happens when we try to level
resources. So, the topics for today are given in the slide, we will first look at basically,
you know what are the requirements to level resources on a project. And then we will
look at different kinds of resource profiles and simplification required go to a different
leveling approaches, and we will spend some time with very simplistic approach called
minimum moment algorithm, and then work a few examples to show how minimum
moment algorithm can be applied.
Now, when we take a look at resource profile, I think form the earlier lectures you all
should be familiar with what we have doing the resource histogram. So, here we have 4
histograms of different shape, and what we have on the x axis here is the is of course the
time, and this has been the level of resources there are going to be deployed. So, if we
say let say want to 1 to 12 is 12 month of year for a given year, and we take these 4
histograms, now what is the requirement? So, what do we think a project would want.
So, this is the key question, and if you take a look at the four you know you might come
out with an answer of you know 1 2 3 or 4, but actually if you get on to a project, you
might find that any of these are could be applicable to be a particular project.
So, if you take for example, the first one is a perfectly levelled resource this would what
we call an ideal case, we might like to have this in project of course, it is ideal, but you
know if you want something ideal this is what we could probably try to aim and in the
rest of the lecture we will say that this is what we want to aim for in kind of a theoretical
profile. So, if we take the second profile which is kind of going this way where in the
beginning of the project, we do not have that much load of resources as the project
progresses we signify increases, and as a project decreases we reduce the resource,
resources on a project. So, in many projects, this is consider to be what is required, that is
a steady increase and then a decrease, and this from mobilization point if you during the
beginning you cannot easily mobilize things, but as you go on you might find that you
know project pace picks up then as the projects get to closer, it is slowly shuts down
and this is also an acceptable profile in many cases sometimes a practical profile of
what people of what a project manager would want to do.
Now we come to another case here where we are now having profile which is kind of
varying, and we might say oh is this something which we want to do. Now if you kind
of take weather into a account, and you know when I can actually do construction and
when I cannot do construction might be such a profile will suite my climatic conditions.
So, here we would say that probably in January February, I you know in this region I
might not able to that much work where as coming into march and April I am mobilizing
more people to do more work coming into summer, I might do less monsoon even less
and then you know in august September, October I might try to do maximum, and then
taper down again towards the end of the year.
So, the point of bringing this up is to say, all these weather condition is different in the
southern hemisphere they might follow the different pattern, you know if it is far north it
might be different pattern. So, in many ways the resource profile, you know a can really
be based on what a project requires. So, while this is an ideal profile, something like this
is also something which might be is optimal for a project. So, we have to kind of
understand what a project requirements and dependent and then chose a profile.
Now you might find that the fourth profile with a which has shown where the resources
rise, you know then it a kind of peeks towards the end and then the project completes,
might be this is what happens in many of our project, where things, scope changes, all
these issues take place, and then its only towards the end that you know most of the work
gets done this is the not an ideal profile, it causes a lot of problems you know, but might
be this is how things are going to work out for a particular project where you know
design is changing and things are, you know are all going to fluid till the end.
So the point of the slide is used to say that, if you look at a practical project, there can be
various profile which are optimal for the project. And while we will probably narrow in
on this as our kind of theoretical profile with what we want to work with any of these
other profiles are possible, and it is quite challenging to actually fit you are resource plan
to a profile which would be suitable for the project.
And one thing we want to say when we are going towards ideal profile, which is
rectangular, if you don’t try to profile your resources you might the land up with the
what we are saying hear as the random profile. And if you if my resources are going to
do this you know and this is going to be extremely difficult to manage, and you certainly
do not want this and in the comparison with something like this, this is something which
we would want to try to achieve. So, in the context of what we are kind of going cover
we are going to move try to move our either early start or it a our profile between early
start and late start to get as close to what we are calling the ideal profile here as possible.
So, you may recall with this couple of lectures back when we looked at one of the
reasons, for leveling or was to look at over allocation. So, here we had over allocated
resources here, and we then wanted to move this over allocated resources to this area
where a there was there was still room to take in more resources and you know as a
result of that a we got a perfectly leveled theoretical but perfectly leveled profile which
resolved the over allocation problem also. So, when we talk about resource leveling, we
are talking about leveling profiles like this not necessarily with respect over allocation,
but just the fact that I have variation going on in each place and I cannot handle
variations, I would like to it to be. In fact, this is not as desirable as this is even though
this variation is a smooth variation, having random variations like this is not what we
would, we would want on a project. So, we were trying to take it from this profile here
which is random to ideal. And beyond that we have to see whether if this resolves over
allocation issues, that is also beneficial to us.
Lecture - 37
Resource Leveling-Example Network
Now, we have this network we had considered in the last example.

And we had worked this out for the over allocation problem, we had the activities you
know A to A to I here. And if you go back, if you recall the critical path went is here A B
C F G I was a critical path, activity D E, and H had float. And we were going to try to
use the floats of these activities in the earlier exercise, we use the floats of these activities
to resolve the over allocation problem. In here we are going to see again here we go
activity D which has float, here we have activity D which has float, and then activity E
has float, and activity H has float. So, we are going to try to move this, we remember we
could move this, this way we move it here, and as and when H moved G could move to
also also move the resource profile. So, based on these activities moving within the
project duration using the float the profile of the resources changed, and that is what we
are again trying to do.
So, in this particular case rather than resolving over allocation, we are trying to try to
level the resources, try to make the profile as flat as possible. So, when we did this, what
we had done in the in the earlier case was we move from this scenario, we had the
resources which were an excess of what we was available.
We were able to level it to scenario where we did not have any over allocation. So, this
was moved, you know as you can see it has moved to where D moved. Now we have in
some ways you can say yes, we have done some kind of leveling we have allocated the
resources in such a way there is no more over allocation, but is this or is that leveling is
one of the questions. And obviously, the answer is no, you can see the resource profile
here, there is variation in resource profile, how can I bring this to as leveled profile as
possible, is that possible or not. So obviously, like when we talked about having
perfectly level profile we have said that is ideal, but my question is how do we level it to
the maximum extent possible.
So, this is the basis on which we are going to kind of do some explorations. So, if we
had looked at different alternatives. So, here you can see D is moving E within it is float,
it is moved by 1 here, it is moved by 2 here, and here it is moved by 3. So, each of these
steps as D moves you can see the resource profile is changing. So, here you have 10 and
fourteen here you have 10 and ten, here D is moved down you have 7 and 11 from it was
11 11 became 11 and 7. So, as D moves the profile changes. Similarly you will find I can
move H to change the profile. I can move E to change the profile. So, how do I keep
changing the resource profile and how much should I shift these activities to get the
profile which I want? That is the kind of issue which we are going to explore.
So, if you look at from the float perspective D has 5 shifts it can do, H has 4 shifts, and E
has 1 to 3 shifts and it depends on how many shifts or it, because its following H, I mean
because its preceding H it depends on how much H shifts for us able to shift E. So, if
you look at the profile here or the number of options of shifting we can do, you will see
there are several options. For example, I can you know, I can move I can keep H at
same place E the same place and move D 5 by 5 steps, then I can move H by 1 E at the
same place move D again by 5 steps. So, if I just keep E in the same place and I just
move H and D, I have a total of 20 combinations of shifts I can do.
So, when we keep trying the various alternatives of what we can shift and what we
cannot shift, you will find the there are in the number of steps we can there are 50
alternatives. So, this is somewhere somewhat about our solutions space, it is about 50
possible options have to be explored to be able to this see what our what our best
resource profile we can get out of this is. And that is the flexibility we have with this
current current CPM, current network. The way the durations and the relationships have
been given to us that is the flexibility we have. We don’t have any more alternatives and
you can see that as we have several activities which have float in a in a network, the
alternatives will rapidly multiply. So, even here with 50 alternatives it is possible to
compute the resource profile for all 50, and then decide on which is the profile which I
want.
Lecture – 38
Lesson - 07
Minimum Moment Concept
What is the profile? What profile is the best for me? So, this is where the concept of
minimum moment comes out. So, remember what we are trying to do is to get as flat the
profile as possible of the resource, you know and this is ideal, but we want to get it as
close to this as possible and if we go back and look, one way of expressing this so. So,
while I can visually look at different profiles and then say oh this is the best profile for
me to kind of use a mathematical approach to say to kind of, you know zero in on the
best profile, we use the minimum moments.
So, we say the profile, the moment of the shape about this axis is minimum only when
the profile of the resources are rectangle.
So, to put it in another way if I had a profile, I am going back of you here, if I had a
profile like this and I am going to start leveling it. There is; obviously, I cannot get
perfectly a rectangular profile, but given my total sum of resources, the once I level it in
a way where my floats are used appropriately, the best leveled profile will have the
minimum moment for the whole histogram. So, that is the basis of the minimum moment
algorithm and or the minimum moment metric which we are going to use and when we
look at, if we take an example here.
So, here we have just two resources, you know one is I mean I am sorry two resource
profiles for 2 days. One is 4, the other is 12, the total is 16 and if I am going to take the
moment of this about the x axis, it is (4 x 4)/2; that is the moment of this, that is the
height into the height divided by 2. So, this is the moment above of this rectangle.
Similarly, the moment of this rectangle is 12; that is the (height x 12) / 2. So, this is the
moment of this rectangle, if I sum this up I get the moment of this histogram which is 80.
Now, for the same resource requirement which is 16, 10 plus 6; I have an alternate
histogram here. So, here you have, you know the moment of this is ( (6 x 6) / 2 + 10) x
(10/2) and this is the moment of this histogram and you can see as my peak reduced, my
moment also reduced and; obviously, because this is square of the height of the bar. You
are going to as I reduce it, it reduces by the square. Now, I have an 8 and 8, which is
again 16 total resource units and I have this so; obviously, (8 x 8) / 2; that is 8 / 2 here.
This is the moment and 64 is the value I get and this will we be, for 16 units of resources
distributed between 2 days, this will be the minimum value of the moment about of of
this histogram. So, based on, this is the concept we would like to use to explore, how
resources can be leveled on our projects or at least, if it is not on our projects on the kind
of idealized projects which we would like to do.
So, when we look at doing the minimum, when we look at the moment applying the
moment again, so here is the earlier example. Now, this is the slightly different histogram
than the early start, you will see that you know we have activity H, that is moved by 1
here. So, if you look at the histogram you can see here, you know if I calculated the
moment of this this histogram for for activity D starting from here to here, which is
loading this set of of days and the moment is 327.5.
Now, what we have done here is shift for all the way here, it is moved from here to here;
move shift there and you can see the resource profile changes and the moment of the
whole histogram has reduced. So, when we are looking from a leveling perspective,
especially for a rectangular kind of a shape, we are saying this level this histogram is
better than this, because it has a lower moment and it is more towards the rectangular
profile than this and this metric gives us that justification, that this is more profiled
towards rectangular than this.
So, using this as a basis, we now want to be able to go through for example, you know
apply this in a very more stepwise systematic way. So, I am just again repeating that. The
concept is to reduce the moment of the histogram in a systematic way and once we get to
the minimum moment, we say that is the best profile or that is the profile as closest to the
rectangular profile which we would like to get.
So, as we move, so when we move from here to here ((Refer Time: 06:08)) I can
certainly calculate my moment as it is, but what we want to do is work towards a
procedure, that can kind of give us you know a methodical way in being able to calculate
whether a shift is improves or does not improve the rectangularity of the resource loaded
histogram. So, when we move to the procedure of what we want to develop a procedure,
we need a metric.
So, if we go back and look at the earlier function ((Refer Time: 06:45)) where we said
there are 50 options, one we is to actually calculate the moment of the 50 different
alternatives and then certainly take the minimum of that, that will certainly give you an
answer, but the computational effort of calculating for 50 alternatives might be too high.
Of course, 50 alternatives is not high in this case, but if you had, you know several 100
activities with several different days of float, it could certainly you know blow up into a
very large figure, which is not easily computable.
So, in to be able to find out, how we go about whether something should be improved or
not, we have developed something called an improvement function. So, what an
improvement function tries to do is to rather than calculate the moment every time for if
there is an activity here, for it to be moved to across it is float, each time it tells you
whether the movement you are doing is causing improvement in, by improvement we
mean by reducing the moment of the histogram or is it causing an increase in the
moment of a histogram.
So, this improvement function we will get a little bit into the, into what, how the
improvement function is formulated. So, you have here a histogram and you can see that
as we move this across to this side, there are resources that are taken from a certain set of
days and move to another set of days. So, these resources actually moved here and that
what it is showing up here. Now, when we are going up, when we have defining this
there are few variables Xi is a resource level from.
So, Xi is the resource level from, so Xi is the resource level form which resources where
moved, so this is Xi. So, this level is Xi and m days of resources are moved, so here in
this case m is 3, so 3 days of resources were moved and Wi is the resource level to which
the m days of resources. So, Wi is these days, this is the original, before moving it was
Xi, Wi. So, this is I am going to write it here, this is Xi this is Wi.
I can put it as W1, W2, W3 and X1, X2, X3 if that makes it more specific. Now, r is the
level of the resource, it is the level of the resources for that activity it had a certain
resource load. Remember, we said they have certain, so that is r; the resource load of that
activity and so based on this you can see that if we are going to calculate the moment of
the function of this histogram, I have just put it in an expanded form.
So, it is ΣXi; that is for each of the three bars in this particular case ΣXi ², so it will be
(Xi x Xi) / 2,
1 2 1
2
So ∑𝑚 𝑚
1 𝑋𝑖 + ∑1 𝑊𝑖
2 2
𝑋𝑖2 𝑊𝑖2
So, again +
2 2
and this is shown in this formula here. This is the moment before we shifted the activity;
now after shifting the activity what has happen to Xi is, here we go this is 6. So, this was
at 7, so r amount of resources got taken away from this and that r amount of resources
got added to this.
1
(∑𝑚 2 𝑚 2
1 (𝑋𝑖 − 𝑟) + ∑1 (𝑊𝑖 + 𝑟) )
2
So, this is a fairly simple, it is basically this gives you moment 1 and the moment 2.
Now, we have these three options, so after the shift either M1 can be equal to M2 which
means, there was no benefit in my, no reduction in the moment by shifting or M1 is less
than M2; that means, when I shifted the moment of M2 became greater; that means, this
profile had a greater moment, if it had a greater moment M1 would be less than M2 or
M2 would be greater than M1 or we could have that, before the shift the moment was
more than after the shift.
So, which of these would you want to happen if you have going to actually do the shift?
So, if my moment before the shift was greater and after the shift it is less, this is kind of a
of sign I am looking for in order to able to be make the shift up to the activity. So, before
I leave the slide just kind of reviewing, because this forms the basis of the minimum
moment algorithm that we have a resource profile before shifting, we have a resource
profile after shifting here and we have only one activity for which we are shifting across,
we are not going to shift multiple activities.
The algorithm we are dealing with and the procedure we were dealing with, it does not
involve at this stage shifting activities simultaneously. It involve shifting of a single
activity, the resource load of that activity is r and that is r, before shifting the resource
level on those particular days is Xi and before shifting, the resource level or the days to
which you are going to shift To is Wi. You are shifting by m days, you have to be careful
we will later look at, we know why we are to be careful with m.
m is the number of days of resources that are removed, please look at this. This is the
number of days of resources; it is not the number of days of shifting. So, this is a
common problem when we start working out problems we tend to think m is the
number of days of shifting, it is not; it is the number of days of resources that are
removed.
So, for example, here if I am move this by 4 days, my activity duration is only 3, I am
only still shifting 3 days of resources. So, m is 3, even though the shift might be 4 days,
we will come to this later, because this is the common problem in when we do these
exercises. So, please keep this in mind.
So, these are the variables and remember we wanted this, so we talked that we ideally
want M1 to be greater than M2; that is, after my shift my resource load, my resource
histogram has a lower moment. When we say this is; that means, there is improvement in
the histogram, this is what I want to try to achieve with the shift. If the shift does not
result in an improvement in the histogram, it means that I should look for another
alternative shift which might result in an improvement, this current shift does not.
So, if I take, again put M1 on the left hand and M2 on the right hand, so these are the
equations from the earlier thing, earlier slide. You then expand it, collect and you re
formulate it and you get what is classically known as the improvement factor formula.
There will be derivation for this, more details and the derivation I will give it in the hand
out, but you know it would be good for you go through the derivation, but it is equally
important for you to understand what this formula basically implies.
So, here we have improvement factor of an activity moved by d days is the resource
level of the activity, the sum of the resource load for the days from which was moved, to
the days it is going to be moved, multiplied by the number of resource days that have
been moved again into the resource load of the activity. So, this is the improvement
factor and as you can as you can imagine, improvement factor what we would like to say
here, it is a kind of highlighted here, but improvement factor greater than zero implies
reduction.
If I calculate it is improvement factor after shift and show that, it is greater than zero; I
mean and find that it is greater than zero; that means, there is a reduction in the moment
of the histogram. The improvement factor = 0, then the moment of the histogram remains
the same. If the improvement factor < 0; it means that my moment of the histogram has
increased because of the shift. So, this gives me an indicator, whether I should make a
shift or not.
So, the other point is that it is not just the reduction in moment due to the shift, it is also a
magnitude of change. So, we are multiplying by r here which gives you the magnitude of
change of a shift. So, this becomes important when we are comparing, you know when
we want to compare between two three activities I shift one, I bring that one back, I shift
the second one; might be both result in a positive value; I mean in terms of improvement
factor, but which gives you a better a higher reduction in moment will now depend on
the resource level which is required, so that is what is or the resource rate of the
activity; that is what is r.
So, again just just re visiting these terms, high improvement factor for shifting is IF, daily
resource rate for the activity, m is a minimum number of days activity shifted or the
duration of the activity, the smaller minimum of the number of days or duration. Like
we said earlier it is the number of resource days that was shifted from the from activities
to the to activities and Xi is the daily sum for current time frame and Wi is the daily
resource sum for the time frame over which resources will be added.
So, it might take some time and some reviewing to understand these variables clearly,
but when you, also it will take some working out of exercises and reviewing it, so that is
typical in for you know when we do minimum moment algorithm and its approach.
Only through practice you will be able to understand what and get a good feel of these
variables and be able to apply it effectively to minimize, to kind of get a level or to try to
level the resource profile.
Lecture – 39
Lesson - 08
Applying Improvement Factor – Illustration
Now, let us take this into.. you know.. an application, you know.. a kind of exercise.
So, here we have the resource profile that's shown here and you know this is our same
exercise, where D, you know.. D can be shifted and we also know that H can be shifted
and E can be shifted. The other activities are critical. And here is our improvement
function formula again and let us try to apply this in this particular case. So, with these
are exiting resource profile, before the shift this is the resource profile.
If you see, we can start with D, so we start with improvement factor for D by 1 day, so
this is what I would like to start my calculation with and you can see that if we take D by
1 day. So, here is D, the Xi will be 14, so Xi, X so in this case it is just X for 1 day is
equal to 14. Now, what is going to happen is it is going to move on to this place, so W is
3, 'm'- the shift of resources is by one day is 1 and 'r' - which is the resource rate of this is
equal to 4.
So, now, I have to apply this back into this equation and I should be able to get the, I
should be able to see what is the result of that and when I apply it into the formula I get
28, which is greater than 0 and if because 28 is greater than 0; that means, the shift is
going to be that is moving 4 to one spot here is going be beneficial to that. This will of
course, change the resource profile. So, now, from the 14 would become 10 and things
would change on this side.
Now, in the next step I want to see what is it, what is the improvement factor for
changing D by 2. So, if we look at D by 2, so again we come with, see now 'r' remains to
be 4, 'X' which is this factor is now 14 plus 14. This is sigma X, so this is 14, because I
am moving this two step this time, I am going to move it here. So, the resources from
this move here, so those 4’s will go 4 and 4, so what happens to the…
So, this X remain, X is that 14, 14 plus 14 are the two X’s and what happened to the W,
the W’s are what is here is now the 3 and the 3. So, these 3 are what is here and my shift
of 'm' was by 2 days and if I substitute this into the formula I get 56, 56 is certainly more
than 28, so shifting D by 2 days is better than shifting it by a single day. So, that is what
the improvement factor indicates.
I go on to now trying to shift D by 3 days. Yes, I can shift D by 3 days. So what happens
is the 3 days is my 14, 14 and 10.So, here we see 14, 14 and 10, this is what my sigma Xi
is. So now all these, so this one also shifted here and on this side I have 3, 3 and 2,
which is 3, 3 and 2 which was my Wi. My shift now is for 3 days, so that was 1, 2, 3 and
my 'r' still remains at 4 and substitute back in the formula, I get an even better
improvement of 72, it is better than option 1 and better than option 2.
So, we now go on to, can we move by more? Yes. So, if you recall, D can move all the
way or at least we are going to say that D can move all the way up to here in this
particular case. So, I can move it to the next step, so D is gone to 4 now, so which means
this is also moved here. Yes, with this step my D has become 4, 4, 4; all of these have
been cleared out, so 14, 14, 10 and 11, so that is 14, 14, 10 and 11 and on this side we
had 3, 3, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2; that is the whole 4 has come here, so you have 3, 3, 2, 2.
Now, my shift of m is by 4, so my 4 days of resources got moved, so 'm' is 4 and my ''r is

of course, 4. Again applied, I get even better reduction; that is 124, magnitude is higher
than the other, so it is makes… The metric is telling me that this shift is better than the
others. Can I shift D by any further? Yes, I can shift D by even one more day, but
remember the D's duration is 4. So, if I shift D by one more day what happens is D
comes here, this goes off. I have move D by 4 days, I jumped this one day. So, if I look at
my options, yes, I have my 14, 14, 10 and 11; that is where I am moved; that is my Xi
that is where I moved it from and I moved it to these days. This is the 3, 2, 2 and 2; 3, 2,
2 and 2. So, this movement and now what is the value of 'm'? So this is the critical
question. I have actually move D by 5 days, but 'm' remains at 4, because it is the number
of days of resources that I have shifted.
The duration of D was 4 and I cannot shift more than 4 days of resource from one place
to the other. So, 'm' remains at 4, 'r' remains at 4 and the value of improvement function
function is 128 and not only it is greater than 0, it is greater than all of the others. So, this
tends to me my best option, because I cannot shift D any further. So, if in the context
when I have D and I could only move D to get the most the closest to a leveled
histogram, I would move D by 5 days. So, you should review these steps and if there are
any clarifications, do post you know the clarifications which you might have on this.
We will now go on to taking this in the next stage. So, now we are taking actually back
to H, so now, this is the profile I am going to use. So, we have here 14, 14, 11 and we
have now brought D back, we have H is starting from here, again I can do several steps
of moving H. So, now, if you recall, H can move 1, 2, 3, 4 it can move up to four steps
and H is an activity with duration of 3, it is resource load is 1. So, remember there is
float in H to move all of these days.
So, we go back, again looking at the improvement function, I look at the… For moving
H by 1 day; which means, it is moving from here to here, so 11 is my X, my W is 2, my
shift is by 1 day, 'r' is 1, I get 8 which is my improvement factor. So, yes, if I do the shift
I will be reducing the moment of the histogram. Now, similarly I can do H for going in
for 2 day shift; if I am going in for the 2 days shift my sigma Xi becomes, there is two of
them, so it goes to 11 and 11, my W is now 2 and 13, sigma W is 2 and 13, shift of
resources of 2 resource days were shifted and D’s resource level was 1. So, here I get 5.
Now, although the shift will reduce the moment of the histogram from the original kind
of allocation, it is not as good as option 1. So, option 1 gave me better results in terms of
minimizing the moment of the histogram than option 2 here.
But, as you know H can be shifted further and so if you would actually notice, I change
the resource load on G for this example, so that I could illustrate how always shifting
does not take necessarily mean that you improve the resource level. So, here we have
now H shifted by 3 and my original, the exercise from where I shifted it remains again
11, 11, 3; that is 11, 11, 3 here. W is gone to 2, 13, 13; it was 2, 13, 13; m is 3 because 3
days of resources was shifted, 'r' is 1 and when I apply it to the improvement function, I
get a negative.
So, this is an increase in moment. So if I am going to increase that means, the shift
causes an increase in moment as far as this profile is concerned and I do not want to
increase more. So, I should not do the shift, let us go to 4, now again watch out, so I have
moved. What I moved is from 11, 11, 3 which is here, I moved 3 days… My shift is by 4,
but I have only moved 3 days of resources, because duration of H is 3.
I moved 1, 2, 3 here to 13, 13, 13; 'm' remains at 3 and r is at 1 and here is, here again is
negative and it is the higher value of negative; which means there is even larger increase
in moment due to the shift. So, based on this we have to be careful or we have to say that
if I am going to move H, I am only going to move it by one step and that will give me the
largest decrease in moment and that should be what I want or as close. If I could only
move H, this would be where I would go to get the resource profile as close or to the
minimum moment of the resource profile.
So, we have to be able to apply this into a kind of a procedure, we have to now change,
so we have understood how to apply the improvement factor. This has to now be made
into a procedure, a stepwise procedure which will then go through a series of steps to be
able to get what we want.
And this stepwise procedure is given in the handout as well as the exercises. So, there is,
you know there are a series of steps which I would want you to review and go through
the exercises and be able to see how this is done. And this is extremely useful in
understanding what are the constraints and what are the issues that we have to come
across when we really have to level resources.
Now, to summaries this, we talked about profiling resources to meet project

requirements, we said it is an important part of schedule development. So, without a
doubt, whether we are talking about individual resources or we are talking about, you
know equipment, people, all of these are resources; like, we talked on the first lecture on
resource management. And without being able to profile these properly, the project will
not be able to meet its targets and in addition ((Refer Time: 14:27)) here, in this
particular lecture we are only talked about the single resource being profiled.
But, earlier we have talked about multiple resources and certainly when we have
multiple resources, multiple projects; custom profiling it, it is certainly a challenge and
that is what the project manager and the scheduling engineers have to face and there
aren't too many algorithms and there aren't too many procedures. There is a lot of
expertise and experience that goes on it and you know there is still a lot of work to be
done to see, how this can be made into a procedure or how we can do this more
scientifically.
But, certainly there are sophisticated algorithms available for it, I mean that are being
explored I will not say they are available, they are being explored and there is a lot of
work that is being done in this area to see how resources and multiple resources can be
scheduled across multiple projects and not only to the rectangular profile we discussed
here, but to custom profiles. And this is really a very important area in overall project
management.
You know, the heuristic we covered was just an example for you to be able to
understand, what a minimum moment algorithm is, how you apply a heuristic approach.
And please realize that this is only a heuristic and when you follow the minimum
moment algorithm procedure, it does not guarantee the best solution. The only way to get
best solution in many ways is, I mean because it is a complex space, you are not going to
be able to find and not only it is complex and it is also discrete, you are not going to able
to find an algorithm which can search and find your minimum very easily.
So, this has been certainly an area for sophisticated techniques, you know whether it is
generic algorithms, simulated annealing, lot of techniques have been applied and as the
project requirements gets more intense, then there are challenges that researchers and
practitioners facing in being able to address this issue. And I would like to end this
lecture by saying I think this is an introduction to a very interesting area.
There is a lot of work that needs to be done in this area, to be able to understand and be
able to meet the requirements for today’s projects. And if there are any further algorithms
or questions I mean, so this is certainly area of active research where lots of researchers
are working on it. You will find that the software that come out today, whether it is you
know the popular software like Primavera project.
They will have addins which can do kinds of resource optimization, resource levelling.
And these tools are also getting more sophisticated and learning to use it also getting to
be quite a challenge and quite specialised way to work. So, with this I would like to end
this section on resources and we will go on to other topics from the next session.
Lecture – 40
Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM), Project Monitoring
In this lecture, we will cover basically the Precedence Diagramming Method. And this is
an alternative to activity on arrow, activity on node and the third method, we call is
precedence diagramming. We will cover little bit on the rational, the history, the notation
and relationships which are very important, we will do network analysis using the
precedence diagramming method and then, we will work out some examples.
Now, what I would like to start with is, why do we need precedence diagramming? And
for this I would like you to do an activity, it is a small activity which requires drawing
the network diagram for a pipeline project So, here you can see the image of a pipeline
and when in a project like this we know that we need to excavate, we need to lay the
pipe, we need to back fill. I am taking it as a very simplistic model of it and if we wanted
to develop a network for this using the techniques we know today or we have covered so
far, how would you do it?
Can you briefly sketch, what would be the network like? I am only giving you three
activities, I do not want you to go to surveying ((Refer Time: 01:33) here. I am only
giving you three activities, how would you represent the relationship between the three.
Student: excavation precedes pipe laying.
Right, so you would have an excavation, after excavation finishes, pipeline will start,
after pipeline starts back fill start.
Student: Or we can have an excavation to a certain length, pipeline can be laid

simultaneously.
Fine, so if we took the first alternative where we have excavation, excavation finishes
and then, pipe line starts and then, back filling starts. Is that the way it would be done?
Student: No.
No; obviously, no. Because if it is you know few 10’s or 100’s of kilometers of pipe line
I am not going to wait till all of it is excavated and then, lay the pipe. And like the second
suggestion we are certainly going to excavate the section of the pipe or of the area, lay
the pipe. While laying pipe is going on in that area, excavation is going to continue in the
in the next area.
So, if you wanted to represent this sequence now, so we know that at certain stage there
is going to be excavation on a section, there is going to be pipe laying on a section, there
is going to be back filling on a section. So, if you wanted to represent this now, what is
your, what are the options.
Student: We need to put some delay, we can go like…
You do not have delay, in your activity on node you only have finish start relationship
and you have activities.
Student: We can divide the work, the whole pipe in to sections, then we can excavate,
lay pipeline.
Right.
You will have excavate, say section 1 excavate, excavate section 2; this would go on.
What would be my next set of activity? So, after I excavate section 1, I can lay pipe for
section 1 and then, this would only after exit this, this would be lay pipe section 2 and
then, back fill and so on. So, how many activities for just two sections, now we have 6
activities and if it is a very large project, you will have many activities, 100’s of activities
for a section.
Now, ((Refer Time: 04:20)) so in order to address problems, so is there any other way
you can think? Now, go out of the activity on node, so this is with activity on node or
activity on arrow kind of representation, where we have only had finish start relationship,
this was the early option.
Now, what precedence diagramming does is, it tries to overcome this with different kinds
of options. So, let me just go back, this is what we discussed on the board. We know that
this does not represent the real sequence you know, so pipe laying may start 3 or 4 days,
after excavation or back filling may start 3 or 4 days after pipe laying and what we have
shown or what we have worked out on the board is we have split all these into sections.
Now, what precedence diagramming tries to do is overcome this with an alternative
representation.
So, it takes large projects like this and tries to reduce the number of activities. And this
was actually something that came out of AoN. The activity on node diagram which
Fondhal had suggested, it was taken up by a construction company called Zachry in the
60’s and along with the IBM they made this precedence diagramming techniques. So, we
will come to the details soon.
The attempt was to get the advantage of AoA events with AoN type representation. We
briefly touched upon AoA earlier. What did we find as a problem with AoA?
Student: We have to create dummy activities.
We have to create dummy activities; that is number 1, then
Student: During branching on activities.
Right, it is not, you normally have to draw the network, then a kind of redraw it, because
it is not that intuitive to do draw it, whereas when you went with AoN we could flow
through the network quite easily. But, when you use an AoA you will find that there is a
start of an activity. You remember, an AoA required the arrows to be in this form. I mean
you had activity on arrow ((Refer Time: 06:21)) and this was start and this was end of the
activity and this was the activity, so you had events.
Now, so what the precedence diagramming method tries to do is to get the event based
approach of the AoA, but the flow of AoN. And it is the default representation in all
popular scheduling software. So, when you open Microsoft project or you know
Primavera or open project, any scheduling software you opened today, which is popular,
this is the representation.
Now, you can see the last point, PDM also has these issues. And you will find that in
practice there is a lot of discussion of how PDM causes (while it is powerful and flexible
and it is representation), a lot of confusion for practical scheduling and software does
not use the same algorithm, each software does not use the same algorithm. So, there are
again different results from different software, there is no standardization.
So, really professional schedulers have hesitation in using this, but because of software is
easily available, a lot of people start tending to throw PDM representations without
really representing the project problem. Let us see how this can happen and issues related
to this.
So, when we get into the basics of the precedence diagramming method notation, you
basically have the AoN type of notation. You can see there is instead of the circle which
we use for AoN, you have a rectangle; you have the rectangle divided into various spaces
and these spaces can be filled with things like activity name, early start, early finish,
activity number, late start, late finish, floats. Depending on the type of representation,
type of nomenclature you want there are different software, different methodologies will
use different values in these boxes.
But, I have not put any specific value, because it depends on the kind of tool we use.
More interestingly, the PDM represents various types of relationships. So, far we have
been only using a finish-to-start, an activity should finish, so what we have shown there
is the finish-to-start. AoA uses three other kinds of relationships, start-to-start, finish-to-
finish and start-to-finish. In addition to this, each relationship can be qualified with lead
or lag, which says that for example, if this is the finish-to-start relationship, I can say this
is a finish-to-start and a two day lag; that means, the next activity will do finish-to-start
after two days.
The lag is represented in the relationship. I can have a start-to-start with two day lag,
which means the activity which follows can start two days after the first activity starts.
We'll get into some of these details. But, this is the main difference; one is the notation is
very similar to AoN, so there isn't much to worry about that, but the relationships are
significantly different. And these different relationships cause computational differences
in analyzing the network.
If we take a start-to-start relationship for example, here is a start-to-start with the lead lag
of 0; might not be possible, but what it says is laying pipe cannot, so laying pipe. So, this
is the successor activity; it cannot start earlier than excavation. That is the constraint.
But, is this acceptable? This almost says I can start immediately with the excavation.
Student: It says that you cannot start unless the excavation is finished.
No doesn't say that. Excavation is starting. Here is starting of excavation. So, right now
what it says is laying pipe can be as I mean is the constraint is it should not start before
excavation; that is all, but I can start after excavation, but it is giving me up to almost
immediately after, which might not be feasible. So, something like this which says,
laying pipe can start no earlier than one day after excavation starts. Might be reasonable.
You want to have some length of excavation done before you start laying pipe.
So, this gives you lag relationship. Now, I am not covering leads in this, because you will
have negative relationships. We'll just use the lag for now, to illustrate the various
relationship.
Finish-to-start, we are familiar with this. You can have erection of form, install rebar as
an example. So, here it is says insulation of reinforcement can start only after erection of
forms is completed. And this is 0 lag. This is what we are used to. We can put an other
relationship like this: pouring concrete, complete pouring concrete, wait for 3 days and
then, strip forms starts. So, stripping of forms can start no earlier than 3 days after
completion of concrete pouring.
Now, a relationship like this, so for example we might decide you want some form of
setting or you could have instead of, so what the finish-start relationship with a lag
replaces is an other activity. You cannot say pouring concrete and then, I am going to
keep an other 4 days for just pouring concrete; it will not be representative. But, at the
same time when I put a lag, I do not know what the lag is for. The activity for which the
lag is represented is not clearly represented in the network.
So, that can cause some kind of, sometimes a little bit of uncertainly as to why did the
planner put the lag there. But from an activity perspective, it reduces the number of
activities in the network.
Finish-finish relationship.
So, for example, the back filling cannot be completed until the laying pipe is ((Refer
Time: 13:01)). So, here we have said no earlier than completion of laying pipe or we can
say back filling can be completed no earlier than one day after laying of pipe is
completed. So, you have got the idea of these, at least the two new relationships we have
discussed, so far start-start and finish-finish.
Now, we come to kind of unusual relationship, which is start-to-finish relationship. So

far we talked about finish-to-start. So this relationship actually is not used frequently. It
is not a finish-to-start relationship, it is a start-to-finish relationship.
So, here is an example and it is quite, I mean you do not come an across the kind of
situations where you need to you start-finish frequently. So, here is an example: let say
you have two shifts. So, we can discuss this a little, in terms of: I want to represent that
shift 2 will start before shift 1 ends. Is that the way I am trying to a represent? No, what
I am trying to represent?
Student: Shift 1 can only start finish before shift 2 as start.
Right, it is not that shift 2 can start when shift 1 is ended, it is that shift 1 can end only
after shift 2 starts; that is the people on shift 2 have to come in,
Student: only when shift 1 start.
No.
Student: Shift 1 people can leave only after shift 2 people have come.
Shift 1 people can leave only after shift 2 people have come. So, again you can see that
this is, I mean I have not come across many situations, where this is used in the
construction schedule. So, it is not common relationship, it is not rarely used. You might
not see it in practical applications, but when you have to do calculations with it, it is just
applying the same kind of rules in different way.
Lecture – 41
Lesson - 02
PDM Network Representation and Its Issues, Network Calculation
Now, so when you put together a PDM network it look something like this and it is, so
you can see, you have the same kind of nodes as an activity on node. You have arrows
representing relationships. You have, where you have not, where you have finish-start
relationship, you still show it without any qualification, let assume finish start; that is a
default, where you have other relationships you show it. So you can see, this is a start-
start and where there's lead or lag of course, you can show it here.
And here again, you have finish-start, okay, with a lead, finish-start with a lead; finish-
finish with a lag. So this is G and J; it is a finish. Okay, so this is what the network
representation for PDM looks like.
Student: sir, plus represents lag?
Plus represents lag, there is a delay. So, A will start after 3 days of delay, of 3 days later
C can start. C cannot start 3 days before, I mean, before that.
Now, let us look at this, really this relationships cause some kind of issues. And this is
very common to misrepresent the real world. So, when we looked at activity on node
itself, we found that finish-to-start relationship: visualizing it, representing it correctly,
had, we had a think through and get used to it. So in PDM, it is more complex. So, let us
take a look at this problem. Now we have represented it earlier using an activity on node
and we have to split the activities. But, let us take this and see how can we represent this
using PDM. So, can you work on it for a couple of minutes and then we can discuss it.
So, how many activities?
Student: 3
3 activities
Student: ((Refer Time: 02:22)). All are start-to-start.
So, it is, if you are still working on it or?

Okay, so, let us look at an alternative one, we will say excavate, we will have a start-to-
start lay pipe and backfill. Now, this is a very common, I would say representation
people do, because they look at the start parts of it and we need to finish. Now, as you,
we have learnt network analysis, this is a simple enough network let us try to analyze it.
Can you, have you got this diagram or have you got something different? Now, do an
analysis. So, as we start doing the analysis, we will see the early start, so laying, so you
can see as we go we have 3, 23 and then we will go to backfill, it goes to 21. There's the
problem.
So; obviously, we know physically that we have to back fill only after laying.
Student: So, finish to finish relationships
So, we have, we know now our finish-to-finish has to come somewhere.
Student: In the first SS03, we say that we are going to excavate the trench and after 3
day delay, we are going to lay the pipe and…
We're going to start laying the pipe.
Student: We can start laying the pipe and as we are laying the pipe, after that 10 days,
the back filling will start.
Yeah.
Student: So, that, there will be 13 or it be should start from 23
Where is?
Student: No, no.
It is start-start relationship, if it was the finish-start, then it would be...
Student: Sir, but ideally we will be laying the pipes until 23 days, but backfilling will be
completed by 21, so it is not possible.
It is not possible exactly; that is the point we are trying to illustrate.
Student: So, another relationship..?
Right, so far this is a typical problem which comes up on when you try to implement a
PDM. People represent only a single relationship between activities and this happens and
then say oh yes, I need the finish-finish relationship. Okay. So, it is very common, so let
me just finish this, so; obviously, this cannot happen and when you go into, I am just
doing the backward pass and you want to, first of all you want to connect these two.
Before, you even do the finish-finish you cannot have a dangling activity. You try to,
people try to connect these, but it just does not work. You will have, the network
representation does not represent the project. You will have all kinds of values floating
around and it will be not meaningful. So, they say yes, we have not done a finish-finish
relationship.
So, you get into alternative 2, you will excavate trench. You will say, look laying pipe
can be completed only after 3 days after excavation. You will say that, backfilling can be
finished only after 2 days of laying pipe and then, you will go with 'Finish'. Will this
solve the problem?
Student: No.
Why? Can you quickly just draw this representation and see what problem it will create.
You have not covered your analysis of finish-finish and start-start, but I assume you can
apply the logic fairly simply in this.
Student: So, but we do not know when the laying of pipe starts.
Right, but I am saying that laying of pipes can start, that is true. You do not know when
laying of pipes start. So, I am saying it, you right now you say let it start, so there is a lot
of times I've heard people say let it start whenever, so that it finishes on time. I am only
controlling the finish, I do not want to control the start. So, when you work backwards
from here, so let us do the calculations so as you go in, you have 12, now how do I
calculate early start, early finish of laying pipe.
Student: We have to do it, 10 to 15. The duration is 20.
Right, so this is the problem we are running. So when you have to do this calculation you
have to go in the direction of the relationship. Now, we run into all the same, so these, so
when I come back here. So, now you can say I have to lay pipe only when I, on the 0th
day along with the, then the whole thing gets mixed up. What is the solution?
Student: We need both.
Right, so the solution is, so this also is not perfect.

So, you need this, so what we are saying here is, the excavate trench, my laying pipe will
start 3 days after excavation and by, I have also constraining laying pipe with the finish-
finish relationship and is this reality now? This is more like the real project. Okay and
now there are software, which will not allow you so the difference between an AoN and
this is now you have multiple relationships between activities and in the earlier case we
only had as, so now you have the, so while you are saving on activities your relationships
are multiplying.
And generally when you are in a planning engineers position or in a construction,

activities are easier to visualize than relationships. So, as your relationship starts
multiplying and getting more complex, if unless you are really good control and
understand why you have putting this relationships, things can get little bit dicey if you
do not know what relationships you've represented where. And it does not stop here it,
gets even more interesting.
So, if we solved this what we can do a quick, so can you can you solve it along with this,
so,
Yeah, we will not worry about float, but let us look at this, so we go through the.., so we
had the early start the early finish. So, here we now have 3, because this is supposed to
start 3 days I mean it cannot start within 3 days. So, we are putting it as 3 as the early
start, 23, now coming from this side we get 15 minus 5.
Student: 20 will ((Refer Time: 09:41)).
Yes, so we will take 23 the max one, okay, now we come here 13, 21, 25, 17. So now,
this is controlled by the finish relationship. Okay? So, we do 25, 25, now we come to the
backward, okay.. we have 25 here 17, 17 we go back, 17 with the start-start we going
back on this 10, I am sorry back by 10, 7 we go to 27 here. Okay.. but, when we come
through this relationship, it is 25 minus 2, 23, 3, so this is what? Okay? Now, we come
back here 3 this is 0, 12, 20 when we go back through this look that is 20 minus 3 is 28
this gives you the results.
Now, so, you can see PDM can require multiple relationship between activities and this
relationships when to represent, how to represent, how to constrain it, can be challenging
and while we can have multiple relationships, this relationship should not form a loop.
Sometimes for example, I mean in this case it very straight forward we will not form a
loop, but if you do lay pipe, , instead of finish-finish between this and this, and it is the
other way round, you are software cannot take it or any, you cannot do any calculation on
it because it is iterated.
Student: Sir, in back filling why cannot we start on 13th and end it on 25th, because it
has to do for 8 days. But, they can..
Right, so right now I am assuming constant duration, I am sorry continuous activity.

Your bill, the point you raised is correct and we will take that up in the next phase or
towards the end of the lecture I will discuss, how further complexities of the precedence
diagram. So, just to give you little more insight on the question you asked, yes, you have
basically entered the others, you are is suggesting start this on 13 and extended all the
way to 25th , fine.
So, nothing prevents me from starting on 13 meaning I am unconstrained. Only thing is

then my duration hasn't changed. So, right now I am starting with, I am staying with
constrained duration, meaning I constraining my duration to be continuous. The activity
will be continuous. Okay, so, if we actually look at the calculations we have done, we
have done it more out of the common sense of looking through the network and going,
but basically we follow very similar rules to the activity on node, except that you are
relationships are more complex. So we've, we did forward pass and I have shown you all
the four relationships that are possible.
So, what we've taken here, so if this is the preceding activity and the succeeding activity.
The early start of the successor is the maximum of early finish of the predecessor plus
the lead or lag. Or, see this is the early, this is the leader lag of a finish-start relationship.
Early start of the successor plus the lead or lag of a start-start relationship. Okay, early
finish plus the leader lag minus the duration, this is, where we are saying duration is, it is
a continuous duration.
And similarly, we would calculate, so when you go in to a, you will calculate the early
finished as the maximum of this plus the duration for 1 and 2. For the other one, it gets
computed. Similar rule applies to the late finish. For the backward pass and the late
durations and like we have written on here assume activity has to be done continuously
and when you assume the activity has to be done continuously, the flexibility of a, what
you want out of a PDM is reduced. As you discussed if I can have the flexibility of
starting on 13 and when we go back here, starting on 13 and finishing on 25 is okay. It is
okay. I should have that flexibility.
But, they analysis then becomes complicated. But that was the original intent of the
PDM; that my start and my end is not constrained. So, this is PDM with the duration
assumption.
Lecture – 42
Lesson - 03
PDM - Problem 01
Let us take up a problem, which we would like to which will solve using, there is
relationships. And, so you have here all these activities A to H, when we say,
predecessor, it means A, so for B predecessor is A with finish start with a lag of 4 and the
duration of B is 7. So, what I want you to do first is draw the PDM, once you draw the
PDM we will see, I will show you what network we have and then, go ahead and start
doing the analysis.
Student: Sir, did A start, in the F A relationship start to finishes ((Refer Time: 01:04)).
Which one?
Student: F and E, F, A is a predecessor.
A is the predecessor.
Student: Yeah, they start to finish means A start to F finish.
Yes, F can finish 15 , if it is a 15 days lack.

Student: After A starts.
After A starts.
Student: The A finishing, what is the F finishes first no. A will finish after F finish.
There is no finish relationship, A will start F can finish only 15 days after A starts and
when we are talking about ABCD projects and says, now finish start or start finish, it is
not. I mean it is just a little bit of a kind of a twist in the way you think, but when we get
into the real world and tried to actually put something in a finish, start-finish ((Refer
Time: 02:04)) it is quite common.
We will do the analysis, I want you to make I mean it is your, first is the representation.
Representation is okay, any questions on the representation. So, we now do the forward
pass, the analysis goes on, so this is the early start, early finish this becomes 9, because.
Student: Finish-start with the lag.
This is the finish start with the lag yes, it goes to 16, here we start say 5, 11, 5 plus 6, 11
this is normal finish start. So, 16, 23 now, here this is the start, start; see, so E has two
options right now it is going 5 plus 2 is 7, E also has a 16. The second, so 7, 17, 16, 26,
so the 16 is the max. So, 16, 26 takes the, is the values, which we considered. Now, I am
going back on this. So, here is the start finish relationship A has started on 0, F can finish
by 15.
Now, how do I calculate the early start of it?

Student: Minus 13.
Minus 13, if by some chance F; say if duration of F was more than 15, what could it
mean.
Student: ((Refer Time: 03:51)) 0, put 0
So, if you want to B on a reasonable calendar A would have to start on a positive; not on
a 0. So, here we say F has to start it 2. So, G there is no, so G is going here actually there
is no arrow here, it is a 27, 24. And then, we finally, come down here all of these are at
27.
Student: 27, 35
27, 35 these are the options we have. 15, 23, 26, 34 and 27, 35 is the option we see, but
this will take care of the forward pass. Now, coming into the backward pass we have the
35, 27 we take 27, 24, we bring here 27 we carry out 27 here 14, 27, 17. Now, going
back here we have to go with the 27, it is going to go back to 23 and 16, now here we
had 17 going with this going back on the start-start with the lag of two relationships we
come to 15 and 21.
Now, here we have two options, we have 16 and we have 17, so we have 17, 10 or 16 9
minimum 16 10. Now, we come down to A, three path, three options.
Student: 0 and 5
So it is 0 and 5
What is your, so what it means is that see 15 days after A starts only F can finish. I am
giving you it as a logical relationship, I am not trying to put a situation and which this
can happen, I am just telling you this is the logical and I explained earlier that this is not
a common situation, so we have only doing it for the logic in that in the network. Any
questions? So, you can see that 28, do the analysis as compared to an AoN you have to
be very careful as to how we go back and forth on relationship and you will find and in
this particular case, so what is critical.
Student: ABDG.H.
ABDGH and in the next lecture we will see how the criticality is not sometimes the start
or the end, so you know it can be for example, in this particular case if you can change
duration like we discussed earlier, it is only the finish of G that is scripted. The start of G
is not on the critical path, so to say. But, because we are holding the duration as
continuous days this start is becoming holding with the finish. Any other questions? But,
so dealing with this complexity is support to give us a lot of advantages of flexibility.
So, the trade of it in flexibility and complexity is where some people find yes, the
complexity is okay, it gives me, it really represents my projects with minimum number
of activities and I am able to use it properly. Any others find that no, I rather go back to
finish start activity on node and I can understand my project more intuitively with that.
So, these are two schools of practice which we continually keep discussing and dividing.
Now, we come to this question which was the rest, what if an activity does not have to be
continuous.
So, here we have this is very similar to our earlier example of excavation, laying pipe
and backfilling. So, you can see these values which you have gone through and here we
are saying that, so you with 0 to 10 and so this is the forward pass, these values give the
backward and I am not getting into the detail. And as discussed earlier if for example,
what does this mean, this means what is the critical path here, let us look through.
A starts at 10, A starts at 0 finishes at 10; B starts at 4 based on the start away and it right
now, it goes all the way to 19, what if I and C starts at 8 based on the start of B and goes
all the way to 38. Why should B finish at 19? Should A start at 4 for the project to finish?
So, project duration is 38, I do not want to stop I do not want to change the project
duration. If A does not start at 4, what happens?
Student: The early start means, it is the earliest you can start now.
Right.
Student: So, 4th day is the earliest you can start.
Right, what the way A starts at 5, what happens to the project.
Student: project gets delayed, but it is not the earliest start. Like the name resembles the
earlier start.
No, no earlier start. No, what is the earlier B can start now.
Student: 4
I cannot start B before 4, what if I start B after 4.
Student: Project gets delayed.
Project gets delayed, so start of B is critical, let me go to the end of B and now we are
taking away this continuous activity. Let we go to the end of B, end of B is not critical, it
can end at 34. Do all of you see that? So, in my AoN if for the actvity, start was critical
end was critical, because here my relationships do not necessary go through the activity
they go with the start and with the end of the activity. So, I can have situations where the
starting an activity is critical and if I am willing to delay , change the duration; the end
does not necessarily become critical.
Student: Actually the early start and early finish, those meanings said what is the earliest
it can start, what is the earliest it can finish.
Right.
Student: 19’s is that day earliest street can finish, but it can continue until that if 4, so I
really project can continue up to 35.
No, no, but not project can continue what a trying to do is a comparison between this an
activity or node, so if we did this what you say this. So, in this case we assumed activity
and node in the float on it when I start floating on activity what happens. So, here due
realize is a start has no float the finish has float. So, that is what we are trying to, to kind
of understand here.
I agree with a definitions, but here is a an activity where the start has no float, but the
finish has float. So, the definition this becomes the definitions becomes valued only
when a I can stretch an activities what I can say I going to be doing at in paths if you
have to finished continuously, then we have back to the kind of the AoN kind of
definition. So, the original precedence diagramming method was designed with this is
method.
So, that we could make use of starts and ends as separate events and we could than try to
get the best of the activity on aero techniques, which heads start on a end of separate
events and the activity and node technique which was more introduce once. Now, again
like a said before judgment is on the practices some practices are with there are many
practical with say I would still rather use only activity are node and finished start because
that much no intuitive for me to work out.
Student: Does it gives more flexibility while leveling resources as compare to.
Certainly that certainly there is no flexible to there is lot no flexibility in the there is a lot
no flexibility, but when you have 1000 of activities and very many types of relationships
in addition to the algorithm being flexible and giving your lot more room for discussion
making your have to be show the representation is aureate and that is where this runs in
to issues. And even the way the algorithm like we I discussed algorithm is implemented
in different packages you need a package to be able to do this professionally it varies.
So, for example, micro soft project will not allowed to do multiple relationships likes
provided do to allowed multiple relationships. So, micro soft projects says no I am do not
you deal with complex city of this I have early want single relationship, but then in the
process you remember to what happen we land of with dangling activities and other
kinds of problem, which we have to overcome, then we putting dummy activities.
So, this was the state to the act enough as of enough the version 10 of whatever now
whether they going to change it not be going we do not. So, this is the uncertain the
which PDM causes and there is a lot of discussion on it and in fact, the person they the
people who originally develop PDM size its being it is used in such non standardized
twice that it is probably time its set come up in develop stranded for a PDM which does
mean system.
So, we will discusses more on this issues has bee are in to the tools and it is packages, so
we do a comparison between the two. This we know this allow only one kind of
relationship this PDM allows enough three additional types. Here we know the preceding
activity must be completed before any succeeding activity can start here you have
enough lags and leads which you can add cannot create complex schedules. It is easy to
interpret can be used as flexible this lot of flexibility add the enough complex city can be
address by the flexibility, but sometimes it is not to easy to interpret.
So, I will give you this problem and we will solve it in the next class, but this is
something, which I would like it work on.
Lecture - 43
Issues in PDM, Negative Lags, Problem #2 Solution
Welcome to this second lecture on precedence diagramming method. And in this session
we are going to cover the following topics, we are going to in a discuss a few of the
issues with precedence diagramming method, will talk about analysis with non
continuous duration, and you will see that from our earlier lecture where we have it try to
keep the duration continuous there will be a difference in this approach when we use it
and its probably more realistic. We will also discuss floats in the precedence
diagramming method, this is I mean in many, many books, the floats are shown as very
similar to AON and AOA, but we will see that there are some other kinds of floats can
defined to the PDM. Will talk about calculations the floats and then briefly will discuss
application issues.
Most of the lecture will be on the concepts of PDM, I think when we get to applications
is a lot to discuss, but the frame work of this course does not allow us the time for that,
but you will certain get some flavors of it, which you can probably read and get to the
details later.
Now, one thing which we have to do is to be able to understand why we have to handle
PDM with care. So, let me take this example we are seeing some of some examples like
this before. So, basically I have 3 activities ABC and I have a end which is which is there
and I have defined will different relationships. So, you can see A to B this is start start
relationship and a finish finish relationship, with 4 with lag of 4 and lag of 1, and bc
again this is start start finish relationship, but you will see the finish finish relationship
has a negative 2. So, it is kind of a lag. So, this is something which we want to see how
the analysis behaves when we put a negative value in the lag.
So, basically we are going to we are giving it basically a lead. So, if I am going to start
with 0, as we have done earlier you will find that it goes from you know. So, I will start
the early start for A is a 0, I go with the duration here and get a early finish of 10. And
then now A leads on to B, because as a start start relationship with a lag of 4, if A starts at
4 - B would be base, A starts at 0 - B would start at 4, the early chart the earliest B can
start is at 4 and now B has a duration of 8. So, one of the options is for B 2 the early
finish could be 12 or if I come with the other relationship, there is a finish finish
relationship from A. A early early finish is at 10, and if I use the finish finish relationship
and come it should finish by 11. So, when I take between 11 and to 12, 12 is more
constraining. So, I keep 12 as the early finish, and then move on to the next activity
which is C. So, here again you have start start relationship of 2 between B and C. So, the
4 when I come down to C using the lag of 2 C the early start of C becomes 6, and going
through the duration of C 14 the early finish of C becomes 20. Now using the finish
finish relationship, remember we ever at 12 we have, now we come with a finish finish
of minus 2. So, it goes to 10 and based on this we should be able to take take the next
step which is to look at how does this then go on to the end. Now we have a basic finish
chart relationship at the end, and we see that this is gone on to this is gone on to 20,
because we are taking the 20 from the early finish of A.
So, as we as goes to 20 and end is a is kind of dummy activity, so we end with 20 and
this to care with the forward pass. Now as we get to the backward pass will see become
back 20 20 that is ok, and then we come take the 20 back here and then with the with the
late start of C we get 20 minus 14 in which is 6, that is also fine. So, this is the late finish
of C and the late start of c. Now when we go to B, remember there is a lead negative lag,
so we when we going here we actually land up with 22. So, as 20 goes to the finish of we
will land of the 22, but do realize that we cannot do 22, because the project duration
itself is 20. So, how do we handle this situation?
So, one probably commonsense way of going about the saying or this should not exceed
project duration. So, I go ahead and put 20 as a project duration the maximum, it can be
is a project duration, and continued down with the analysis. So, if I go when back here 6
minus the 2 here goes to 4 and 4 minus 4 0, and I proceed this way now I am able to get
an inconsistency here. So, this kind of issues have been discussed quite of bit in PDM
literature.
And this while business of negative lags has quite a lot of attention, and this is lot of
publications on this. So, you can see the first publication from journal operations
researching precedence diagramming method some unusual characteristics and their
implications high light these issues or the another publication here from AC, this is called
the great negative lag debate. So, here the paper actually talks about how some
practitioners actually like to use the negative lag, and are able to handled it properly. So,
there is, so certainly the software that is available allows you to use to negative lag, but
in basic analysis and for starting, it is really recommended that you do not use negative
lags at all. And in fact, the question of you know how much of PDM should be used as a
starting planning engineer is also, there is a lot of discussion going on that.
Now, remember we had start have given this problem in the end of the last lecture, and if
you notice there are 2 relationships here with negative lags, and if you had actually
solved this, you know you would have we can actually tried to go through the processing
of solving it, and see what the issue which come a par.
So, here we see this is the network and I have shown the different relationships. So, we
have all the activities, we have the start start relationship here, the finish start, we have
finish finish relationships here, finish start with plus 2, here is the finish finish with a
negative lag and the finish start with the negative lag. So, as we do the forward pass on
this, we get this is fairly standard, we would go with this, we would go to 0 to 7, then A
goes from 0 to 7, B from 0 to 5. And then we go from C, because this because of the plus
3 the lag in plus 3 it goes to 3 is early start of C becomes 3 to 14, and d 0 to 10, I am
going to go through this and I will stop where there are interesting issues that are
happening.
So, here again we had 7, because it is a negative lag, it is early statistics and then plus
duration gives 11. Here we have 2 options, we have the option from 10 and from 7 and
we apply the early start which is the maximum early finish of predicates are rule, and we
get 10, 8 and then we go to 18 here. And we go on with 14 22, and now we look here
when we come here we have an issue that crops on. You know when we come from this
direction we have a 11 and 4, we could get 15, we come from the other direction we go
to 22, and it is a negative lag we go to 20 and we go back here 16. So, if I want to do this
activity continuously I can I mean should I go from 16 to 20, because this is what is
constraining me as per the late, as per the early finish rule from here from this
relationship now.
So, this is an area which requires attention, and then as we go of through and this is
assuming that I want to do it in 4 continuous days, how do I go about doing it. If I go in
to the next relationships. So, I have between 18 and 15, I have a plus 3. So, one option is
to come with 18 and 21, the other option is to go for 16, and 12 28 and obviously the 26
and 28 is what is controlling this activity. Similarly we come out here 14 17. So, all my
forward pass durations have been calculated and I get 28 as a project duration, and now I
start the backward pass. So, as we go with the backward pass again my late finish my
late start, late finish late start, late finish late start I go back. So, here I have you know
this is early relationships or its 28 minus 3, that is coming to 25, and then back here.
Here I have 2 options, that is one is 14, that is kind from 16 and 2 that will be 14 or 25, I
go with the minimum here and so on as I go back most of these are fairly standard accept
here now.
Again we are facing this problem where because I have a negative lag the late finish of H
is a exceeding the project duration or 28. So, this is going to cause problem. So, if I go
down this path, it is not going to take give me or proper value. So, I am going to actually
again make, I mean say that is cannot exceed project duration, and take this path take this
as 28 and use that as the limit and then go down ways on 28, 20, and then you know 28
minus 8 being 20 and then go down other backward pass.
Now as we come to A, again A has you have you have start start relationship with C, you
have a finish start relationship with F, and you have finish start relationship with G, as
you get values from here you will see that again the start away, you know is different
from the finish of A: the finish of a might be controlled. So, if I start A on 6 and finish
when should I finish A, I can finish A on 13, if I am do it is continuously. If I start a for
example, on 13 it will delay the, it the late start away it will delay the late start of C
which is not acceptable. So, I have to start on away for 6, and I have to finish by 13
better real do it really need to finish by 13, if I finish later than 13 what happens? Really
you can see that none of these activities get affected. So, why am I constraining myself.
So, this is the question that we need to see…
Lecture – 44
Lesson - 05
PDM - Analysis with Non-continuous Duration, Floats
We will see that, we do not need to keep the duration of the activity continuous. That is
one of the powers of the precedence diagramming method. We should be able to take the
duration and, or we should be able to take the start of an activity and finish of an activity
and take it as a separate events and as I mentioned in the last lecture, this is what the
AOA representation could do and we are trying to bring that into the PDM
representation. So, this is here is where PDM starts differing from the AON, the typical
AON.
So, let us take this network, we have three activities A, B, C we have the durations are
shown 10, 15 and 30 and we are now going to do the forward pass, which is 0, 10 and
then, as we come back here we have the next activities. So, to 4 we have the early start of
4 and D goes to, so 4 plus 15 goes to 19 from 10 plus 2 we are going to 12, so 19
controls, so 4 and 19 that is good. And then, we go to C, now here we have 4 and lag of 4
that goes to 8 for the early start and here we had, we have 8 plus 30 give 38 as the early
finish and here we have got to 19 and 4 as 23 and; obviously, 38 controls.
So, we go with end as 38, now on the backward pass you can see we get the 38 as the
late finish, late start goes to 8 and when I take it back on to finish-finish relationship I get
34 that is 38 minus 4, 34 and if I went with 34 and 15, I would get 19, but if I go through
this relationship for the start of B I would get 8 minus 4 which is 4. So, in the backward
pass the minimum value controls, so this would be 4 and 34 and let me go back one more
step, so we go back here, the 4 goes to 0 and 34 goes to 32.
So, we can see that this is the solved forward pass backward pass network and there are
some interesting results we should discuss here. So, number one, we can see that if we
are going to apply a rule for what is critical, you can see that of course, start of A is
critical, start of D is critical, start of C is critical, but when you go to the end, the end of
A activity ending on A or activity A ending is not critical; it has a difference between the
early finish and the late finish. So, so my start is critical, but my ending is not critical.
So, this is where we are differing from the activity on node, there once an activity was
critical, the entire activity had to be critical. So, this gives more flexibility, but with the
flexibility like we discussed last time comes more complexity. So, here we can see that
the start of A is critical, the start of B is critical, the start of C is critical, start or finish of
C is critical, but finish of A and finish of B are not critical.
Now, we will talk later as to , what does this mean in reality from an analytical sense all
does it mean just I have to start B and move on or does it mean more than that, we will
discuss that.
Now, we can see a second scenario, where what I have changed is actually the duration
of B. If you compare the first one or the second one, almost all the relationships are the
same, except that the duration of B is now increased to 35. With this scenario, now we
are trying to see how does the analysis go, you can see, it is again 0, 10 and here because
we have an increased duration, now it is 35 plus 4 that goes to 39 and we go to C we go
to 8 and now instead of 38 controlling, because because the 39 with the finish-finish of 4
goes to 43; that is controlling the criticality of the project.
And based on this we get 43 as the project duration, we do the backward pass as earlier
and now, because of this increased duration we find that the while start of A is critical,
start of B is critical, start... end of B is critical and the start of C has stopped becoming
critical, now the end of C has become critical, the start of C has float. So; obviously, I
could start C on the 10th days, so my duration of 30 now need not be continuous. I could
take, I could either stretch it or I could do intermittently what is required.
So, that is, what is the way this can be implemented, but if I do not finish at this
particular junction I will certainly delay that project. So, similarly with A, while the start
of A is critical, the end of A is not critical. So, this is a variation and it is something
which we have to learn to manage.
Now, we come to another scenario which is again quite different and interesting, it is
added one more activity D. So, it is there are changes in the value from the last scenario,
where we have, now four activities all the durations are 10. I have a start-start
relationship here with all of them, so A to B start, start of 20, B to C starts, start of 20 and
C to D start, start of 20 and we have, we do not have A to B finish, finish, but we have
from A to C a finish, finish B to C a finish, finish and C to D a finish, finish as it can be
seen here.
And if I go ahead and do the forward pass, it goes to 20, here we go to 20 plus 10 is 30
there and then, we are moving further on to C and then, on to D and you have got the
early starts and then, the early finish of all the activities. So, we now start the backward
pass, we got the 70 and 60 I am going to go through this, I think you should be able to
follow it with they are working, so we go 60, 40, 60, 20 and 10, 0.
And now, if we look at what are the activities, how does a critical path go you will see
that or what are the events that are critical you will see that it is events, which are the
start of A is critical, end of A is critical, yes the whole of A is critical, we have start of B
critical, end of B is not critical, start of C is critical, end of C is critical 40, 40, 60, 60 and
here again start and end of D is critical. But, if you look at C, while the start is critical
and the end is critical you can see that the duration of C can as much as 20.
So, C as to start on 40 it cannot delay the start on 40 it has to finish on 60, but in between
it has 20, 20 days to do what C needs to do, with C needs only 10 days to do. So, here is
another scenario, where you are able to see that, able to show that the criticality is now
not only, so not I mean in terms of start in terms of end also in the terms of the activity.
So, when we now move on to float, so; obviously, this leads us to a discussion on float.
Now, how do we define float with respect to a precedence diagramming method?
And while you will see many textbooks which define the standard total float and free
float as in the case of AoN ((Refer Time: 09:06)) you can see that when you have
behavior like this, in a network, some of this float the standard AoN floats are not so
relevant. In fact, it is an open question where interfering and independent float; how
are they relevant or do they actually, what do they mean in the context of DM.
But, more interesting when PDM was developed they define these floats here, what is
called the start float, the finish float relation float and activity float. So, by seeing an
earlier network you might have developed some intuitive sense on what, start float is and
what a finish float is and there is something that we are calling like an activity float. But,
also realize that each of this relationship also has floats defined in the context of PDM,
so this is also something which we need to understand.
So, if we come into the float definition in PDM getting into a little bit more of the
formulae and formula, so if I take a total float. So, this is actually the activity float I
would call it activity float or total float of a PDM activity basically it late finish minus
early start minus the duration late finish minus early start minus the duration. And if you
take the start float, which is the float that is coming or the start float it is our it is fairly
easy to see it is late start minus early start to take a finish float is late finish minus early
finish and you might have like a said earlier got an initiatives sense of this seeing the
earlier scenario is which we develop.
So, the start float can be different from the finish float and the activity of total float can
also be different like and the last case we did not have 0 start float 0 finish float, but we
have some activity or total float.
Now, we also now have relationship floats and these get quite interesting in the way they
defined. So, if I have an activity i and j my relationship fit. So, I have a finish-start
relationship here my relationship float will be for a finish start will be late start of j late
start of j minus early finish of i minus early finish of i minus the lag R. So, this is for a
finish-start relationship for a start, start relationship we would go with, we would go, so
here is the start, start relationship I go with the late start of j minus the early start of i
again minus the lag in the relationship.
So, this is the relationship float for start, start for a finish, finish relationship I go with
late finish of j minus the early finish of I minus the lag and which we do not use too
much the start finish relationship for definition say we are going to go with the start
finish relationship it is late finish of j here minus early start of i minus again the lag. So,
when you compute these in the precedence network, it will give you the relationship
floats.
Now, let us take a look at how do we look at these floats in the context of the problems
we have solved. So, we are we had this network which we had solved earlier, so here we
can see 0, so there is no start float there is 22 days of finish float and if I do 32 minus 0
minus 10 there would be again 22 days of activity float or total float. So, that is
something which we are which, so we have three kinds of basic float and then, we can
also calculate the relationship floats for each case.
So, here we have a start, start and here we are going with, so if we take a start, start
relationship I have to take the late start minus the early start here and there is 4 minus 0
minus 4 that will be there is no float on this and you can see that this is also on the
critical it is one of the critical relationships. Similarly, here we would go 8 minus 4
minus 4 again no float on this relationship. If we take and other relationship, so were as it
is., so now, we have if we take the start float of B again no start float of B, but finish
float we have 34 minus 19 as the finish float. And activity float 34 minus 4 minus 15 is
the activity float of these.
So, that is how we would calculate the floats again C has no start float no finish float, but
let us look at the finish-finish float here. So, we have here 38 which is the late finish
minus 19 minus 4, so that would be the way this is calculated for the finish, finish
activity and we have seen all of these in the formulae here. So, we have going to do for a
finish, finish activity it late finish of j minus early finish of i minus lag late finish of j
minus early finish of the precedence minus a lag.
So, I would want you to calculate this values and we will put up these I mean you should
do the calculation and we will put up these values with a part of the slides in the end of
the slides the end of the lag. So, again I am giving this as an exercise you should be able
to calculate the different floats for this scenario, which we calculated also and we should
able to check your answers with what we have. Now, this is the scenario we discussed
where we know we said C has start and end float C has C start float and end float is 0 let
me go through putting the value likes we did last time.
So, C has no start float if 40, 40 no end float, but activity float is 60 minus 40 minus 10.
So, it as activity float, so this is, so we have to learn how to interpreted this in what this
mean in the practical context if you want to apply PDM that is one reason, why there is
there is integrity when you apply the PDM on to a real project. If you look at, so you
again through these activities and we have discussed the starts been critical or the end
been critical and you can now, check whether the floats value match what we discussed
earlier and you will be able to check the values with the results of the end of the
grandmas.
Lecture - 45
Defining Relationship (Based on Construction Method) – Simple Shed
Now, what we want to do is move on to putting some kind of real activities to what we
are looking and kind of discuss, , how do we define these in cases like this.
So, I have actually given what I am calling as a simple shed. And, basically, what we
have are the following activities. We have an excavation; we have construct wall and
footing – construct actually footing and wall. So, we have some kind of a foundation for
this. There is a footing made and then there is a wall made for the shed; and then, there is
roof rafters, which are installed. And then, we are installing the roof sheets and then pass
inspection and then the job is done. So, this is the basic five activities for constructing a
simple shed, where we are defining.
And now, the question is how can we do this; how do we represent these activities in a
precedence diagram, so that we will be able to represent what is actually happening on
the construction method? So, like I have said here, the construction method becomes
extremely important. If you are for example, using prefab, the relationships might be
totally different. There can be a lot of variation on what the relationships are based on the
construction method. And, it is extremely important that you look at the method and
understand the method properly before you start putting relationships, which are
representing of what is going to happen onsite. So, we have gone about and said "okay
we are going to start". So, here you can see a start-start relationship and a finish-finish
relationship. So, I will start excavation. After two days of excavation, I can start
constructing the wall and footing. So, this is the relationship I am defining. And, wall and
footing can finish only after one day after excavation is complete. That is how the finish-
finish 1 is defined.
Similarly, the installing roof rafters; we are saying that it will start only five days after
the wall and footing has started; only five days after this activity has started and can
finish only after one day after this activity has finished; that is, FF1. And, installing roof
sheets; we are saying after the rafters are installed, I have been started; one day after the
rafters have started, I can start installing roof sheets and it will finish one – after the
rafters activities have completed – after one day after the rafter activity is completed.
And, inspection – we basically say after all – after the installation of root sheets is done–
only after that inspection can start and it will take one day. So, this is the representation,
which we have discussed. And, if you actually look as to how the shed is constructed; for
example, I might say I do not want to overlap; I will do all my excavation, all my
construction of footing and then do the wall and then install. But, obviously, that would
take a lot of time if we did every activities serially. And, that is why we want to start this
in a parallel way.
Now, if we were going to do the same setup using activity on a node with just the finish-
start relationship, we would land up with this serial set of activities. Now, the alternative
as we discussed last time in the last class is to break it up into pieces and in many ways
that is a good alternative. If I am going to take excavation and break into excavation A 1,
A 2, A 2 and then B 1, B 2, B 3 and C 1, C 2, C 3. And, based on how I am going to do
this and then represent it in an activity on node with several activities. You have to
certainly handle more activities; but, that is an option which is possible.
But, if we are going to do it with precedence diagramming method, this is how it works
out, where you have A, B, C, D, E. And, all other relationships, which we discussed are
defined here. So, we have the start-start, the finish-finish with all the lags as we have
specified in this. And, we can now do the basic analysis, which is shown here. So, you
have 2, again 17. From the start-start relationship, we get 2 go to 15; we get the 17. From
finish-finish, what we got was the 8. So, obviously, 17 controls. So, I am not again going
through the details of this; but, let us see how do we then represent and analyze this. So,
you will find that, once we do the analysis, the critical issue – the critical aspects are one
– this start-start relationship at start of A becomes critical; the start of B becomes critical;
end of B is critical; finish of A is not critical; start of C is not critical; start of D is not
critical; but, end of C and end of D become critical; and, the start and end of E becomes
critical.
So, what does this mean in terms of these activities? How does this translate into an
actual implementation on the fields? So, for example, if I say I am going to start
excavating and then end of excavation is not critical, it means that, it does not mean that
I can start excavation and stop, because I have to keep excavation ahead of constructing
the footing. So, if I do not keep excavation ahead of constructing the footing, somewhere
B is going to stop. So, here you can see B is fully critical, but A - only the start is critical.
But, it just does not mean that I start and then I stop A because I have got things started.
From the network perspective, it might show that, just start A and then everything can
take care of itself. But, that is not how it is going to work. And, you will have to really
know the physical layout and how the progress of A – you have the work front for A.
Doing A has to come to B, so that work front progress has to be planned and that detail
has to be taken care off. Just because we have done this relationship, we cannot assume
that the event here will take care of all of the networks. So, this is very important.
I cannot emphasize it enough; what we have represented here is just a very abstract way
of what the project is going to go through. Ideally, I should have more relationships here;
which if you had done on the AON, where splitting activities, you have these
relationships. And so, lot of times, from a very basic sense, that is easier and more
intuitive to understand and control. So, that is between A and B. Similarly, you can see
that activity C – the start of C is not critical, but the end of C is critical. So, while the
start of B is critical, I can then start delaying or I have flexibility with the start of C; but,
I have to end it on 18. So, this is somewhat realistic as far as a sub-contract of C want
this kind of information rather than saying my whole of C is constrained within a
particular range or things like that.
And so, one way of expressing all of these results, I have shown in a tabulation here. So,
what we have is activity; we have the duration; we have the predecessors; we have here
the early start, early finish, the late start, late finish. We have start float, finish float. And,
what we are calling as total float or activity float. So, all of these values are listed here.
Again you can see this from the network. We have taken the relevant values for early
start, early finish, late start, late finish as well as based on these values, we have
calculated the start float, finish float and the activity of total float. So, you should be able
to go through this tabulation and check with your calculations what answers you get and
if they tally with this.
Now, at the second table here, we have the relationship floats. So, if I can go back and
forth; so, we have a relationship for example, AB relationship here; we have a start-start
AB relationship. Basically, we are calculating it here with 2 being the value of the late
start and 0 being the early start of A minus 2. So, 2 minus 2 is 0. If I take a finish-finish
relationship, I have AB; again this is a finish-finish with the finish-finish with the lag of
1. We have finish-finish. So, we are going with 17 minus 7 minus 1. And, that is coming
from 17 minus 7 minus 1 gives you the float in this finish-finish relationship. And, you
can see that is of value of 9.
An additional 9 before it starts impacting the project; that can be seen. And obviously,
this is also shared with the finish float of A. So, just as we had total float in the AON and
it is shared along the chain of activities, these floats here are also shared based on how
they are along the activities. Again it is not like a free float; it belongs only to the activity
– only to that part of the activity. It is again shared along the path. And so, similarly, we
have all the finish-finish floats represented here. And then, we have this finish start,
which is the only finish-start relationship here was this one. And, the finish-start float is
also now represented through this calculation. And obviously, when we get here it is
pretty straightforward; we do not have a lag; it gets to 0. So, ideally, we would take
network representation like this, do the analysis and show it in tabulation like this. In a
larger project, this would might be easier to read rather than do this; but, from a
conceptual standpoint, I think this is fairly illustrative; that is why I have used more of a
network for the result discussion rather than just the tabulation.
Now, we come to the application issues. So, I think I have been repeating this from the
beginning that, we have seen a lot of PDM being used especially through the software
that is available. The software that is available today is quite powerful. And, we have
seen a lot of planning groups, use the start-start, finish-finish with leads and lags quite
liberally. But, once they do that, nobody is able to interpret what is happening to the
project. So, unless you have really a lot of experience and you are able to represent the
logic of what the construction method that is going to be used very accurately in the
PDM, it is not advisable to use these complex relationships when you are starting out in
your planning exercises.
Once you have experimented, tried, understood how the software behaves, how the
logical relationships behave; then, by all means, start scaling up the use of PDM, because
it is certainly powerful. And, the more we are able to use the power, the more
representative will the plans be of the project in a much more compact way. But, like we
discussed, AON, given that, we cannot use AOA in software today. Most of the software
will use an AON representative; you can use finish-start relationships; and, through that,
we should be able to actually model most of what we can do. The number of activities
will certainly be more; but, I think basically, what our experience, interacting with many
of the companies have shown that it is still a reasonable place to start. Again repeating
once, you have experimented and you understood how these other things behave; and
then, you move on to PDM from practising point of view.
In fact, I would encourage you to use any other standard software and enter PDM and
enter some of these..what we call as negative lags, leads; you see the software itself does
not give you reasonable answers. So, there is no standardization in the software. In
addition to knowing the concepts in detail, you need to know detailed knowledge of the
limitations of the software itself. How the software computes what. And, you will find
that, in addition to some of these constraints, you have constraints like must start on,
must finish on, must finish before, can start, must start after – all of these constraints
make the software again very much more involved and complex to use. So, I would like
to end of this. While we have really analytically powerful approach in the PDM, you
should apply it with care and do start with the basics of PDM, if you are implementing it
onsite and then scale it up.
Thank you.
Lecture - 46
Project Monitoring and Control Typical Project Time
Monitoring Process, Levels and Frequency of Updates
Welcome to this lecture. The topic we are going to cover today is on project monitoring
and a little bit on control. We will actually have two lectures on this topic; the lecture
today will be more general one on monitoring and its requirements. And the next lecture
will be on an earned value system which we will be using for getting more details on
monitoring. So, for this lecture, the outline is as follows; we will discuss the need for
monitoring and control. And then we will look at some standardised processes which are
defined in the BIS standard for monitoring and control. We will look at the flow chart,
the activities, we will get a little broader perspective on it. And then we will get into
specifics like, when we do monitoring, what is the frequency we need to monitor, what
are the levels; this will coincide with the levels of planning will do a little bit discussion
on that. And then we get into a lot of detail on how do we actually measure work
progress and an important issue here is measuring what we called percentage complete.
So, how do we measure percentage complete of an activity? So these are the topics
which we going to cover. And finally, we will talk about, we will give a couple of
examples show how we are going to do this percentage complete measurement and some
of the problems associated with this percentage complete measurement. So, you might
remember this from the first lecture, where we said a lot of what we do is in the cycle of
plan, monitor and control. And until now we have been mostly focusing on the planning
side. So, we been focusing on how we plan and all the lectures so far has been focused
on planning and various aspects of planning. And it is only in the next few lectures, we
will we talk about monitoring. I will touch upon control - a little bit on control in this
lecture, but we will see that we cannot do too much of theory as far as control is
concerned and it is more an applied area, and we will discuss why.
Now, when we talk about this plan, monitoring and control or even planning specifically
there is this quotation which I think is very interesting, it is by Eisenhower. And he says
"in preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is
indispensable". Now give it some thought- what does this mean? he says plans are
useless, but planning is indispensable. So, what people interpreted of Eisenhower was
that involved was one of the generals in the war. And when he says plans are useless,
what he says is what you actually plan to do never happens, you will have to make
changes, you will have to adapt, you will have to be able to monitor, what is happening
and make changes as you go long. But the process of planning, getting the team together,
discussing things, getting everybody's ideas, that is the process of planning, planning as
such is indispensable. So, when we get into the plan, monitor and control cycle it will be
easy to see that or we will kind of illustrate that the plan which we make is not going to
work the way we originally envisioned it. So, we have to keep monitoring the plan and
applying control, so that a project tries to stay to the original objectives. We might not
follow exactly the same path as we planned originally, but we need to monitor and
control to get this going.
Let me kind of illustrate this with an example. This is a very simple example; let me say
the objective is to travel from the IIT Madras to Chennai Central, and you have forty
minutes to do it. You have a train to catch, and you want to travel from IIT Madras to
Chennai Central station. Now obviously, you have to develop a plan, what would you do
to plan? Think about it. Today with the technology what you would probably do is
develop a route like this on your Google map, and you can see IIT is here, and Google
has chosen.. has given me three options. You can see some other options are in grey, but
there is one option which is highlighted which takes 31 minutes is what I am choosing.
There is actually a second option at 31 minutes too, and a third option which takes less
time 29 minutes. But for many reasons, based on being a Chennai resident, I am deciding
to take the 31 minutes along the Marina beach, because I probably like to drive along the
beach or there are other reasons for which, but it gets me to Chennai Central within my
stipulated time frame. So, I am going choose this as my option.
Now plan from here says 31 minutes; I have a planned duration of 31 minutes. And I am
deciding my mode of transport will be an auto, taxi or car; so that my speed is as Google
has planned it, and not a public transport system which might be a different plan with a
different time slot. Now, so this is my plan; and now I am starting my travel. So, I start
my travel here, will everything go according to plan and I reach exactly in 31 minutes? It
is very unlikely. So, as I am going on my route, I have to monitor my progress right? You
will have to monitor to see how you are doing, so we have different milestones on the
way. So, I can have a variety of milestones which I actually pass; and at each of the
milestones, I can see am I keeping to my plan or am I not keeping my plan.
So, for example, in this route, I see there is a heavy traffic area here; it is marked in red.
So, I have to check, so obviously, today what with my GPS system, it will tell me how
much time is remaining and things like that. So, it is monitoring my activity and telling
me, if I am keeping to plan or not or I can use the details from what Google tells me or
Google map tells me tp see if I am going to keep plan or not. Now I will certainly check
this constantly till I have reached the station. So, when I will be monitoring, so if you
want to answer the question, why, how and when, I will certainly be monitoring to make
sure that I do not fall behind it and I will make it to the station within the stipulated time.
In this particular case, I will certainly use my Google map to keep monitoring my
progress, and how frequently will I monitor, this is another very important is the
important question. Am I going to constantly look at the map and see every second, am I
keeping time or not, probably not. I am going to probably look at it once probably once
every 10 minutes or might be seven to eight minutes to see if things are going. And if
things are going extremely well I might not even look at it at all; I might have a feel that
things are ok. So, you will need to monitor whereas, where is it likely that I will not
monitor the progress at all, is it likely that once I start from IIT, I will not look at the map
till I reach Chennai central? Might not be. Especially if there are few bottlenecks in the
way ,I will then certainly look into see when I am going to reach.
What are potential disruption to the plan; certainly if I have an open road, everything is
predictable, there will be no disruptions, but as we know that is not the case, there can be
several disruptions;including, it could be a minor accident on the way will back up
traffic; there might a road closer due to some event which can again change things. So,
there can be a lot of disruptions to the plan. And if there is a disruption, let us say I reach
you can see Santhome is here, I reach Santhome and I reach Santhome, and I already
spent 25 minutes, I have only 15 more minutes to get to Chennai Central. Now how
would I establish some kind of control on this, might be I can choose a different path or I
might have to go faster or there might be in this particular opinion I do not see any other
strategy, either I have to choose different path or go faster. So, these are the control
strategies for this particular situation.
So, this gives you an example of what we mean by plan, monitor and control in an
everyday context. Now, we use this situation with a very, very sophisticated tool like a
Google map available to us with GPS tracking which is what most of us do today. Now,
imagine if there was no Google map or no GPS to allow you to track continuously, what
would you do? Just think about it and might be if there are any questions on it, we can
post it on the discussion forum, but think what you would if the technology was not
available and that is in some ways where we are in construction; technology starting to
be available, but once we plan, the way we monitor and the way we kind of get
monitoring information, the technology is only starting to develop.
So, if we get into this whole area of monitoring, and we look at what is the formal way in
which monitoring is to be done, there is this flow chart that is available as a part of the IS
15883. And you can see that we have several parts of a flow chart, let me go through it in
some amount of detail. So, we first have to assume that the plan is done. So, you can see
the time planning is done, the baseline scheduled bar charts, all this which we have
covered earlier is done. So, this is the plan is done. We talked about this also the
preparation of planning, resources, S-curve, project WBS, all this is also done. And based
on this, the site execution starts; execution of the site works is going on. And based on
the site works we get collect data from the site, we get daily, weekly, monthly progress
reports are coming from the site.
Using these reports, we generate MIS reports, using this data, we generate MIS reports,
we update the schedule, we have actual was revised for start and finish, we update the
schedule. We have planned versus actual for resource deployment and productivity. We
have planned versus actual for S-curve and variance analysis. So, all this information is
monitoring information that is coming from the data that is collected once a project
starts. And based on this information, we compile a project status report and
communicate the status report to the site to see if they should take any control action or
what they should do. Now, this gives you a nice overview of how the planning kind of
moves to a monitoring phase. The planning phase moves to a monitoring phase.
Now the key output from the planning phase is the baseline plan. So, what we.. the term
baseline plan is very important. So, baseline plan as we have defined here as initial
approved plan to which deviation will be compared as project proceeds. Without a
baseline plan, there is no meaning, because we do not have a benchmark to compare
anything with. So, the baseline forms the basis and once and then it is only a based on
this baseline that monitoring is going to be done. And of course if we have major
changes in the project requirements as we progress, we can have baselines themselves
changing, but we need to agree to a change of baseline as we progress. Typically when
we say monitoring, it is against a specific baseline.
Now, we can look at this in a different perspective; I think you might be familiar with
this; we use this also in some of the earlier lectures where we are talking about planning
and monitoring levels. We talked about having the master plan, the macro and micro
plan, and I just abstracted it to these three broad levels. And as we had seen in some
lectures earlier, that there are several levels of planning that can be done. So, if we look
at this broad issue, we can see at the master plan level, we can look at the planning
outputs that are coming; you have major milestones, key resources and then at the macro
plan level we have activity completion, quantity targets; all this is coming at the macro
plan level. And then, when we go to the micro plan, we have activity completion at the
daily and weekly level. Quantity, location, targets detailed resource requirements are the
micro plan. So, we really have looked at mostly, as I discussed before in this class, we
are dealing with the macro plan. The network level planning is dealing with the macro
plan.
Now, after we get into execution, we are now going to look at data coming out of
execution. As we saw in the earlier set of slides, we got into execution and then data
starts coming out of execution. So, similarly here we get into execution and data start
coming out of execution; we have daily progress reports that come out of the execution;
and based on daily progress report, there is again productivity measurement and
improvement in a lot of very detailed things e that can be done at the execution level. So
this gives you data from micro planning which then if any changes are required at the
daily or weekly level, the micro plan is done in execution is adapted to the micro plan.
And based on this, we also get the micro planning data. So, this provides feedback back
to a network to update a network into doing a network analysis.
So, this is primarily our focus, how do we update the network, what kind of information
do we do in terms of network analysis, especially at the level of the macro plan. And we
will also cover what we are doing here, just earned value measurements, the type of
reports, all of these also become important because when we go to the top higher
management this is how they would monitor the project. So, the level at which we are
doing is very important. So, please recall that the network kind of analysis we do is at the
macro planning level. When you go to a micro plan, it might be a spreadsheet, because
only you need to do it daily, weekly very detail planning. And the master plan can be a
broad level milestone plan.
So, come back to look at this, another key issue here is at what frequency do I update,
how frequently do with us execution kind of update the micro plan. How do you read,
how frequently should my micro plan to be updated, these things become extremely
important and even in the process here, which talked about daily, weekly monthly
progress reports. So, when we come to the frequency of update and here please look at
this, we are not talking about the frequency of update of any schedule, we are talking
about a frequency update of the macro schedule.
So, if we look at just the macro schedule, if we look at only the macro schedule here, am
I going to update on a daily level? That is going to be quite a challenge because I cannot
keep going back to my network and updating at a daily level. So, a lot of times we will
see that macro schedules are updated based on the need for the project duration and the
criticality of the project. So, you can have project duration of several years in which case
even a weekly update might not be necessary; it might be a biweekly or monthly update;
depends on the criticality of the project, if there something and you have to the overhead
you used to update you need a lot of resources also to update the project.
So, if I am going to do a weekly update that means, the resources I deploy should be
justified in the cost of that should be justified based on the criticality of the project.
There are certain projects for example, which I would use a weekly update because a
project duration is only a few months. And if I miss a couple of week that means, I lose a
lot of information. So, in some cases, we might need weekly; some cases, it can be
biweekly; in some cases, monthly. And this will like we have noted here depends on the
duration and criticality. Now the required level at which monitoring control can be done
is like we discussed, if it is too frequent, there is high overhead and no value; if it is
infrequent, then inadequate information to monitor and control.
I discussed this point earlier, but basically we are saying I mean it seems that now the
more frequently I monitor, the better things are going to be. But you can use the trip
example, am I going to look at the GPS every few seconds, no, it is not, it is going to be
too much of overburden for me, but I should have the right time when I am looking at it,
so that I can monitor my progress and take control actions. So, this would be critical in
the way we are doing the monitoring cycle.
We find in a lot of cases monitoring is done not based on planning requirements or

monitoring requirements, but based on the billing cycling. A lot of companies will
require the plan and the update of the plan to be submitted for payments. So, you will
find that schedules are updated only for bill generation and not for planning and
monitoring. So, this is really an issue, it is a practical issue, we will find that planning
teams or the company certainly decide certainly needs the cash flow to keep going, but
the intent of doing the schedule update if it is only to generate cash flow it can
compromise planning.
And the last point to a lot of times, the schedule update is only done based for
contractual requirements; contract says a certain time and they do it only based on the
contractual requirements, but might not be what the plan requires. The plan might be
more frequent, but because of a contractual need it is done as specified by the contract.
Or even more importantly in sometimes, the schedule is only maintained for delay
analysis. So, if something goes wrong with the project, then delay analysis is kind of a
postmortem of the project, and if you are maintaining a schedule only to kind of do an
analysis of what went wrong, later then you are actually not using it for planning and this
is also not a very good primary reason to keep updating the schedule. So, delay analysis
also has a specific frequency with which you keep updates, so that later on when you do
an analysis of delays, you can find reasons at the correct level of detail. So, again to
summarize the slide, we should really do updates based on my planning and monitoring
requirement and that can be weekly, biweekly or monthly depending on the duration and
criticality of the project.
Lecture - 47
Project Control Process, Daily Progress Report, Macro Level
Update-Data Need, Standard Progress Reports
Now we go to.. what we are taking from the BIS code, and this is the project control
process. So, here you can see that we can.. we have the..we have the updated project
schedule from time monitoring. So, we have done the monitoring we have the updated
project schedule, and we have the progress reports, we have variance analysis and we
have performance measurements. So, all this is there and then we have to decide, is the
project delayed or not? The project is not delayed, then this no problem; we repeat next
steps to the next reporting period, so we go back to the next reporting period. If the
project is delayed, we have to evaluate the impact of the delay, we might have the revise
the baseline, like I discussed if there is delay due to several reasons and client not giving
materials or drawings or some other kind of reasons, you might have a revise a baseline
and get a new agreement as to where the project is going.
And this gets then based on the analysis of the delays or a risk analysis, and based on this
we need to mitigation measures, and again try to get the project back on track as much as
possible through the mitigation measures. And typical mitigation measures we discuss
some of this in the crashing modules in a weekend executive activities parallelly, we can
in increase resources. So, that things, the production level increases which is very
common to use, ideally we should increase worker productivity through better planning
or better micro planning this would be the ideal ways, you are getting, more value out of
the work done, in the given time or we can do mechanization, methods improvement,
there are several mitigation measures which we will use to try to catch up with any lost
time, or some kind of catch up planning.
And a lot of this, so while we would like to discuss control from a classroom perspective,
a lot of this will be project dependent, case dependent, a site condition dependent. So, I
think we should appreciate the need for control and in concept what control does, but
further than this, we will not be discussing the control measures as far as this section is
concerned.
So, now coming back to monitoring in another earliest lessons, you should see something
which we call the daily progress report. So, the DPR is the daily progress report provides
a key input for updating the project. So, here we can see that the daily progress report is
actually something that is coming out of the micro-schedule. If you go to the earlier slide
you will see the DPR is coming out of the micro-schedule, and it provides updated data
from the work phase, updated data from the work phase. So, this is what is filled by the
team at the work phase and this micro-schedule you can see in the background I have
some forms, it typically should be done on a paper form, by in the form and supervisor,
they would fill out; it's kind of a diary of the project. What happened? How much of the
work was done? How many people was deployed? What is the equipment deployed? All
this is entered by the field team.
And like we said, the detailed diary of progress and several other attributes are entered in
this DPR. If you go on to the web, you will find there are several formats available for
the daily progress report, but we have found usually company specific and typically
based on spreadsheets, but that is a good place for.. good way to do the DPR, as far as if
the company is basically with the kind of data, and they can use at to update and monitor
at the schedule. And today what we find this while more and more from papers moving
into digital form. So, the DPR collection itself is getting at a digital form which has
become very beneficial, because only if you are able to update these things is accurately
and quickly will we be able to do the monitoring properly.
So, here are in typically you can see know tablets are being used on site to be able to
capture data.
And you have for example, as screen here from one of the systems we are familiar with.
So, you have different activities, you have different activities is excavation stub setting
pit, and update here is giving the percentage complete, this is 0, this is 80 percent of that
particular activity. So, you have different percentages complete, if some reasons there is
a delay, the person entering data can enter the delay reason here, you can enter other
comments here. You can actually see typical delay reasons also are popped up, and you
can say the labour shortage, that is the problem, there are weather problems and all these
data can be captured from the field and they really become the basis of your monitoring
data.

Now, this data then makes its way from the field level to a project level, and you can use
it a project monitoring. You can see that you look at, basically the construction outlook
here, looking at the various issues: expected delays, how much is the delay accumulated
time elapsed, planned time or the this is basically the project details.
So, here we have other information the project levels here. So, it looks like residential
projects with several towers, and for each tower, the planned percentage complete is
given and the actual percentage complete at this monitoring time. So, you can see most
of it looks like it's behind. So, this percentage complete is something which we are going
to deal with later, it's a very, very important topic when we going to deal with that,
towards the end of the lecture. And you can see this is construction, between last month
and this month we can see where the progress is, and all of this kind of information can
be done, and this is the part of the monitoring.
We can, also at the project level get other kinds of information, like how is mechanical
doing, how is architectural doing. I mean the architectural, mechanical, electrical; the
various trades, what are the issues, how are things going, budget versus purchase order
variations for civil structure, plumbing, interiors, so you can see these dashboards will
give the project management team. A lot of information as to in a what is going right,
what is not going right, and enough information to be able to nowhere to focus around to
for control actions.
So, from the project level, we can then actually go to the regional level. So, this same
data now flows up to the regional level, and here you can see probably the regional
managers not looking at a particular project, but he is looking at several projects. He is
not interested in the micro level detail now or even in the network; he wants to know
what is happening to the portfolio of projects, and how are the projects doing in terms of
overall percentage complete. So, he is looking at broad milestones and trying to compare
with the various milestones is to what is happening. And this particular system you can
capture photos on what is happening? So, that if also at very visual.
So, with this, I hope you are got an idea of different levels at which a project can be a
monitor and all levels are important, but without a doubt, the most detail level of DPR is
where the data comes from. So, if the DPR and subsequent field data are not entered
probably; obviously, the remaining levels have no meaning, it will only be guess work or
kind opinions. So, the DPR and the field level data really is a very, very important part of
monitoring.
And that has really been sometimes a problem at in projects because the field level data
is not very ((Refer Time: 08:43)) accurately captured, and we will see some issues in
being able to capture field data accurately. Again to what we talked about the macro
schedule, we are not talking about the DPR here, we talking at the macro level, at the
network level, remember we want we have things like early start, early finish, late start,
late finish; all other things are what came out a network planning. So, we would we want
to do an update we really want to know, the activities which started, the start date the
activities completed the completion date of the activities, activities which are ongoing,
the percentage complete of the activities which are ongoing, the resources deployed
versus resources planned, actual cost incurred. So, all of this data would be what we
would want from to monitor the progress of the project from the macro perspective, we
need to be able to a capturing and entered this data.
Now most of these data assume that my network is a same, and I am only making
progress based on the existing the topological of the network, but in many projects in a
network itself is going to a change. So, we can have logic changes in the network; that
means, might be I did finish-start relationship between two activities, but because of
some reason they decided the construction method is going to a change, and it is not
going to be a finish start this way, but they want to do accelerate and they decided that
both are going to start at the same time through some method or means.
So, now a network logic can changed or I had activity A and B, but due to the client
wanting to me to include something, now I have to do activity A1 and B. So, the new
activity might have be introduced in the network. So, these kinds of changes actually
cause change, cause a network itself to change. This really makes the schedule updating
and monitoring quite a challenge, especially if the network is also going to change and
how much you plan in detail during the planning phase, there are always going to be
changes that will come up during the construction phase, during the execution phase. So,
you have to be prepared for these changes also. And the management of this change is
critical to the successful planning and monitoring function. So, as we go forward, we will
not be dealing too much with the network change, because of this beyond the scope of
this course, but please remember this is an important issue and as a professional planner
you will have to deal with how the network changes are also going to be handled. We
will mostly deal with assuming the network what we planned is still valid, but the
progress on the network can have variations.
So, once we actually enter the data what typically a planning group will do is, they will
have project review meeting. So, you can see for example here is a typically example of
the project review meeting, where all the subcontractors, the general contractors, might
be the consultant will sit across the table and start discussing, what is going right, what is
going wrong, how to coordinate, what are the resource issues, what are the procurement
issues, are things on site when they needed or are they still in the process of being
delivered, are they design issues, are the drawings available, do the drawings have errors,
are drawings clear, all of these kind of issues will be discussed; coordination between
subcontractors extremely important; you might you might recall we discussed how the
float and early start, early finish, late start, late finish information can be used to
schedule subcontractors.
Items such as these are discussed review to make sure that the whole project team works
in a coordinate at a manner. And finally, based on this the client will also get the updated,
and the update the client will then say whether the client will then have his review as to
what is happening and the project and if any interventions are required to bring about any
changes as based on the progress.
Now I also put in some screenshots here of typical report. So, this is from the report
section of Microsoft Project. So, you can see there are reports on critical tasks, late,
milestone reports, or in a burn down on activities, cost overview, project overview,
upcoming tasks, cash flow reports, overruns, earned value, resource cost all of these
kinds of reports, over allocated resources, resource overview; all these kinds of reports
are available in professional planning software, and more and more the teams rely on
these reports or even custom reports. So, you can even have things like a develop a new
report or a custom report, which will give what your particular team is familiar with or
want to track.
So, this also is a really important part, being able to generate a review, and discuss these
reports really form an important part of how a project progresses, especially from a
monitoring and controlling perspective.
Lecture – 48
Lesson - 09
Application Two-Span Bridge - ES Schedule
Now, what we going to go is, go a little bit into depth is how do we get monitoring data.
So, I would be actually going back here to the two span bridge examples which you are
all familiar with. I think it was lecture eight, where we went into in calculating the
duration of the various activities is of this bridge; and I think I have taken those durations
and put it in a bar chart here. I think, many of you might have done this already. And we
have the various activities here in the bar chart, you can see the activities- the way I have
listed this, but the bar chart shows the early start schedule. What we are going to do is,
now we want to take monitoring.
So, we can go to the discussion; how frequently would I monitor this project? Should I
monitor it every day? And again, please remember this is the monitoring as far as the
macro schedule is concerned. I should monitor things on a daily basis and that is for the
micro schedules, there is no doubt about it, I should be getting a daily progress report.
But, if I am going to update my network schedule, how frequently should I update it?
And for that do it on a daily basis might not be a required, I get choose, I am going to do
it every 5 days, 10 days, 15 days, obviously, let us go to some extremes; obviously, it is..
does not make sense for me it to review it every three months for example, does not
make sense for me to review every three month. Because within two updates the project
will be over, and if I do not know the status of the project in my first update or if I only
know status of my project after three months some ,things are happening, some things
are not happening, that is really not and it is not enough time for me to do control action.
Whereas, if I go to try to schedule on a day, I mean try to update it on a daily basis, the
overhead of getting the data, and then I have to have too many meetings and then we will
have more meetings than actually work getting done. So, we have here selected an
update every 10 days and that seems reasonable for a project of this, might be if people
are extremely familiar with the project might even be you can even take it every 20 days
or even every month if the project is a very standard kind of project as this kind of turns
out to be. But, let us for illustration take every 10 days, it is kind of a nice period to do.
And please I would like to also mention one more thing, in this schedule we have taken it
has not calendar days but continues days. If you put this on to a professional software
and put a calendar on to it you will find that the day scheduled changes based on
holidays and other things.
So, here we are.. so if you tried to put this to Microsoft project or Primevera, you will
find that the calendar then comes into play and the dates.. the days will certainly change;
the duration project will increase. Here we are just working continuously through all the
days. So, coming back, we are taking a monitoring update period of every ten days and
what I am going to go forward is, I am going to take this - what I have circled here this
set of activity because just for illustrating I am going to take this set of activity and go
forward with that.
So, here we are, so this is, I have got about thirty-five days of activity zoomed in over
here and we have six activities listed. So, you can see ordered delivery pile, cast beam,
drive piles east, look at the east pile cap, east abutments and the centre piles. And you
can see the planned schedule on each. You can see the schedule from the early start
perspective. So, this has gone from, 15, 0 to 15, 0 to 20 and so on. And if we wanted to
update the schedule, how do I update? So remember, my monitoring is on every 10 days.
So, here we are now let us say we are ten days into the project, and so on the 10th day, I
want to do an update. So, what is the data I am going to look for? So here we go, I have
put up a table as a typical data that I might collect.
So, my first two activities which are ordered and deliver piles have started. And, the
planned chart was 0, 0, my actual chart So, here we go I am kind of going in this
exercise, here I am going to assume everything is ideal; everything is going as planned. I
am only illustrating where the values go, not likely to happen, but exactly as I have
illustrated it, but this is again more for illustration sake. So, planned start is 0 0; actual
start is 0, 0. Now I am at the tenth day. My planned finish for 1 and 2 is 15 and 20. So,
they would not a finished yet, but they will be progressing. So, I have recorded here that
they have started as planned; they have not yet finished, but what I need to do here is,
then on the tenth day what is my percentage complete on the first activity, what is my
percentage complete on the second activity? I should be able to enter the value there for
as an update. Now ,my other activities are not yet started; because I am on the tenth day
and so they do not come into play for this update, but the question now is what do I enter
for these two. We will answer this question in due course.
Now, I move on to the second update which is on day 20. So, on day twenty, my second
update. And here we can see that by the twentieth day if I look on my schedule activity 1
and 2 should have been completed. And here you can see a completed and now I am
actually able to enter 100 percent complete because they have been complete. But in the
earlier phase, I was not able to enter percentage complete, because they were half way
through. Once I completed, it is easy for me to enter; and of course, once if an activity is
not started also, it is easy for me to enter 0, 0, 0, 0, but.. so 0 and 100 are ok to enter. The
challenge is how do I calculate the percentage complete in between.
So, here when we look at the update on 20, so we are on this, this line here, and we can
see these two activities are complete and drive piles east is going on; drive pile east is
going on which is highlighted in green here. It started as scheduled; again the question is
I do not know, it made progress, but what is my percentage complete? The other which
has not started are again of course, 0, 0, 0 as far as because nothing has be started on. So,
it is just an illustration of what a basic update could be, and the key here is for us to focus
on..the key update information is percentage complete of activity is that are in progress.
How do I actually get that done?
We now move on to, the same thing continues, I have gone to update 3 on day 30. Once
I have gone to day 30 here, you can see that the activities that are active, first three
activities are over; east pile cap and pile center are activities which need update, and east
abutment is not yet started. And when I go to 40, which is five beyond here, all the
activities, assuming everything is going as planned, all the activities, except east
abutment have been completed, because we are going as per plan. And east abutment, I
still need to know how much progress was made. So, this is an issue, how do I enter the
percentage complete of an activity.
Now, so there are methods - specific methods by which we should be able to enter
percentage complete of an activity. And here, I have listed few of the popular methods or
much-referenced methods. And, we will see how these methods are applicable in a
specific situation. So, the first method is a cost-time ratio, where what we basically doing
is the proportion of cost at a time versus total, I will explain this through an example
later. Units complete is a very direct method where we are saying if I have 100 units of
work and if I finish 50 and then it is 50 by 100 is my percentage complete - straight
forward. Incremental milestone or seemingly straight forward I should say. Incremental
milestone is, I take an activity like procurement or design or I put milestones in between
if it says procurement, I say purchase order issued or purchase order issue acknowledged,
item shipped. I put the milestone in between and based on these intermediate milestones,
as they reached I can then say 'ok if the item has been shifted I am up to 80 percent
complete'; if it is going to be cleared, you have this percentage complete'. So, I would be
identifying milestones for which I would be defining my percentage complete based on.
Start-finish is even simpler. It is a start milestone, finish milestone, if something starts, I

say as a specific percentage is complete; finish I say hundred. So, either 0 before it starts
or 100 after it finish. This is the basically start completion milestone. The level of effort
is an interesting technique, I will be showing this little more in detail in as the example
proceeds, so but just in an abstract way, it is a weighted sum of sub-activities. We will
give an example for this. And of course, there is also the opinion of an experienced
supervisor to be able to give their opinion on how much they think the percentage
complete is. So, these are the typical techniques. So, let us just apply some of these and
see what is applicable to the..the example which we just discussed.
So, lets us say we are on day 10, and we want to update the status of the order and
deliver piles. You may recall there we on day 10 we had put a question mark, what is the
percentage complete. So, how will I actually measure percentage complete of order and
deliver piles if I was on day ten? So, one option is, if I am using that cost time ratio and
this particular case, I will be using time. We are basically saying the activity is 15 days,
and we know the duration of activity is 15 days and 10 days are over. So, the percentage
complete is 10 by 15. You have to decide if that is a fair assessment of percentage
complete or not. Obviously, it might not be a fair assessment, because we are assuming
that the progress of this particular activity is proportional to time spent which need not be
the case, so that can be I mean you actually need information from the activity to do this.
So, this is not a very good indicator of percentage complete for this particular case.
What about units complete? For order and deliver piles, if I am on day 10, might piles
delivered zero; if I am going to take units complete, I will get zero as an answer, might
not again reflect actual effort that has gone into this order and piles. What about
incremental milestones, so this seems I am some application to this particular activity.
So, I can take order deliver piles and break it into milestones. For example, I can say a
select vendor, and if I issue a purchase order, transport, I can have series of milestones.
And then, as each milestones, say select vendor and I might say 20 percent; issue
purchase order, I might say if I have issue purchase order 50 percent of their activity is
complete in milestones. Once I go into transport, the start of transport, I say 80 percent;
and delivery, I will say 100 percent. So, I have 20, 50, 80, 100. On day 10, I see what as
happen, oh transport has started, and then I will say 80 percent is complete, so that would
be an incremental milestone.
Start-finish is another option, but if I am going to use start finish in this particular
situation, the answer is zero. I mean yes, might be something has started, but the answer
is basically, or I should say because it is started I would give it say 50 percent for it to
start, 50 percent for it to finish. So, I could say yes, the activity has started, I had issued
all this. So, I am giving it a 50 percent, it is a possible way. The level of effort does not
easily, it can apply to this activity in this sort of way; if we break it down into milestones
and put numbers on it, but will illustrate this for the next activity in, it is more
appropriate for it. Supervisor opinion is certainly way we can get this, obviously,
supervisor opinion will apply to any of the activities, but in this case, you can ask the
experienced supervisor what is the status of the pile order and delivery? And he or she
can come up with this opinion and say I think it is a person, because I got assurance from
the supplier that will be here in a within a day or two or whatever so, you can get an
opinion of this.
So, if you look at this particular activity, we know that units complete cannot give us a
good answer. Cost-time ratio, I do not think can give us a good answer. Incremental
milestone yes; start-finish might be, but we need to get this from. The level of effort, in
this particular case, I think it is too detailed for this activity. Supervisor opinion, yes,
may be depending on the expertise of the supervisor. So, if we are we have to choose and
I mean if I would choose I would give incremental milestone the most appropriate way
of finding percentage complete of this particular activity.
Now, let us take the next activity which has cast beams and we can do the same
discussion. So, now cast beams we, remember that this was something which we broke
it up into sub-activities as earlier. So, let me just go to the remember this, this is from
lecture eight, when we were a going to cast.. even we were calculating duration for beam
casting please referred to this; we broke it up into very much more detail, please keep
that in mind. So, now, when we come back to the cast beam activity here, and we say
that I am on day 10, if I use cost-time ratio or mostly time ratio, it should give me 10 by
20. Or, if I use.. that is.. so that should say 50 percent complete. If I use units complete;
obviously, no beams have come out by 10, no beams have come out, so it will be zero. If
we go back, the first set of beams will come out after 16, so units complete is zero.
Incremental milestones, yes, I could use incremental milestones if I defined proper

incremental milestones along this process like in a setting up the bed, pouring concrete, I
could do this. Start-finish could be done again, because in this particular case because it
is simple it could be done, but might not be so easy to define, once I got my formwork
and everything in place, I will say I have started, and once the beams are finished, after
the twentieth day I can say I finished, but still we want a more detailed way of being able
to assess the percentage complete. So, we will actually use level of effort on this, I will
illustrate the level of effort with this. And of course, in this case also, the supervisor
being a can have.. can be something which they can go back. But let us go into the level
of efforts, so if we are recall again these were the various activities, which we took in
the cast beam in calculating the durations. What we have done here is put these activities
in the form of a daily schedule.
So, now if we went to the micro level. So, because we were able to get these in the form
of a daily schedule, we are actually go able to go the micro level. And, you can see at this
micro level, what we have done is, we have the first set of forms that is here, the second
set here. And we have gone on a daily basis and said what is happening at on each day,
and as we go in through each day we can see that see here, so here is our update day,
remove formwork, the beams get completed early here. So, if I am updating here with
units complete like we said, no units are complete. And, we have had this discussion. So,
we are not able to..to be able to get the exact way; what we are going to do is, we are
going to.. what we use called the level of efforts. So, in the level effort approach, we are
taking each of these activities and giving it a weighted based on the effort which we
think is required. So, here we have, see assemble and reinforce we are saying as 0.5;
pour concrete – 0.2, setting 0.1, remove formwork - 0.1, curing – 0.1. So, this is the
weightage I am using for each of these sub-activities within the casting beam activity.
And, what we then do is go ahead and for the update period of 10 days, we are looking
at.. we are putting, so here you can see I have introduced the weightage as a column here
and sum of all the weight should total 1. So, we can see that totals 1. Now I look at
quantity complete, how many beams have already being assembled and reinforced by
this day you will find this set as been assembled and reinforced as well as this set. So,
they are of value is 6. Pour concrete, in 6 sets concrete as been poured. Setting also all is
six, setting is over, by the time, I have completed. Remove formwork all six. Curing,
both are undergoing, curing until it it is set. Curing right now is zero, but when it comes
here the first three would have cured, and when it comes here the next three would have
cured. So, right now it is zero. So, now, what we do is take a weighted quantity, that is
we are taking the quantity complete for that particular sub activity into the weightage of
that sub-activity and this column gives you those values and you totals up to a value of
5.4.
So, basically through this level effort calculation, I am saying that 5.4 out of 6..that's 5.4
out of 6 beams have been completed, which works out to a percent complete of 90
percent. So, now, this could be more reasonable value to enter as percentage complete of
the activity, but it requires some amount of calculations in being able to assess
weightages and being able to break it down into finding out what particular sub-activity
is completed during the update period. So, it is also probably, you will realize if you do
not plan in this level of detail, you will not be able to monitor or you will not even be
able to get a benchmark at this level of detail. So, it is still a macro plan, I want an update
on the tenth day, and I am going to be able to get 90 percent complete, whereas if I had
used some other techniques you get different values.
So, if we actually compare the various values, you will see that the units complete, you
get zero; the level of effort, you get 90 percent complete; incremental milestone depends
certainly on the milestones defined. And on the supervisor opinion also, it certainly
depends on the experience of the supervisor, but the level of effort in this particular case
as given as a very systematic way of getting the percentage complete.
Now, to kind of wind up, some of the key issues in monitoring- we have a kind of seen
here. like planning detail has to be adequate to enable reasonable monitoring. If I simply
suggested 20 days, as the duration for beam casting, beams without the level of detailed
and planning, it will be a little more difficult for me to have a structured way of
measuring the percentage complete of the activity. So, the more detail we have or the
adequate level of detail is required for establishing a good monitoring system.
Now, we have also seen based on the earlier example, percentage complete will vary
based on the method used; this is a really a tricky issues. This can be used by the
planning engineers; sometimes to be to be very optimistic on how the project is
progressing. And if you have sometimes too optimistic in the early stages of the project,
you will find that it is the whole realism comes only in the later stages and things will
catch up with the whole team if the reports are only optimistic. But this issue of which
method to use to appropriately capture the actual percentage complete is really an issue
and probably a bit of experience, a bit of judgment is required to be able to use a correct
method for the activity.
Finally to summarize, I hope you all appreciate that monitoring control is really critical
and to ensure the project is steered towards the meeting the objectives. So, without the
monitoring and control phase, we will not able to bring the project to meet its objectives;
just planning alone will not do. And it is very common to see detail plans developed, but
the monitoring phase is just left to what the site teams thinks, and there is no real
planning team involved in the monitoring phase and that to be able to get large projects
in on to meet objectives, we really need a coordinated effort to do that. We talked about
the schedule update frequency; we said, it should be based on project requirement; we
said it depends on the level of control, the level of the plan. Certainly, all projects have
some kind of daily update of the micro plan. But, when we come to the macro plan, what
is the level of update will have to be decided again based on requirements and judgment.
We looked at some of the monitoring reports, but this, there are several formats available
there are several requirements available, but rather than use of format, please
understand.. you should understand what the information is being used for what
decisions will be made with the information, and based on that the report should be
generated. And in the last topic, we found that the work progress measurement is
important and this is at the heart of the monitoring system, how you are measuring the
progress of work. If there is incorrectness in the way of work progress is measured,
obviously anything else that uses that data will not be able to reflect the project correctly.
So, it is extremely important that the work progress measurement reflects the field
measurement or what is happening on the field accurately and cannot say more about it,
because it is really important and this is where a lot of the weak links in the planning and
monitoring system are. With that, we will look forward to your questions and discussions
on this topic.
Thank you.
Lecture - 49
Project Monitoring and Control (Earned Value Concepts),
Uncertainty in Project Schedule (PERT) Course Summary
Hello everyone, welcome to this second lecture on project monitoring and control. And
in this lecture, we will cover the concepts of earned value. This is a very important
concept, and it is being widely used by the professionals today. And let us get to
understand a little bit of the basics of what earned value means. So, in this lecture, the
outline is as follows. We will first just review the key issue of project monitoring; then
we will get into the earned value concept through an example. So, I will try to introduce
the concept through an example, because the concept as such as reasonably intuitive;
there are a lot of definitions and terminology associated with the concept which we will
then cover. And see, if from the example which we covered, we will be able to derive the
definitions and the terminology; and then I will finally summarize what we have
covered.
Now, when we go back to the previous lecture, this was the slide; kind of very
comprehensive slide which showed both the planning and monitoring levels. And we
looked at several of the planning issues that came through the master plan, macro plan
and micro plan. We talked about, how executions relies on these plans. And then the
feedback comes from execution through the daily progress reports, productivity
measurement and I mention that in in this class, we are not looking at this level of detail;
but there are other courses which we cover this level of detail, but here we then we are
mostly looking at the macro plan level. So, based on the DPR, we get data which gives
us weekly reports and basically the weekly monitoring of the project before we covered
to some extent in the last session.
Then, as we go beyond the weekly, we go from the macro plan; we have to generate
reports for management and typically this can be in earned value format. So, it need not
be in earned value format, there are several companies which have..are not necessarily
using earned value management techniques today, but when we go through some other
basic of this, you will see that there are several advantages of using earned value
techniques over you regular monitoring based on cash flow or things like that. So, the
tool recovering today in terms of EVM belongs to the planning engineer when he is
actually making project-level reports. And when he or she is looking at the overall
project, the work packages, how are we going to understand the performance and based
on this performance apply control parameters.
So, when we look at this with respect..with reference to the frequency update, we had
talked about weekly, biweekly or monthly being typical; the weekly or biweekly is
typical for the lower levels of the plans; that is the micro and between the micro and
macro. Earned value is usually on a monthly basis because it is rather tedious to do it on
a more frequent basis. And this is, we discussed about being too frequent and we do not
necessarily get better control because we monitor it a very frequently because of the
overhead that is required. And all of these certainly depend on the needs of the project.
And like we discussed in the last class, if there is a critical shutdown project, I might
have to actually monitor the progress hourly and but then the criticality of projects
mandates that kind of requirement.
We also looked at the BIS standard and it kind of had to show us on how we do project
monitoring, and where we looked at how the various elements of the standard look at
planning, execution and the reporting. As far earned value is concerned, we are looking
primarily again of generation of reports, and you here you can see planned versus actual,
S-curve ,variance analysis. So, this is a form of a report which we will be reviewing and
looking at how the earned value concepts contribute to this.
Now, when we to start with the earned the basic introduction to it, I think you are all
familiar with this. So, this is something we plotted when we did the resource scheduled
lecture. And if you recall we called as the S curve, and we had, I mean, in when we do
this for this particular lecture, we just plotted the manpower, the number of people and
the cash flow; the cash flow for the cost for the people. So, this was the S curve and we
did it by actually scheduling the tasks in this bar chart like this loading it with resources.
We had the total resource numbers; we converted the resource numbers to cost. And
based on the cost, we then we have here, for example, cost on this axis, the resources on
this axis, and we get a curve which is the cumulative cost curve. And this we remember,
we called it the S curve and these forms are very this kind of curve the S-curve forms a
very important basis for planning we are aware of that.
Now if I take this S curve and kind of show a conception S curve on a bridge problem, so
this is what we get we have the activities, for the two-span bridge, and I have just shown
in concept an S-curve which could be the cumulative cost of this project as it goes. Now,
I want to actually find the status of this project. I want to know.. I want to be able to do
periodic updates; we talked about this doing this periodic updates in the last session. And
we talked about how we get the work done and we talked about how we measure
percentage complete etcetera., based on different methods. And we also discussed how
these percentage completes can very depend on the method used. Now that is at the
micro level.
Now, we come to the next step this is at project level I would like to take an update at say
day 80, and I would like to know how am I doing with respect to my plan. So, for
example, one of the easy ways to do is probably do, is to be able to get the actual cost.
So, I had planned to spend this much money, but I have actually spent this much money
on day 80. Can I make any kind of conclusion based on this? That something to think
about. Or , if I have a second case where I say no, no I mean it was not I mean my case
two, I actually spent less than what I had planned to spend on day 80. This is kind of,
what you say, because we always measure the amount of money we spent on the project
through accounting systems, this kind of comparison is easy to do, but does it really
reflect the state of the project. , can we actually evaluate the project cost performance
with this kind data is something which we need to think about it. And the answer is no,
because what we are doing in terms- we could have actually spent a lot of money without
doing the work; and if you spent money without doing work, this will not be indicative
of what is actually happening on the field.
So, let me illustrate that with an example. So, let us take a very, very simple example to
illustrate. So, let us say there is a trench that we need to be excavated and this is the..
shows the progress of so this is kind of an illustration of this simple very simple trench
which I am using in this example. I have a duration in the x-axis here; I have the length
of the trench on the y-axis. So, assuming it is a linear progression and I have cost here.
Assuming, it is a linear progression and my cost is proportional to the length, I get my S-
curve in this, this case takes a straight line. And this is primarily for the cost of
equipment rental, because I have to rent this piece of equipment every day and I am
paying for it, and I am just making that the most expensive part and the primary cost
component and making that the cost of equipment and the operator that comes with it
making that the planned. So, this is my S-curve.
Now let me say that I want an update on day 5, I come to the projects about half way
through the project, it is a 10 days project; I come to the project, and I want to update on
day 5. Now one straight forward way or one way we might thing is on day 5, I might
have spent about half the money and if I spent about half the money, I would like to
assume the project is 50 percent complete, but if I look into the project field book, I
might find that actually there was rain and there was rain on day 3, 4, 5 and there was no
work that was actually done due to rain. So, although money was spent on keeping the
equipment and the operator, there was actually no progression of work on that day. So, in
which case, if my progress is actually this, I could work till day 2; and these three days,
I did not make any progress on the project; although I continued to pay for the rental cost
of the equipment. So, I actually spent money on the project, but not got any work done.
So, my actual amount spent is ,as per the planned value, but the work is actually not been
completed.
So, we will see that even though the rental is paid on these days, there is no progression
of work. So, obviously, it is from a common sense point of view we can make out that
project is not going as we had planned it, but if I choose to see only the actual cost
money spent, the project will indicate it is going to planned which is incorrect. So, we
can see here actual cost versus planned cost, we will see the progress is as planned, but
we know this is not correct. So, progress actually depends on work performed, not actual
cost and we have to somehow bring the work performed into our metric for monitoring.
We should not base it just on money spent. So, this is critical I know it is basically a lot
of common sense in what we are discussing here, but you will find that in several
projects, especially for small projects it is just easier to measure the money that is spent,
and people tend to use money spend as a metric for progress, which as you can see here
is not indicative a progress.
So, let us take this example, little further. Now I want to find percentage complete for
this which is fairly easy because it is a single activity. So, I have finished one out of five,
so it is 20 percent complete. And if I am going to look at the performance for my
schedule which is something which we need, I will see that on my fifth day I should I
have been at 50 percentage, but I am only at 20 percent as per my measurement. So, I am
certainly behind schedule. Now as per my cost performance, now you can see that we
can we know that we have actually spent to 2.5 k; that was because we spent it on the
rental the equipment all though work was not done we spent it on the equipment, it was
there we had to pay the rental. So, the actual cost work performed is this much, but now
what is the value of the work performance. So, we only did one, one out of what was
done which was 20 percent we have actually done only 20 percent of the work and for
the value of the work performed is a twenty percent into the total value of the project
which is 1 k. So, this is a very important metric we have brought in the value of the work
performed in order to be able to under to monitor a project.
So, we are able to now make a comparison of the cost performance, and say the actual
cost of work performed is greater than the value of the work performed that means, there
are actually spent more money than I have got value for the work that is performed. So,
the over-budget cost. So, this is a very simple way of introducing the fact that we had to
measure the value of work performed. Now here we have given, so from this we
understand that we are able to measure schedule performance, we are able to measure
cost performance through this basic metric.
If we are able to take this into a little more formalized form, I can say we have when
you look at schedule performance, I can say we have as scheduled, it was supposed to be
at 50 percent, but as performed is the 20, so because as schedule is greater than as
performed - behind schedule. I could come up with a metric that is a percentage as
performed divided percentage as scheduled, which will give me a numerical value of my
scheduled performance. So, we will come to more details on this later, but I think you
can intuitively see how this number can control or indicate the level of scheduled
performance. And similarly for cost performance, we have the actual cost of work, we
have the value of work, and we can now have a ratio of the value of work performed
divided by the actual cost performed. And this ratio will give us an indicator of cost
performance of the project. Now, in this particular case they happen to be equal, but that
need not be so as we will see later. So, in taking this extending this case, let us say
because everything was linear they happen to be equal, but say there were extra cost
during the rainy period and my actual cost was more than just the rental; in which case
you will see that this value will change; it will need not be equal to this.
Now, with this simple example, the key concept there which was..which we have
introduced is the fact that you need to look at the earned value; the value of work
performed how much value did you earn from this. So, that that concept is now.. we
applied it was single activity, but we have to actually extend it. So, here we applied it to a
single activity, we found percentage complete, we could get a feel of what schedule
performance was or cost performance was. But, when we get into larger project we
cannot keep applying at the activity level alone, we have to not only applied at the
activity level, but at each level of the work breakdown structure. So, here I have the
activity level, here I have the project level, I would really like to estimate percentage
complete of the project - the entire project, at my monitoring phase I would like to know
scheduled performance of the project, I would like to know the cost performance of the
project. So, this would be at the highest level of the project.
But similarly at each package, so here you have my WBS at each level of the WBS, I
would like to estimate these parameters and that is really the monitoring cycle. So, I will
be able to estimate, for example, here if the excavation of the substructure level, I will be
able to calculate all of these parameters and the superstructure, for the superstructure ,
before the different elements, you can see here- Mobilization structures, services as a
project is progressing at each phase, I will be able to calculate these parameters, and then
make a judgment on my schedule and cost performance of the project.
Right now, we saw the percentage complete for a single activity and we could see that
we can measure it based on quantity. Now if we take multiple activities, so as we when
obviously, we took a single activity here, if I want measure percentage complete at any
level higher than a single activity when there are multiple activities, I cannot use the
work done by total quantity, the quantity installed by total quantity as a unit, because
the.. as my indicative of a percentage complete because units are all different. For
example, if I have concreting in meter cube, reinforcement in tonnes, plastering in meter
squared, and I cannot add these values and divide by total quantity because certainly, the
units are different. So, what we do is, the only the common unit for all of this, all the
types of activities that come into a project is basically the money or man-hours. And
these are typically the common unit; that is the.. how many work hours are my people
spending on the project, this is man-hours, not absolute hours, this is man hours or the
money spend.
Now, so I can use either metric as my indicator for my value of work earned or the
earned value. And in this, for the remaining of this lecture, we will use money as an
indicator, we will continue of an example of money as an indicator or discussion of
money as indicators although man hours is also used. And towards the end of the lecture,
I will kind of give you an insight as to why should be making this choice, and what are
the implications of this choice.
Now, let us take up a little more detailed example to illustrate more aspects of the earned
value analysis. So, here I have a project; there are 6 packages I would say involved. So,
in this project might be, there the packages would be, at say level here; there are six
packages involved. I have given you the estimate of the quantity of each package say
earthwork for example- 5000 cubic meters, concreting, formwork, for reinforcement
brickwork. I have also given the unit rate the cost per unit for the different items of work
or the different packages. And based on this, we have actually looked the cost we got a
value of work and the total value of this project. So, I have also given you the project
duration is 10 months and we would like to monitor the status of the project every
month. So, this is a given; now based on this let the project start.
And I would like to see on month 3, I have jump month 1 and 2 for a specific purpose;
for month 3, I would want to do an update. So, actually go, so all of this is the same input
;what I now calculate I actually go and measure the work performed at the project. I look
at the quantity. So, I then update my quantities is here; remember this is done from the
micro level, might be a DPR all of these I would get the work performed, from DPR
data I would get all of this. And then I can calculate my percentage complete for each of
this. Now when I am calculating my percentage complete for each item of work, the unit
is the same. So, it is my work done by total quantity; unit is the same I can calculate
percentage complete without a problem. I, also in addition to measuring the work
performed, I go to my accounts group and get the actual cost of work, and here is the
actual money spent, the cost of what I paid for the work.
So, here I have the total value of work; here I have the amount of work that was done
during.. in this period, and I have entered the quantity is here; using this and this I
calculate the percentage complete for each item, and independent of this, I have money
spent money on it, and this is the money. So, if I am given this kind of an update, will I
be able to answer these questions. What is the project percentage complete? What is the
scheduled performance? What is the cost performance? Now, you can see the first
question project percentage I can actually calculate all the individual items percentage
complete here; but how would I calculate project percentage what is the status of the
project today? That is not so based on the information I have here, I am not able to
immediately see how do I calculate project percentage completely. What about my
schedule performance? I mean I know that I am the third month; I know I have done this
much of work, but I have no way of benchmarking it. I do not have scheduled time line
to compare to find what is my scheduled performance. And if I try to think my cost
performance is my actual cost compared with my total cost, from the earlier example
that does not necessarily give us an accurate value of cost performance. So, we have to
think through and see, what do I need to do. So, the first thing is actually to develop a
scheduled time line.
So, here based on all the concepts you have covered so far, the planning team needs to go
in and, do this put each activity on a bar chart or on a timeline like this. You can use a
network analysis to give you the timeline, ased on your resources availability, all the
concept you have covered. So you have actually finally, the output we have we have
realized in this form. So, I have here, this is the quantity. So I am scheduling the
quantities of earthwork as such, concrete as such, formwork, these are the quantities; and
based on these quantities, I then schedule the expenditure, the scheduled expenditure for
each quantity. So, all that I have done is multiplied the quantity into the item rate, which
we had earlier, and based on that the money to be spent. So, this you are familiar with
from our resource loading sessions. So, all this reflects is the money to be spent for each
item of work, and the month in which the planned money is to be spent.
Now once we get this, I think you are all familiar with the fact that we can calculate now.
Now, I can add up; I can add up monthly because my units are money because my units
are money, my units are the same, I am adding it up and this is now my planned monthly
expenditure. I convert that to my cumulative monthly expenditure or my cumulative cash
flow, and I have actually now, from based on our earlier discussion, we basically have a
plan in place. I can convert this cumulative cash flow into a percentage complete of cash
flow. So, this is my final final total. So, basically this is twenty-five by this value and so
on; I get my percentage complete in a cumulative form. And this basically forms the, so
here we have to say that this percentage complete is based on money as a unit; remember
I could also use man hours, but I am choosing here to use the money.
And we then get this S-curve. So, basically, what the S-curve is- on this side on the y-
axis I have that cost of work schedule. So, this is the cost of work schedule and on this
side of the y-axis, I have the percentage complete, they are proportional because what we
are..we are measuring percentage complete here the planned percentage – the budgeted
percentage complete here in.. as a proportional of the cost which I have scheduled for,
the cost of work scheduled. So, this forms a basic S curve, and this now gives me a
benchmark to be able to compare my progress work. So, I come back; now here is the
table which I had earlier, but now I have a scheduled time line to compare. So, when I
am doing monitoring, this forms the benchmark or the baseline for me to do my
monitoring.
So, how do I use this baseline? So we had the earthwork, we have the rates given here.
Now on month 3 update, what I do is I am now show showing the planned or the
budgeted value of work schedule for month 3, this is coming from my S-curve. This
specifically is the value of work I have budgeted at month 3. So, this is the point which I
am interested in. So, you can see this is continuous over all the months as it is planned,
but in my third update, I am looking at this particular value. And, this is the value of
work scheduled for month 3, now I have done my measurements as earlier; I have got
my quantity of work which is a same as earlier. And I am now calculating here: what I
am calculating here is the rupee value of the work performed; for this quantity of work
what and based on my estimated unit rate what is a value of work I have done in terms of
money. So, this is, remember our trenching example, this is actually the value of work.
We are looking at what is the value of work that done. So, this is basically the rate of the
quantity of work performed is giving us the value of work.
Now, in addition, I also have my actual cost of work performed which is independent of
value. Again, go back to the trenching example, you remember we spent money even
though it was raining, there was no further work done, but there was money spent. So,
these two can be independent, they are ..need not be related to the, ideally, it should be
related, but because of the uncertainties and issues that occur on a project, they are
independent. So, here we kind of reviewing. I have looked at my work scheduled, the
monthly the plan and taken what I had expected on month 3; my earthwork would be so
much would have been spent on earth work, so much on concreting, so much on
formwork, this is from the budgeted cost of work scheduled on month three. And this is
what I had actually performed.
Now, one thing we can do now is we can see that we are able to add up these values. So,
this is my total value of work as it is scheduled for month three. This is the value if I add
up these values, earlier I could not add up the percentage complete, because they had all
different unit is; here it is all money unit is here it is all money unit is I can add it up, and
I get the value work performed 70.6, and the actual cost of work performed is 74.4 and
what I had scheduled is 76.8. So, now, I will be able to answer some of the questions I
had posted earlier. For example, in answer to the question what is the project percentage
complete, the value of work performed is 70.6, and remember 292 was the total budgeted
value of the project; the total budgeted when we go to month ten. So, the current project
percentage complete is the ratio of this which is 24.1.
And I could also find what is the schedule performance, so here in my schedule
performance I am looking at the value of work performed is 70.6. But, actually on month
3 based on the plan, I should have been at 76.8. So, 70.6 being less than 76.8, I am
behind scheduled target. Similarly, if I want to look at what is the cost performance, I
have to compare these two values - the value of work actually performed on the field is
only 70.6, but I have paid out of, I have actually paid 74.1. So, I have got less value
which means my low budget cost target; that means, have 74.1 for work that was only
worth 70.6 based on my original rate. So, I am again behind my cost target. So, this is the
basis of your monitoring based on earned value management from a very basic and
intuitive sense.
Now, we now move into formalizing this in a way when we use the earned value
terminology. So, what the column here, what we calculated in terms of the planned
value, our original S-curve- that is called budgeted cost of work scheduled or BCWS.
And, what we calculated in terms of the value, the value of the work performed based on
calculating the quantity of work and multiplying it by the unit rate, and summing it up-
that is called the budgeted cost of work performed or BCWP. And this is the earned value
of the project at that update period; this is the earned value; the earned value of the
activities and summing up to get the earned value of the project and this, as we have
discussed is the actual cost of work performed. This is the actual amount of money you
paid for it. So, this is our original estimate of what we had planned for month three; this
is what we actually spent and this is the value earned based on the work actually done.
So these three from the basis of your earned value, terminology and concept, and these
values are then used for further calculations.
So, a typical way of looking a project performance here is a graph. So, we have the
budgeted cost of work scheduled, this is the blue line- budgeted cost of work scheduled.
Like we said, this is our S-curve as per plan and then we have, the other curve, which is
the green one is the actual cost of work performed. So, this is the cash you are measuring
through your account is a money or actually spending. And then, the earned value is the
budgeted cost of work performed which is the red line here, and this is like we see,
obtained based on the actual quantity- measured quantity of work done and the original
rate estimate. So, this is one way of estimating BCWP, this is one way of estimating it.
You might want to analysis how is percentage complete related to this, there is a strong
relationship you can see between percentage complete of the activities and BCWP.
I leave that you all to kind of, find that relationship, it is intuitive and it is not very
complicated. But, now coming back to this, what we had now.. what we call the
scheduled variance which is so at a particular review period at a particular review period
here we did it exactly this, we calculated the cost of work scheduled. We calculate, that
we had got from the plan for the particular month, we looked at the budget cost of work,
we calculated the earned value of budgeted cost of work performed and then we looked
at the actual cost of work performed. And the difference between this is the scheduled
variance, and the difference between these two values is the cost variance as we had
discussed in the example.
Lecture – 50
Lesson – 02
Basic Earned Value Definitions and Terminology, Summary
Now, moving forward, if we look at Earned Value Method, it is really quite

comprehensive, quite popular and very powerful, because if we are able to monitor based
on the amount of work, which has actually being performed. It is not based on, money
spent or man hours spent or anything, which is more subjective, it is what is actually
done and it is able to integrate the cost and schedule and the work scope.
So, this is the key part why earned value management, because this say it is cost, time
and work scope integration is brought into a metric, which can give you an idea of what
or how the project is performed.
So, if we go into, just review the terminology, we can look at the budgeted cost of work
scheduled, we have discussed this I am just reviewing it because it is important to have a
slightly formal coverage of these from a definition and a formula perspective. Basically,
we know it tells the budgeted cost, it is how much work is scheduled to be completed in
each period based on value metric, money in our example and this is the S curve.
Now, budgeted cost of work performed, this is the earned value and we can obtain this
by getting unit rate into the quantity of work performed, this is how we did the
calculation. But, remember, but you will realize that I can also do this by percentage
complete into budgeted cost of work scheduled will also give me the earned value of the
project at that of date. The actual cost of work performed, we can do this by getting the
value from the accounts and actually, what is maintained in terms of actual cash spent.
Now, based on these two we get the schedule and cost variance. So, these are the project
performance indicators, I can do BCWP minus BCWS to get my schedule variance and
as you can see here, it basically if the schedule variance value is less than 0, it is behind
schedule; more than 0 ahead of schedule, if it is equal to 0 the project is on schedule. So,
this becomes an indicator for variance of the project, similarly, my cost variance is
budgeted cost of work performance minus the actual cost of work performance.
So, we had seen how you have, what is the value you got for the, of work you actually
did for the money you spent. So, this is what gives you the cost variance, again less than
0 it is over budget, greater than 0 it is under budget, equal to 0 it is on budget.

Now, and another way of looking at the performance is what we called SPI, Schedule
Performance Index or the Cost Performance Index. So, here it is a ratio, we had dealt
with this ratio initially, we looked at in intuitively, for the earth work example we
remember we got values of 0.4. We dealt with it intuitively, but we could see that this
ratio if it is less than 1, it is behind schedule, greater than 1 ahead of schedule and equal
to 1, the project is on schedule.
So, when management looks at it, they will ask you for the SPI, they will ask you for CPI
and then, say based on that they can judge, what where the project is at that stage of the
monitoring phase. Similarly, CPI you have similar, you have a ratio and the similar range
for CPI. Now, one more critical parameter that is used in basic earned value is forecast, I
should be able to use my performance measures to be able to forecast, where am I going
to finish.
So, your CPI gives me my cost performance index, I take my budget at completion; BAC
divide by CPI and I get my revised project completion budget. Now, this is just one of
the equations or one of the formulations for estimated completion, but please realize
there are references, which give there are several alternative computations for this based
on the assumptions made. So, here we are extrapolating based on current CPI, but
certainly, we know in a project the things can change.
So, might be the current cost performance is not going be to what is going to be in the
future, in which case the estimated completion will, it is a dynamic aspect which will
keep changing. This is just one basic way of computing it and most people recommend,
if you want to complete schedule at completion, go back to the network, update the
network and based on the network, do schedule at completion, an estimate of schedule at
completion.
And although the earned value terminology gives you an equivalent equation for
schedule at completion, it is recommended that we go back to the CPM network and
update the network to be able to find the schedule at completion.
Now, just going back to our example here ((Refer Time: 05:19)), so we looked at now
that we have reviewed the terminology, we can see the budgeted cost of work perform,
we have looked at the budgeted cost of work scheduled, actual cost of work performed,
we looked at our schedule performance, cost performance and in both cases we said that
we should have been at 76.8, but we are only at 70.6 as for as schedule goes.
So, we have behind schedule and although we, I mean, although we spent 74.1 we only
got 70.6 worth of work, so we are above budget. Now, if we look one thing is when we
go to the work package level, we can also do a comparison at the work package level and
see what are the packages which are affecting, so this gave us the project snapshot. So, if
I go to the work package level, you can see that at earth work we had scheduled only 2,
but 2.5 that means my earthwork is doing better than what was planned or schedule,
whereas, in my concreting, I can see that 25.2 was what was scheduled, I am only at 16.8
I am way behind schedule as far as concreting goes.
As far as a formwork or reinforcement: both of these, I am on what I had originally
planned to do. You can see 12.6, 12.6, 33.6 is as planned and as far as brickwork also I
am ahead. So, while I am ahead on brickwork, earthwork and I am doing as planned on
formwork and reinforcement, I am really behind on my concreting. So, this allows me to
actually pinpoint that concreting packages what is causing me to fall behind schedule.
And in this case, we have no values of plastering, because plastering not yet started. As
we get further into the update cycle on this project you can see from the bar chart, that
plastering will start at a later stage and as we keep updating on each of those phases,
certainly plastering and other values will start coming in. We can do a similar
comparison with the value of work performed versus actual cost and see, where our
variances are occurring.
And you will find in this particular case, the brickwork we have actually done, got more
value, than what we spent, but in almost all days, other cases we have actually a spent
marginally more than the value of work done. So, again we might want to look at and
other package level and analysis why this is happening and take control actions for this.
So, we can see that earned value like we have discussed earlier gives us and insight into
the project both are the project level and at the work package level.
And we can go into the work package into more details, into the work package and work
breakdown structure might be we will able to get it down to the activity level and which
case I do not use to earned value I can use my direct monitoring approach of quantity
versus total quantity and productivity and things like this. So, successfully to able to..to
monitor a project requires coordination of all this level, at the work face level at the
site office, at the planning office, at the management.
So, you I hope you have a feel of how earned value gives more the higher and the
package level issues while the productivity monitoring and details issue we covered in
the last section give you more of the execution and the planning to the execution level.
Now, again, so here we have, all of the terminology we discussed in a more

comprehensive graph. So, again here we have, green is the actual cost of work performed
that is green and the red graph is the budgeted cost of work scheduled, budgeted cost of
work scheduled. This is as per plan and the green actual cost of the work performed is
the money that we spent, the purple budgeted cost work of work performed is the earned
value, this is the budgeted cost of the work performed and this is the data the monitoring
time we have taken and this monitoring time we got the earned value ACWP.
And we have already had BCWS and we were able to calculated variance and when we
forecast from this, we look at how a basic way of estimated completion and the budget
completion here you can see is what is originally budgeted and we look at how estimated
completion can be obtained and based on this you can actually calculate the variance of
the total project cost at completions.
Almost all the terminology we have discussed you shown in this figure and , we can look
at, so here the have the variance, the schedule variance, the cost variance and based on
these two, we have the schedule performance index or the cost performance index. So,
this slide in a way summarizes a lot of worth all the parameters earned value and what
they mean in a graphical sense and how they kind of used and applied to be able to
monitor a project.
Now, sometimes when we, we would like to look at earned value in a step-wise way, so I
hope the concepts on which it is the basic is clear, now we would always like to make it
kind of a procedure. So, if you going to look at the step wise fraction, the first thing to do
is to calculate the budgeted cost of work scheduled for each period. So, remember from a
bar chart, we are able to take a month wise, we were able to all the cost the planned cost
at each month and we were able to plot the S curve as well as the monthly expenditure,
which is the budgeted cost of work scheduled.
Then, for each updated period, we actually calculate budgeted cost of work performed
and we calculate budgeted cost of work perform by taking field measurement of work
performed and multiplying by the unit rate for that measurement; that would be the ideal
way to do it. But, in cases where that cannot be done it may be through and an estimate
of percentage complete and we look at some of these from the lecture last time.
So, ultimately, either I can get a percentage complete a by an estimate or percentage

complete by actually measuring the work performance dividing by the total work at the
activity level, this is at the activity level. Then, at that same update period, I can find the
actual cost of work performed based on my accounts and these then give my way basic
parameters for my earned value analysis.
So, I can compare my budgeted cost of work performed, budgeted cost of work
scheduled and the actual cost of work performed to determine the project performance
indicators and the percentage complete of the project. Now, then we can also do this
forecasting for estimated completion and based on these parameters, I can take control
actions as required. And like we just saw, this did not the be done only at the project
level ,we can come down to drill down work package level or at a further detail level
where there are multiple activities to be able to apply the on value concept to be able to
monitor and take control action required at a different level of the project.
Now, I would like to end kind of showing are enough to make you think about this; when
I look at earned value and I look at all of the S curve and the BCWP and ACWP and all
of this I am always reminded of a limited over game and we can see the run rate, the
asking rate, the catch-up rate, the wickets taken, so I mean I leave it to the course
participant to think about this is and see , is there and correlation we have between how
we do a run chase, given an asking rate is given, might be the budgeted cost of work
schedule is what the first team has a given in the second team is actually doing the
execution. So, if you have analogies on this, it will be interesting to hear about it.
Now, to summarized what we have cover; basically earned value approach

comprehensive approach for monitoring project at the macro level. I think through this,
through concept cover this I hope you get the feel of how you can really go to the project
level being the calculate percentage complete schedule performance and cost
performance. And that is really the main, USP of the earned value approach. And it is
using doing this based on the actual work done, that is the score. It is not based on
money spent that is like that level.
In this lecture we used money as a metric for earned value, we used money and the
earned value unit is.. the earned value is money unit. Now, in many places man hours is
used, the reason man hours is used is because man-hours tend to be the major component
of cost in many global projects. If you control man hours ,you control the project and
you control the money that is spent on the project.
So, by controlling man hours, people find in many places that you’re not only
controlling money, but you're controlling also schedule better with the man hour metric,
than money metric. So, in many global project man-hour is the base for earned value
metric, but in most project in India you saw using money because we always kept more
enough from ..the early years we have kept track money more than man hours because a
labour considered to be cheap and might not pay by man hours etc.
But, please realize that both can be done and it is really I mean today with increasing
costs in labour etc., man-hours become important; man-hours is becoming more
important; I would say it is already important and we should also be able to do base on
man hour metric. Now, one of the interesting aspects is if I measure progress based on
money or metric money or man hour metric I can get different results. So, this is
interesting; I do not have the time to be able to illustrate that, but might be those of you
who are interested to explore this further.
So, I could get the percent complete on the project with say a 40 percent based on money
and we know 60 percent based on man hours. So, this is one of the subjective elements
and the good planning team should have a judgment on what is really the appropriate
metric for their kind of work. Now, also we know while EVA is a good comprehensive
technique, the accuracy of the result based on the measurement of a work performed; if I
do not get a measurement of work performed correctly, obviously, the project parameters
will not indicate things.
And we discussed in the last lecture, how sometimes this measurement is not as objective
as we would like it to be; there are subjective elements and there can be estimates,
there can be variation and we should also factor this into when we take the values is
based on earned value; that the level at which are measurement should be accurate. Now
one thing is happening this front is that more and more automated measurement taking
place; people we do not have fill form, we can actually go to the site with a.. with a
smartphone or a tablet, enter values in it, which is then uploaded to the server and we
know there is less chance for errors. Or even more advanced techniques, we have image
processing or other techniques which actually capture your progress as you do, and
automatically updates; these are more research area. But, they are getting there; we
expect that some of these values are more accurate when such technology used and
finally, in this earned value is very, very broad area there it is a lot of terminology.
If you go to some other site, especially with the US government, these earned value
management there are.. there are manual which just run to 100 pages which just talk
about the terminology and the calculation based on earned value. In this lecture we only
covered very basic elements; just to give introduction given a earned value for you
understand that the concept exists. And as a professional you might have to use these
concepts in a leader stage; I think we have laid the foundation for these concepts and ,
you should be able to use, then , work out basic examples and get comfortable with the
terminology of this stage. So, I look forward to question and discussion on this topic.
Lecture – 51
Uncertainty in Project Schedules
In this lecture, we are going to look a probabilistic scheduling. We will be primarily

looking a PERT as a method of probabilistic scheduling. But, we will also cover some a
broader aspects of how do you include probability and uncertainty into schedules.
The outline of the lecture is as follows. We will first look at uncertainty in general and in
project schedules; then, go to the PERT, the background and assumptions for PERT. We
will go through a stepwise procedure to do PERT. And then go on to some – an example;
and then, we finally, summarize.
So, when we start dealing with uncertainty in projects, it is quite an issue. Now, to be
able to know this lecture, one of the prerequisites we are assuming that you are aware of
will be as to how to use a normal curve; the probability of an area for a given value as
well as find a value of a given probability. So, these exercises with a normal curve you
should be able to do. Now, if you are not familiar with this, I would recommend that,
there are several sources on the web; I have listed a few sources here. But, this is
something which you should be familiar with because a lot of these operations are
required in PERT.
Now, if we take uncertainty in projects, we have so far covered the critical path method;
and, as we are aware, it cannot actually model any probabilistic events. We do everything
assuming that it is deterministic, the values for the duration is there is no uncertainty
involved; we are assuming that is a duration that is going to happen and we go ahead
with the plans. But, we certainly realize that, in our control, that, that is not what is
happening. And, we certainly take care of uncertainty more in the monitoring and control
part of CPM. But, there is no direct way in which we can model uncertainty. But, we
know that uncertainty is an inherent characteristic of all projects. Not only do we have
duration uncertainty, but there is cost, quality, everything. So, a challenge of project
management is that we have to face uncertainty.
And, when we take construction projects, we generally say that construction projects
have less uncertainty compared to projects like research, defence, space, which are novel
projects. The first time somebody is doing something; it is much more difficult to
manage the uncertainty on these open-ended projects as in construction. So, techniques
like.. for uncertainty modeling are much more prevalent in these research or defence
projects rather than construction. But, of late, tools for modeling uncertainty have started
coming into construction management practice. And, we will talk a little bit about this in
the introductory slides.
So, when we look at uncertainty in construction, there is certainly – there is a whole area
of risk analysis and management. So, this is now a core area in construction project
management. And, any good construction project has a risk analysis approach, risk
management approach and people will quantify and try to manage the risks at all phases
of the project. So, this is something, which is a science on its own and it is the practices
becoming very popular; but, it is beyond the scope of this particular lecture to cover this
aspect. We will certainly look at risk from what PERT can associate it with. And, when
we then go into this from the broader perspective of risk analysis and management, when
we talk about just duration uncertainty, this itself is one of the biggest risk in our project-
the fact that it can exceed the plan duration or the fact that an activity takes more time
than it supposed to or, how do we actually handle this.
So, the whole aspect of duration – planning for duration uncertainty is also a very very
critical part of project planning and control. And, PERT was actually developed to handle
this. Primarily, they talk about cost and duration uncertainty as the objective of PERT.
And, PERT explicitly models the uncertainty due to duration. Now, when we are going to
estimate uncertainty on duration, we certainly have to first estimate the activity duration
itself. And then, how do we actually… We covered this in the earlier lecture as to how
we estimate the activity duration. But, now, it is not just a duration we have to estimate,
but the uncertainty associated with the duration also. This certainly turns out to be a
challenge.
When we go back… You might be familiar with this slide; we did this in the initial
lectures, we took activity duration estimation and we had several tools and techniques as
specified by the project management institute and the project management body of
knowledge. So, two, which have highlighted here are an expert judgment or Heuristic
and the three point estimate. We actually covered a parametric estimate as the part of the
lecture series earlier. But, these tools and techniques have been identified formally. And,
when we start coming into uncertainty, we certainly have more challenges as we
discussed; and, expert judgment is one of the key ways. The other key way is actually to
use data.
So, when we look at a probabilistic duration, we need actually a distribution. We need a

probabilistic distribution and this is how we account for uncertainty in the activity. Now,
duration of an activity can be assumed to follow a stochastic variable. And, if you look
at… If I have historical data, I could fit into some of the distributions you see below. A
lot of times, construction follows the beta distribution; you will be hearing more about
this. We are all familiar with the normal distribution here; but, we will have to play a
quite a bit of role in the normal distribution also in PERT. And, we will see this at a later
stage. So, I can get historical data and fit it into a distribution or I can get an opinion
from an expert and also try to generate the distribution from it. So, obviously, when I get
an expert opinion, I will have more limited data, but I still should be able to make a
reasonable distribution out of it which suits that purpose for which I am applying it to.
If we take historical data, given here is a table. How would I collect historical data?
Actually, what we would take is let us say an activity and you can see the number of
occurrences of a particular duration that activity has undergone. So, the activity has been
done in as short as 2 days and as long as 19 days. And, this is really the frequency of
occurrence of the various days. So, you can see that, in one instance, it was done in 2
days and one instance, 3 days; on 5 instances, 4 days; 10 instances, 5 days; in 8
instances, it took 6 days and so on. Now, This is basically my historical data.
Now I can do my statistics, my basic central tendency statistic on this and I get their
mean of this is 8.17 days; the mode is 5 days and the median is 7 days. Now, if I was
going to use this as a critical path method, I wanted a single deterministic duration. The
mean I might take the mean duration; or, we might say no, the mode is also a possible
duration I could use. So, this is something which has to be discussed and might be
finally, you need an expert judgment to be able to bring this into it if I am going to use a
single duration. But, how do we take this and try to fit a distribution to this?
This is what we would ideally want to do if historical data was available. So, I could
make a frequency plot of this.
And then, convert the frequency plot into a probability distribution or a cumulative
probability distribution as shown here. And, from this, basically I would need to do some
statistical data fitting and a distribution fit should be found.
So, here you can see the steps I am going through. I get my frequency, I get my
probabilistic fit; and, I have a range of distributions I could possibly fit this profile into.
And, the challenge of distribution fitting is to find which of these distributions models
my data appropriately. And, people have done this for a construction project and
generally found that the beta type distribution is best for construction. So, you can see
some familiar distributions here, there is beta, the exponential, the normal, triangular.
So, there are all of these. But, actually, what I need to do is to be able to fit, take my data
and try to do the distribution fit and find which distribution fits my data. And, basically,
like I said, beta is what people have found to be good for construction activity duration.

Now, it should be nice to be able to do this, but certainly, there is an overhead when we
try to do it from a data perspective. So, the other option is to go with an expert estimate.
So, in this particular case, I get an expert and I cannot get this level of data from an
expert; I cannot get this level of data from an expert. But, I will be able to at least get
three times- saying what is an optimistic time, what is a likely time, what is a pessimistic
time; and, based on this, again there are other several distributions; I mean I could use a
triangular distribution here too. But, again what we will find is that a beta distribution
has been used to model this kind of expert estimate also. So, we are able to now either
get data to make the estimate or an expert to make the estimate. And, in both cases, we
ideally need a distribution to be able to model the uncertainty of that information.
So, if I compare what a deterministic duration was a probabilistic duration; here I have
my network. In a critical path method, you will recall that I had deterministic values. So,
this was A was 5 days, B was 4, C was 6, D was 3, and we have fixed it in that. Whereas,
when we come to the probabilistic approach, A now does not have a value of 5, but it has
a distribution that is going to define its duration. Similarly, B has another distribution
that will define as duration. Here I have basically shown a symbol of a duration; this
does not mean that A, B, C, D – all have the same distribution; I have just shown an icon
for a distribution to say that, A, B, C, D will all have a distribution to model the duration.
So, there is no particular value, A can take a range of values based on the distribution it
specifies. And, sampling the distribution at each instance might be giving a different
value for the duration of A; which is what actually happens a reality. Every time I repeat
A, it will not exactly the same time as 5 days; but, it will change based on some
conditions. And, if I am able to capture the distribution characteristic and represent the
distribution correctly, I have actually captured the uncertainty of the duration of A and
represented it appropriately. Now, once I have this kind of a representation for my
activity durations, there are two approaches, which are typically used: one is either a
simulation approach or a PERT approach. Let us briefly cover the simulation approach
because it is getting more and more important today.
In a simulation approach, what we would do is we would take those durations and we

would run, we would take – we would run the networks several times; I have to run to 1,
2, 3 as I have shown. Each time I will take a different sample of value from the
distribution. So, I will not get a single value; for every run, will have a different value.
So, you will see that I will do several runs in my simulation. It will be like doing a
project 'n' number of times. Each time, my sample value for each duration will be
different. So, my project duration is different. And finally, if I take the samples of all the
project durations, I will get a distribution of project duration itself. So, that then defines
what my project duration characteristics are and the variability in the project duration
characteristics. So, this is an important area, which is becoming more relevant today.
After this introduction, I am not going to take too much of time, but we are not able to do
this because sometimes historical data is not easily available. And, this is a problem. If I
want to do a fit and a simulation, I am not able to get historical data for it. But, even
when historical data is available, I might not be able to map my specific project to that
kind of data. So, might be I have excavation data for several projects, but the project I
am working on there is a lot of excavation; but, that data does not suit my type of
projects. So, going through a fit will not make it any better. Now, in the 50s when PERT
was developed, people knew about simulation; they would like to use simulation, but the
simulation is computing intensive. And, the main frame of the 1950s had its limitations
in being able to compute so many possibilities as we saw here. So, they really wanted to
go following for a much more closed form kind of an approach, which PERT is.
But, now, today, computing has come out of the limitations what we had in the 50s. And,
more and more simulations becoming a very popular approach, most of the tools – the
popular scheduling tools we use; whereas MS project or Primavera will have a
simulation engine also to be able to model uncertainty in risk. But, it is not widely
practised; only some of the leading companies are starting to use simulation-based
schedules for uncertainty modeling and risk analysis, primarily because getting data is
challenging. You could go with the expert data and simulation also; but, again the
simulation technique was also quite a bit more complex than the CPM. And, as we
discussed, CPM itself, people are finding it a challenge to use it properly. So, it is going
to take sometime before simulation becomes main stream in our construction projects.
Lecture - 52
PERT Background and Assumptions, Step wise Procedure
Now, let us go on to PERT. So, like we said, the people would developed PERT faced
challenges in computing powers. So, they decided they should develop some kind of
technique which can model uncertainty and at the same time, be a closed from kind of
approach. And this was initiated, as you can see here, for the Polaris missile project by
the US Department of Defense and this, as you can see is a defense project, if you are
going to build a Polaris missile in the 1950’s, there were a lot of uncertainties and you
know the project could not be delayed by a large number of years. So, they decided they
wanted to kind of take a CPM like technique and try to bring uncertainty modeling in it.
So this was done, like I said, with a US Department of Defense along with the
consultants Booze Allen Hamilton, and they were very successful in having developed
and deployed the technique and they reported to have saved 2 years on the project
duration by using a PERT approach.
The original paper by the developers of PERT is available online, I will be giving a link
to this, in the hand out page, and for those of you is interested in getting into more
details, I would recommend that you would read this because you will understand the
thought process and the case study they used when PERT was originally developed.
Now, little bit a background on PERT. So, like we have been discussing, PERT will try
to represent probabilistic by get by an expert estimate. So, we do not have data to
remember that the project, we are doing it is mostly like on the first time, we do not have
any historic data in this case. So, the PERT developers had to go with an expert estimate.
So, there was no option and you when we go to the technique, will see that on projects,
which are really novel, this is fairly a good way to start off. Now, after you get this
estimate, and you represent the uncertainty with the appropriate distribution, PERT uses
basically the CPM type of forward pass, backward pass analysis. So, that way it is very
familiar to.. very familiar process, you know as per CPM. And you will see that the
network diagram is also almost the same with, it is actually exactly the same, and
although the CPM developed the network diagram first, the CPM diagram is the network
diagram is very popularly refer to as the PERT chart. So, it is you know if you look up
Google and say PERT chart you will get the network diagram.
And even in practice most people use the term PERT chart refer to a network diagram,
although it was the CPM developers whose has originally brought out the network as a
way of planning. Now the last point you have on the slide is that yes, doing PERT is
certainly much more challenging and CPM, because we are trying to deal with
uncertainly based issues. And as we discussed in construction, you know most the
activities we do are not really that novel, you know we should be able to get reasonable
time estimates on it, we might have historic data on it, you know we should be able to
estimate the durations with the reasonable amount of certainty, and given that and that
the overhead of PERT is quite high, you will find it PERT is not widely used in
construction today. Like we discuss some the other areas which have a large range of
uncertainties might be using PERT, but construction does not use it widely.
Now, when we go forward to this lecture, I will presenting PERT using the AON
representation, because that is what we have been familiar with, and you used in most of
the other lectures. The original PERT developers used AOA; the AOA is the activity on
arrow technique which is still the default for PERT. We do not see too many references
with AON and PERT; there are some references, but most people would still use AOA,
but I am going ahead with a AON representation, because that is what we are use
throughout this lecture, and I do not think there is too much of a concept loss, if we
continuity use a AON. And I think it will be a easier for you all to follow.
Now, let us take up the assumptions of PERT. So, one of the things is PERT is, there are
several assumptions. So, we have to understand the assumptions also cause a lot of
limitations in the applicability of PERT, and that is one another reason it is not that
widely use, because the values we get are not too meaningful, then you know why go
through the whole process. But starting of the assumptions, the first assumption is
basically on the estimate at values, how we actually convert this into duration. So, as you
can see this is a quote from the original paper, this is the assumptions that the standard
deviation could be adequately estimated as one sixth of b - a. So, that is one assumption
which is there in PERT that, and we are using a beta distribution.
So, they have given the formula of the beta distribution that is being used, they saying..
they assuming that adequate model for the distribution, and based on this distribution,
and this standard deviation we get the basic 2 formulas in PERT which is very widely
used, which says that which is here that is the expected time is equal to the optimistic
time 'a' + 4 times the most the likely time 'm' plus 'b' the whole the sum of all this is
divided by 6 will be the expected time. Now similarly for this distribution the standard
deviation is given the pessimistic time minus the optimistic time b minus a divided by 6,
and we know the square of the standard deviation is a variation.. is a variance, and this is
the variance equation which is this is just the square of the standard deviation. So, what
we have tend to see in PERT is standard formula for the PERT activity and the PERT,
standard deviation calculating the activity in the standard deviations itself are the first
assumptions which the authors of PERT have said that they are making.
As we move on, the second assumption and PERT is that the central limit theorem is
applicable. Now, this is very basics statistical theorem and what central limit theorem
says that if I have a set of activities or the way if you would apply to PERT is, if I had a
series of activities that we have earlier seen that each of these activities will be modeled,
the duration will be modeled with the distribution right, you can see the distribution you
can say we modeled the distribution. And we know this is not a normal distribution, this
is the beta type distribution or a PERT distribution, that is what we are going a model it
when we use PERT approach. And what the first point the central limit theorem says is
the distribution of the sum will be approximately normal regardless of the individual
distributions.
So, as I go down this link in the network and I calculate my early start, early finish, and I
sum it up and I go down here, I might be taking specific values from not normal beta
distributions or other distributions, but in the end when I sum up my.. the distribution at
the end is a normal. My project duration will have a normal distribution although my
activity durations here can be a beta.
So, this is basically what the first point says. The second point says, the mean of the sum
is the sum of the individual means; that means, when I calculate the mean of all of these
values, so, when I coming here and I add up the early, here is the early start, here is my
duration which I calculated, I get 7.8, here is the early start of b; the duration is 15.7, so I
get my early finish, and so on, and here I get the end of d is when I am ending 39.2. So,
my mean of this normal distribution will be 39.2. So, the mean of the sums is the sum of
individual means. So, here is my mean value that is going to be 39.2. And the third point
says, the variance of the sum is the sum of the individual variances.
So, as we saw earlier, we had the standard deviation and we squared the standard
deviation to find the variance. So, here I have various variance value which I have put
here and if I sum these variances, so, the variance will give the sum of the variances will
give me the variance to this distribution, and the root of this variance will give me the
standard deviation. So, by the end of this exercise by normal distribution I have got a
mean of 39.2 and the standard deviation of 2.31 and once I characterize this with these 2
values, you know that we can do a lot of computations based on the standard normal
curve. So, you might wonder how I got these values, they are basically values which I
have substituted from another problem and I have not given you the base values to be
able to get this. So, do not try to calculate this, I just want you to, to illustrate with these
values .. to show how the central limit theorem applied.
So, now we go on to the third set of assumptions for PERT, the first point here is there
are enough activities to make the network path, to make the central limit theorem valid.
So, remember that for the central limit theorem to be valid, if I have 1 or 2 activities
were just one activity; obviously, the duration still remains to be beta distribution. So, we
need a large sum of or a large set of activities down the network for the distribution, for
the project duration to be normal. So, that is the first assumption, that there of enough
activities in the network to make the central limit theorem valid. The second assumption
is, the critical path is long enough in time so that no overlapping of distributions and are
there in the distributions are assumed to be displaced.
So, if you have overlapping distributions, computation of PERT probabilities do not

become valid. So, this is quite a limiting assumptions especially when you have multiple
critical paths which are close to each other. And, in case there are 2 or more critical paths
then the larger variance would be deemed critical. So, PERT does not take in,to fact by
default, the fact in multiple critical paths can exist and there can be overlapping
durations, overlapping distributions here which will then cause you know one critical
path can be critical for some time and another critical path another time, and this is
certainly a limiting assumption in PERT.
Now, will go to the step-wise procedure for PERT. So, typically when you are given
information to do PERT value, we will not start with trying to make an expert estimate,
because that is beyond the scope of this course. We will typically give you the activities
and predecessors like in CPM and 3 estimates of duration. So, we will give you the
pessimistic, the most likely, and the optimistic as 3 estimates of duration. So, once with
this information, the first thing you can do the draw the network which is very similar to
CPM. The second step, is to be able to calculate the expected value for each activity and
we see in this formula before, this is pessimistic plus 4 times most likely plus optimistic
divided by 6, and we will calculate the expected value of duration for each activity.
And then, the standard deviation of the activity duration using this formula here, and the
variance is just the square of the standard deviation. Now, when we go to step 4,
basically we will use this expected value for each activity, and we do the forward pass
and backward pass and calculate early start, early finish, late start, late finish ,usually
late finish and late start as we did for CPM. So, this is very similar to the CPM step
except that we are using the expected value.
And in step 5, we just us again very similar to CPM, we determine the critical path in the
project duration, and now we should realize that although we.. we have.. we have a
project duration, but this duration is not a single value, but it is the mean of the normally
distributed project duration. So, when we did CPM, we did not have any more
information other than the single value. Here we have not just a single value, but that
single value represents the mean of the normally distributed project duration. So, this is
the very important aspect.
We now go to step 6, here we have to calculate the sum of variances of activities on the
critical path. So, this I will illustrate in the example. So, we take once we can calculate
the variances, we take the sum the variance only along the critical path, and this sum is
actually the variance of the normally distributed project duration. So, in the earlier step
we found the mean, and here we found the variance and from the variance, we find the
standard deviation, now we have actually characterized the project duration as a normal
distribution with a mean value and the variance.
So, once we have characterized the normal distribution of the mean value and variance,
we are, we'll be able to use a normal the z value tables, to calculate either the probability
values associated with a given distribution or the duration values associated with a
probability, this also we will illustrate in the example as to how these are done. But
basically, these 5 steps form the core of... these seven steps from the core of your PERT
procedure.
Lecture – 53
Lesson - 05
PERT Example Problem – Summary
So, let us workout an example here, so here we have like we said the inputs are as
activities, so here we have activity A to H, given you the predecessor relationship here,
the optimistic duration in days, the most likely duration, the pessimistic duration. Now,
so this is your basic input information and what is asked from this, so what are the
questions we can ask when we given this. One is, we can look for the most likely project
duration, so that is one of the results we will have to get, we can certainly get what the
critical path is.
Now, here are some interesting questions which PERT will give you, we should be able
to ask, what is the probability that the project duration is greater than or equal to 95 days.
We could not ask such a question in CPM, or what is the probability that the project
duration is less than or equal to 85 days or what is the probability that the project
duration lies between 85 and 95 days or given that I want, given that my probability is
90%, what is my confidence of finishing my project at a 90% probability. What is the
duration I should finish my project with 90% probability?
So, all of these types of questions can be asked from your basic PERT data. Now, what
we have gone down here and done is we have actually put up the network, so this is the
same network, the activity predecessor relationship is used to put the network.
And we go on to the next step in PERT, which is to calculate the expected value. So, here
you can see I have used this formula to calculate the values in this column and you will
be able to associate it. So, if I take for example 15.7 here, A is 10 plus 4 into 16 plus 20
divided by 6 gives me 15.7 which is the expected value. Similarly, I have given you..
worked it out for E here; that is 25 plus 4 into 30 plus 32 gives you 29.5.
So, you have calculated similarly for all the other activities, calculate expected duration
and then, we move on to calculating the standard deviation for the activities. So, here we
apply this formula and what we get here again is for, , the activity A, we have basically
set B minus A which is 20 minus 10 divided by 6. So, this gives me, it is a rounded of the
value of the standard deviation of the activities and from the standard deviation we
square it to get the variance values for each of the activities. So, with this the table of, we
have taken the basic input data, convert it to expected duration, the standard deviation
and finally, the variance of the activities.
Now, in the next step what we do is, like we discussed in the step-wise procedure, we
take the expected values. So, for example, A is 15.7 here, for B 11.2 comes there, for C
6.8 comes there, for D it is 18, we have just used the expected values as the basic
duration of the activity and we have done the forward pass and the backwards pass.
So, you will get the early start, the early finish for all of the activities, you can see it is
the early start, early finish and some of these values are rounded, rounded off. So, you
might not, you will see, based on what it is not exactly, what it is, it is a rounded off
value which I have here and when you add the activities, so if I look at this you can take
a guess at what the critical path is, you should be able to do that.
But, ultimately we land up with the project duration of H finishes on 89 and that is a
project duration. We saying 89 days is the project duration, but like we discussed it is not
just the project duration, it happens to be the mean of the project duration, it happens to
be the mean of the normal distribution showing the project duration. Now, we do more
computations, so for example, we can take we can find the critical paths, so you can see
the critical path goes through A B E G H.
And now, like we discussed earlier, I will have to find the variance of this 89 being the
mean, what is the variance of this distribution. We remember it is the sum of the
variances. So, I have to take the sum of the variance of A B E G H and sum it up and I
get a total variance of 10.44, so that is the variance along this path and I take the square
root of that to get the standard deviation as 3.2.
So, my project duration now is defined as a normal distribution with a mean of 89 and
the standard deviation of 3.2. So, this has characterised my project duration, the
distribution by giving the mean and it is the standard deviation. So, now, we go further,
so this has given me, so this is really the core of PERT, all of the assumptions we have
used, everything has now been applied and we are now, to be able to use this data to
answer questions we are basically using basic probability and statistics approaches,
which is to read the values of a normal curve. But up to here is where PERT contribution
has been done.
Now, you might.. you have to.. like we discussed in the initial part of this lecture, be
familiar how to read a normal distribution value; the z values. So, here you have, I gave
you the curve.. the table in two parts; one part you can see the distribution here and it
gives you the area for this level of the area. So, here given a certain distance of z from
the mean, what is the area under the curve is described here.
Here it gives you the, shows the shaded area and discusses what the shaded area is based
on the distance again from the mean. Now, you should be familiar with how to interpret
these two and we will use, we will be using this curves for further analysis.
So, remember the first one of the other questions we asked in the, from a probabilistic
perspective, what is the probability that the project duration is more than 95 days or it is
greater than or equal to 95 days. So, if we take, so, remember, so this is back to a normal
distribution of project duration, we had a mean of 89, we had a standard deviation of 3.2
and we have now looked at the standard deviation here.
So, we have one first standard deviation, second, third and we have now , the values
here are the days to which the, for the corresponding standard deviation, so these are the
project duration days. So, when we say that project duration of 95 days, it falls
somewhere here. So, to find the probability of that, basically what we are saying is, what
is the area of this, this shaded part of the curve.
So, my 95 days is here and for the project duration to be greater than 95 it has to fall in
this area, so what is the area of this part of the curve. So, we go to the tables, as you
have to go to the tables, but to go to the table we really have to first find what the z value
here, yes. So, the z is actually the number of standard deviations from the mean, so here
we have 95 as the mean.
So, we have basically, I am sorry, 95 as a value, we have 89 as the mean, I am basically

using just formula which says, it is a value minus mean divided by sigma is the z value
1.88 and what we do is, so the 1.88 is right here; that is the distance from the mean. It is
1.88 standard deviations from the distance from the mean; that is where 95 days in this
normal curve.
And I actually go to the normal table and look at 1.88, so here we have the table 1.88,
1.88 and I get the value 0.9699, which is now you can see 0.9699 represents this whole
area. So, the area I want is the area beyond that, which will be 1 minus 1.9699, so the
probability of project duration being greater than or equal to 95 is 0.0301. So, I hope you
followed how that computation was done to be able to get this value, but basically, what
we are doing is, transforming the 95 into the number of standard deviations away from
the mean and using that to go to the normal distribution table to find the probability
value.
Now, we had another question which was what is the probability that the project duration
is less than or equal to 85 days. So, it is the same process we follow but remember now
the shaded area we want is this; that is the probability we are looking for is the
probability that the project duration is less than 85 days less than or equal to 85 days.
So, when we go with this, we are again applying the same formula here; that is we are
looking at 85 minus 89, because the value of x is 85, the value of the mean is mean 89
divided by the standard deviation, so this is that minus 1.25 standard deviations away
from the mean, so that is the value of x from the mean.
And now I go to the normal table with this portion shaded and you can see I am looking
at -1.25 and I get 0.1056. So, 0.1056 is the shaded area, so I can read this directly off, so
the probability of the project duration being less than or equal to 85 is 0.1056. So, this is
again very similar to the earlier question, it is just that the area shaded is different and I
will have to use the appropriate distribution curve to read it directly off.
I could use the other normal distribution table also, but it, I will have to do a little, few
more operations to get to this number. So, we can use both tables or you can use one of
the tables, but you should be familiar as to how to use it effectively.
Now, we go to the third probability question which was, what is the probability the
project duration lies between 85 and 95. So the shaded area here is again, what is
represented by this relation. So, we want the probability it lie between it should be
greater than an equal to 85 and less than or equal to 95 and this shaded area we can
calculate from are earlier values. We had, remember this was we got this was a point this
area here was 0.0301 the area here was 0.1056 and now we know they area under the
whole curve is 1.
So, if we subtract one from, I mean to subtract from 1 these to area we will get the
resulting area which is shaded here, which is 0.848643. So, we are saying the probability
of the project duration lying between these to values is 0.8643. So, you can see that we
have started answering probabilistic based questions based from project prospectus.
Now, we come to different questions, so here I am giving you a probability. I am saying

that I want to know within what duration my project can be completed and I want the 90
percent the certain that it'll be completed in that duration. So how do we do this? So,
basically, if we go back to the normal curve, we can see that what we want is, the shaded
area is here it shows 90 percent of the area shaded and what we want to know is find the
duration for which this 90 percent of this area would be covered.
So, we have to a work it the other way, so if we actually take, for example, the typical
normal distribution with percentages of areas given. So, you can see the first.. that the
stand the, so we have divided into 1, 2, 3 standard deviations and 3 standard deviations in
this end first 2% of the area and this area is 14% and this area is 34%. So, as you
cumulative you get 2, 16, 50 you can see 84 and mean am saying 90 90 it should less on
or equal to 90 we are looking at, close away, I mean not it should be a when we say we
want a 90 percent certainty, we are looking at somewhere between 84 and 98, which is
what we show between the first between one and second standard deviation and that is,
what we are kind of highlighted here.
So, we are now trying to find the value at.. of the that.. how many standard deviations
first we have found is this point from the mean and then, the convert the standard
deviation into the duration.
So, the first step here is to be able to see where we are as far as the number of standard
deviations we are from it. So, we look at we go for the 90 percent of the 0.90, so I do not
have a 0.90 exactly, but I have a 0.9015 and a 0.8997; so obviously, 0.90 will lie between
these two values and what have to do is do is an interpolation. So, here we find of this is
the equivalent of the one point between 1.2 and 1.29 lies my 90 value. So, we just do an
interpolation, we can see the basic interpolation formulation here, which is we typical
interpolation formulation, which you can do.
And we will find that when we were solve.. when we kind of solve this value is so many
standard deviations from the mean. Now, what we need do is convert that in to a duration
which we have be to able to say, so the duration basically is 89 plus so many standard
deviations multiplied by the standard deviations as the duration of which have 90 percent
chance of finish in the project with it. So, given that if I am 90 percent confident that I
will finish the project will 92.87 days.
So, this has given in illustration is to how both the normal distribution of project duration
can be used both, not only to estimate the duration given a particular probability, but also
the probability given a particular duration.
So, if you look at a summary of the results from the examples, so we can see that we
took the basic information, we can we added the expected value, the way mean, the
standard deviation, the variance, we use the expected value here to calculate the expected
project duration that we came the mean for our normal distribution. We found the
variance of the normal distribution, then converted that to the standard deviation, through
the characterizing in a normal distribution we were able to get all of these values which
step by step.
Now, in addition to this floats just as we did in CPM, floats and other things can also be
calculated, but we are not getting into that in this session. So, now, I hope this has given
a broad perspective on how enough we can do PERT calculations and enough involved,
but an interesting question we can ask from doing PERT certainly add a lot of, can a lot
of insights into how the project is going to go and we will able to map the uncertainties
and all the other issues with it.
Now, we had looked at probabilistic scheduling, right now, we went to it detail from the
exPERT opinion and PERT perspective, but do realise the data-driven prospective is also
very important and it can really add a lot of value to a project whether the data exist. And
between simulation and PERT, PERT was very popular, it is really a very good
methodical technique, but with computing power increasing more and more, people are
shifting to simulation-based techniques.
One of the key reason of that is PERT that several assumptions and we saw several these
assumptions and these assumptions certainly limit the value of the results from PERT,
but while the value in the results in limited there is a lot of value still in PERT to be able
to get experts together, get the team together to quantify their risks, to articulate what the
risks actually are, that is lot of benefit in that.
And as we have seen PERT can be use generates several interesting results and as we go
forward I think the introduction to PERT is really useful, because it teaches you do thinks
in terms of probability, think in terms of project duration or project events and the
probability that is a associated with it. In CPM we never had a chance to do that, so here
in becomes introduction to probabilistic thinking for projects which has very, very
important in managing projects. So, if you have questions and discussions please post
them online and we will take it up as you post it.
Thank you.
Lecture - 54
Course Conclusion
Hello everyone, welcome to this concluding lecture of this class. In this session, what I
thought is we would first summarise the highlights of the course. So, we have covered
several areas in project planning, and control. I thought I would go through those so that
we could review some of the topics we have done. I will then move on to covering some
of the emergent trends and tools in project planning. I thought this would be useful
especially for those of you, who all are looking for project topics, and you know want to
kind of explore some new areas, certainly we have seen there are challenges in the way
CPM, PDM, and these resource planning and all of these tools are used, but let us also
get flavor of what are the currently emerging tools in research and in industry.
And then, we have special guest Prof. Raghavan, who will give us his perspective on
planning, he is a very experienced industry professional, and we will have a brief talk by
him on what he feels are the industry perspectives on planning and scheduling issues.
Finally, I think most of you will be keen to discuss what the pattern of the exam will be
and I will briefly cover, what is the mark allocation for the topics. So, you will help you
in preparing for the exam, and finally the acknowledgements in running the program.
So, looking at the course highlights, you know, the topics we covered, if we go back to
week one, you will recall we introduced what project management was, we talked about
the art and science of project management, and these concepts are still very important,
because now when we are at the end of the course, when you look back, we really
learned a lot of detailed issues, we tried to make project management or project planning
and control more of a science, but you had to kind of reflect and see how much of
subjectivity was still there. Are we able to make it pure science or are there still art issues
in there.
So, this is something you can reflect back now, and this topic is very important, because
a lot of what we learn in project management, we have to understand the balance. We
look at the objectives of a project, we discussed that with reference to these objectives,
we are primarily looking at time and cost issues in this course, but certainly the other
objectives such as safety, quality, the environment are also very, very important; need to
be managed effectively for project success. We, then looked at some of the broad issues
facing the Indian construction industry, the impact it has on national growth, we talked
about broadly about project stakeholders, the phases of the project and it is important for
you all to understand this, to put the context of where planning is, in the project. And
then finally, we talked about scheduling levels in this course, and then in this session and
then responsibilities of scheduling engineer, and now that you have covered several of
the tasks a scheduling engineer does, I hope you have more detail ideas on what are these
levels and how the effect.
When we went on to week 2, we actually started on some of the basic tools. We primarily
looked at time management, we looked at how time can be managed with various types
of tools. We've covered some simple tools, and then we primarily looked at the Gantt
chart or the bar chart which is widely used in industry. But before we actually started
identifying activities for the Gantt chart, we said that we have to work, we have to
develop work breakdown structure or WBS, and we have actually had gone through kind
of what should be the aspects of a WBS, how do we identify areas, activities, options.
And now we will again when you come to this to the end of the course, you will realise
that when you can kind of a get feel that if you do not identify the activities correctly, all
the analysis is meaningless; For planning requirements and for control requirements.
So, starting with WBS is very important and getting proper activity breakdown is critical.
We looked at, certainly we looked at more details into the bar chart, and I think most of
you should be very familiar with drawing a bar chart or interpreting a bar chart, we
looked at historically how bar chart was used to represent much more information than
that is available today. But with the current tools, you know even the software or even
CPM, we still go back to the bar chart to communicate information effectively. So, this
was what we are covered in week 2.
When we went to week 3, we started with the activity duration estimation, we went into
fair amount of detail on how we estimate duration, either from: given the resources, how
do we estimate what is required or we based on a given duration, we estimate how
resources and how much productivity is required to achieve the duration. We then went
into basics of network, we introduced how a network represents a project, we primarily
use the activity on node approach, and then we did basic network techniques, and how
we actually get results of the network which can be represented in a bar chart.
When we went into week 4, we then actually went more in depth into network
representation and analysis, we in addition to the early start, early finish, late start, late
finish, you know, we talked about the floats, the various types of floats, and how floats
are used for decision-making. We gave simple examples you know which is should be
familiar with what we called ABCD examples, and they are basically to illustrate the
concept and you know, get your basic procedure right.
And then, we scaled it to a really a small project, but what we called the 2 span bridge
problem, and we apply all of this concept to the 2 span bridge problem. And judging by
all the discussions that were posted on the forum on the 2 span bridge, it looks like
people you know, took this up well, identified you are able to kind of relate to the
concepts, and several good questions were asked, and we hope we provided answers to
these which you know resolved the issues. But like we said during the lecture, that total
span bridge, we only illustrated one way it could be done with certainly, with a lot of
assumptions. When you get to the field and you have to implement, there will be
alternate methods, alternate ways, and it network will represent generally what is
happening, but did not represent in detail, what is happening in the 2 span bridge.
When we went to week 5, we introduced the concept of time cost trade off or we call
crashing, again we introduced the simple project ABCD project, and when there are steps
of crashing, we went to from the basic concept we used the tabulation approach to be
able to systematically do crashing, and then we also considered factors such as bonus and
penalty and basically the duration when the total cost is minimum, all these concepts
were covered, and I think most of you have done problems on this well, and we got some
feedback on some other issues which were which were I think hopefully clarified.
Week 6, we moved on to resource scheduling. So, this is an important area, we covered

several aspects of resource scheduling. We started with very, very basic elements as how
load resource, how to allocate a resource, we looked at the over-allocation problem, we
look at cumulative resource graphs, you know specific weekly or specific duration
resource graphs. We then talked about the over-allocation issue and how over-allocation
can be resolved, basically using floats. So, these are important concepts. We then went
on to resource profiling, specifically, resource levelling, and in this, we talked about
levelling both from an intuitive perspective, and then we introduce the concept of the
minimum moment and the improvement factor in order to be able to assist if a resource
histogram was at a proper position of levelling or not. And we looked at, we made this
assumption that rectangular profile is what we want, and we looked at generating this
improvement factor which gave us whether there was any improvement when we shifted
resources.
Now, we went on to week 7 then and here we introduced the precedence diagram
method, which is, which we, which is available in lot of the software and people do tend
to use it, we then looked at how the precedence diagramming method can really, unless it
is represented properly, there can be issues with it. So, we looked at network calculations
with it as well as problems and issues that are, that come when we use a PDM. And we
looked at, you know, some of the critical issues such as negative lags, and you know,
how we should avoid negative lags, we looked at precedence diagramming method with
just, you know, sometimes just single start-start and finish-finish and discuss the
problems with that. We went on to discuss, you know, continuous duration type PDM or
non-continuous duration and the issues with each type. We then went on to also
discussed different types of floats which were with the PDM, this we talked about finish
float, start float, relationship float; these are all again, you know they are not widely
discussed in practice, but they were very critical if you choose to use to PDM and all the
features of PDM to represent project, you have to know these things in detail.
In the same week, we also start at the concept of project monitoring which is very
important. We reviewed, you know the BIS standard, and how it, the process it had for
project monitoring. We then actually went to the micro level and, you know, using some
examples showed, how the percentage complete is what is basically required to do
effective project monitoring, and how we calculate percentage complete with different
methods and how each method can actually give us various answers. So, this is certainly
any issue which is a practical issue, because if the planning team or the execution team
does not use that appropriate method, you will not be able to get a proper reflection of
what is happening the progress lets happening on the field.
And then in this week we started with earned value analysis. So, we extended the project
monitoring and control issue to a higher level. Now we moved from the micro plan and
micro plan to more the management level where earned value analysis is used. We
looked at how percentage complete of the project can be computed, you know you not
just percentage complete of an activity, but of the whole project and how earned value
analysis approach is useful for that. We then talked about cost and schedule performance
indicators, these tend to be extremely important and today they are the way, they are the
means by which a project manager would actually, kind of make a quick assessment of
what the status of the project is. We also looked at how these earned value indicators are
not only applicable at the project level but also the work package level, we kind of
looked at how forecasts can be developed based on these earned value indicators and
some of the examples illustrated how these concepts can be applied.
We then went on to the topic of uncertainty in project schedules, this again is very large
area, you know, risk and uncertainty are huge area and project management which is
evolving and as tools become more sophisticated, we are really able to quantify, and
more scientifically managed risks in projects - construction projects, but we basically
covered the PERT technique which is you know historic historically the first, the strong
technique which was applied from probabilistic perspective, we look at the background
and the assumptions of PERT, we found that there were several assumptions which are
limited use of PERT, but still it was a very powerful technique which allows the planning
team to be able to assist, and give probabilistic estimates for the project duration.
Now we went through also a step by the procedure for PERT, which you know kind of
takes you through and we took you to an example which illustrated how we calculated
various parameters from PERT. And with that you have actually come to all the topics we
have kind of highlighted through this course, and you know we really looked at several
of the discussion points raised by several of you, and there were very good points and
like I said earlier I have hope we have addressed these satisfactorily. You know, if there
are any points do raise it, because I think the interaction on the forum has been extremely
good.
Lecture – 55
Lesson - 07
Emerging Trends or Tools in Project Planning
Now, what I would like to do in this session is to actually touch upon some of the
emerging trends and tools in Project Planning. So, we have basically covered CPM, CPM
based techniques, we touched a little bit about on PERT, but there are many extensions to
this. So, I have listed some of the extensions, which kind of or have been active in some
of our work at IIT Madras. So, here we have you know I will touch a little bit upon
location based management system, I will explain the concept of what it is and how it is
becoming relevant today.
I think many of you would have heard a 4D Scheduling with Building Information
Models. So, this is also another extension to scheduling and where CPM is getting
integrated with CAD or BIM to be able to do very, very innovative things. We will talk
about a Design Structure Matrix, which might be new to many of you, but this is
something which we've have been exploring for a few years, I will talk a little bit about
that.
I mentioned a lot about simulation during the probabilistic scheduling part, I will give a
very brief introduction to what simulation is capable of. Similarly, for Critical Chain
Project Management or CCPM, the approach is different from a typical CPM and we
know many, many companies now go into CCPM as a method to be able to manage
projects. I will also briefly touch on Lean Construction, which is based on manufacturing
principles.
So, when we go into location based planning, basically so far when we did CPM we did
not take location explicitly into account. We did not talk about what is the construction
path is going to be, we just talk activities and started solving activity-based times. We
looked at early start early finish, we looked at resources, but actually location and spaces
is also an important resource.
So, what location based planning does is, actually try to bring in the space resource
explicitly into your plan or schedule and this is not very easy, unless you have
appropriate tools to do it and today, tools are becoming available to do what we called
LBMS very, very systematically. So, you might have heard of this technique called LSM
or Linear Scheduling Method, which is primarily used for linear project such as roads or
pipelines or railway lines.
Now, the LBMS is based on linear scheduling method techniques.
But before, so you can see this is basically what a location based plan looks like. You
have location on the y axis here, you have duration on the x axis; that is time basically
and each of the tasks have to go through a particular location at a particular time. So, this
is what is illustrated by these lines. So, you can see various task 1, task 2, task 3, task 4
and as the task goes through a location at a time, the space relationship between tasks are
also specified. So, you can see here, the task 2 has to follow task 1.
So, once task 1 moves out of space A, task 2 starts, so the space relationship is also
bound. Now; obviously, in addition to space relationship I would like to bring in any
predecessor relationship, which is the part of these task which can be done using CPM.
So, several of the tools today use both the space relationship as well as the logical
relationship between activities to be able to do, what you will call LBMS.
Now, without tools like this, ((Refer Time: 04:03)) this is what today you know our site
planners or engineers do in terms of actually taking a plan and giving, say week 1, week
2 a particular day and marking in which location, what will happen. So, for example,
here your wall reinforcement will happen on these two days and they actually mark
where the wall reinforcement is going to go or wall formwork on all of these days and
they are going to mark, where they going to go. So, this is a very, very effective way, but
it does not give you the help of a software tool or of a very structured approach.
So, if you are a good planner, you might do this, but there are several limitations,
specifically that is very difficult for you to keep track of things. So, here we have a much
more detailed look at, what is, where the wall reinforcement is being planned and where
the wall formwork is being planned and all of these. So this is probably location based
planning without the modern tools of today.
(Refer Slide Time: 05:07
So, the modern tools ((Refer Time: 05:04)), what we explained were represented like
this, but you can also have far more detail representations. So, I am not going to get into
the details of several of the terminology you see here, but I just wanted to put up this
slide to show that location based planning is not just a series of lines, but can be having a
lot of planning parameters associated with it. So, here you can see the location now is
you have tower 1, tower 2, you have floor 1, floor 2, floor 3, roof. So, what we call, this
is a Location Breakdown Structure or LBS.
So, when we do location based planning, you have a location breakdown structure as
well as a work breakdown structure, which have to integrate and do. And you might
agree with me; that is how actually work gets done, work gets done at a location with a
specific activity, so both, integration of both takes place in LBMS.
So, here is another illustration is to how complex an LBMS can actually look and this
cannot be done without the help of appropriate tools.
And like I said today, sophisticated tools are available for you to be able to manage this.
So, when we compare LB, location based scheduling with verses CPM, the main
difference is, it certainly provides a location data which we discussed earlier and we need
work division through a location breakdown structure. So, the integration of the location
breakdown and work breakdown is a key element of the LBMS, while CPM emphasizes
duration, critical path and activity times, LBMS looks at physical locations and it looks
at production.
So, LBMS is looking at production at the micro level, at the work phase level, which is
what makes this a good tool to compliment CPM. Because, like we discussed earlier
CPM looks at the macro level, LBS also brings at the micro level. So, this is the tool
worth exploring, you know and you know if it, you know some of you might want to
understand this better and explore it further.
So, this is another tool which is very popular today, it is 4D scheduling, you can use
either CAD or BIM and you know, most of the leading industries have shifted to BIM for
the use of this and all of you would have used CAD in some form or the other. So, what
4D does is, it integrates the 3D of CAD, our building information models with your
regular schedule. You can see here, you have a bar chart here.
So, I would have a schedule of my construction integrated. So, for example if I is going
to install this window to a certain time, my activity for window would be here, but my
graphic would be here and there would be a link. So, when it comes time to install that
window, that link the window the graphic of the window will appear. So, that is why it is
called 4D scheduling and it is an integrated model as we, as you would call it.
Now, there is a lot I can talk about building information models, but this is not the course
for it, but this is another a big trend in the industry and it is something which, you know
information is available to you all, you should probably read up. It is going to be a trend
setter and big change in the construction industry is going to be brought about through
the usage of BIM. Now, I have a small video here to kind of illustrates what a 4D
scheduling can be ((Refer Time: 08:34)). So, these have different levels of detail. So, for
example, here you can show this is actually at a very great level, you are seeing
operation level of detail here, the operation level of time is brought about here.
You can see equipment moving, you can see trucks moving, the state of the art in terms
of research might be at this certainly in practice, very few industries use it at this
operation level of detail. But as we go further, might be here you can see the sequence of
operations for a particular schedule, how the structures going up for the cladding.
Here we have back to an operation, where you can see the sequence again; how
earthwork is done, and where the excavators are located. So, a lot of times more than
actually, that the time base precision, which such 4D schedules offer, it is just the
visualization. When a team visualizes what is happening, you find that they are able to
coordinate things much better and this is, what is one of the primary benefits of 4D
scheduling.
So, here I am going to skim through, there are several examples in this video and I have
given a reference to where you can download it, watch the full video. But, this is just an
example of integrating time and three dimensional geometry to be able to visualize
sequences. Now, it is not just sequences we would want to visualize, it is also the specific
durations of sequences. Now, here I have an example of the GFRG building, which we
are doing at IIT.
So, here is the sequence in which the GFRG building has been put up. So, in addition to
this sequence which you cannot see it here, but we have specific calendar times on which
each panel is going to be erected and put, not only calendar time, but also specific time
and duration. So, this would give a very detailed 4D schedule for the project. Now, we
can do, I do not have an animation to show here, but they can do an animation of this,
where you will see day and time at which a particular panel is going to be erected.
So, I am almost making construction like a manufacturing process. I am able to plan to

that level of detail in this particular structure, because it is a prefab structure, where I am
primarily have to assemble it. This is of course, once the foundation is in place. Now,
there is a lot to again cover on 4D scheduling and it is something, if it is of your interest,
please refer and read up more on it, so that you can learn further on this interesting area.
I now move on to an area which is not so much applied in practice, but it is still a very,
very interesting area and this is called the dependency structure matrix. Now, you can see
that this is the DSM as we call it. You know it is, I have also used the term Design
Structure Matrix. Now, primarily the utilization of a DSM is for design management,
more than construction management it is used in the design phase for design
management and that is a particular reason why, you know when we looked at CPM one
of the factors you remember is that the CPM was, it could not take feedback loops.
Remember, here E depends on B, but B cannot depend on E again. If we have a feedback

like this, our CPM algorithm does not do any, we cannot apply the CPM technique. So,
then what in the design structure matrix, but we know that design is an iterative process,
the design is not just a one-time process for each item, we have to iterate and design. So,
there will be iteration or information exchanges between B and E and only then, the
design should be able to progress properly.
So, what the design structure matrix does is, it takes a network representation like this, it
allows you for, you know, for relationships across feedback relationships and this whole
network which we are familiar with, now it is represented in the form of a matrix. So,
here you can see, the same wherever there is a relationship there is x mark and you can
see that, where there is a feedback loop, the x mark is above the diagonal, where all the
loops of all the relationships are feed forward, the x mark is below the diagonal.
So, this gives the clue to the design team as to, where there are feedback loops, how the
feedback loops should be managed and things like that. I will give a little bit more this,
but certainly when you compare with the network and a matrix, you will find that the
matrix representation is much easier to kind of draw and to understand and certainly
when we talk about, we all learnt matrix algebra you know, and in the DSM we are able
to use matrix like operations to get a lot of information on the dependencies between
design teams.
So, as we go in there are several operations we can perform with the DSM, I have just
given this for reference, I am not going to get into the detail of this.

But ultimately what we will do with a DSM is to find design groups that should work
together. So, here there is an operation, you know could be calling clustering where the
design teams are working. So, we have identified the design clusters that should take
place which… So, basically we are saying between the cluster here and the cluster here,
within this cluster there is a lot of interdependency and information exchange, similarly
within this cluster, which means I should ensure as a design manager that this group
works closely together and this group also works closely together and then, they can
independently give information as you can see, this group will then give information to
this.
So, design structure matrix basically results in design team formulation and coordination
between design, activities and design entities. Now, again I've given you a reference
here, which you might want to go to if you are interested in this area.
We talked about simulation when we talked about probabilistic scheduling. This is not a
new area, it is been in, it is been a part of construction management research since 70’s.
Some of the early years of construction management, the simulation was a very, very hot
research topic and it still continues, we have research hot research topic because of the
computational capabilities today. So, early years we were focused on you know just
getting the computers to do basic simulation and illustrating that the concept is possible.
Today we have moved on to trying to really get decision making and practical results
from simulation models. I have again given a reference which gives a lead to a lot of
other papers, I think on a simulation which will be of interest. What I have shown here is
a basic simulation model and this is the ABCD project which we had. I have just made a
simulation model, you can see the model consists of you know activities here.
There are queues and you will have entities, which will flow through the queues, wait,
you know the activity gets performed and like we discussed in the last class, the
simulation is around several thousand times, it is like simulating the project 1000 times
and then data is obtained from the several runs and then, we make decisions based on
statistics on how the project is progressing. Again, please go to the references, if this is
an area of interest here.
Now, critical chain project management is again been a very, very current topic. Many
large corporations say they have moved from CPM based planning to CCPM based
planning because it is more practical and they are able to get better results from it. So,
this was initiated by a gentleman called Eliyahu M Goldratt and his book called Critical
Chain has been a best seller and he actually writes books, which are very, very easy to
read and really gets management concepts in very systematically.
Now, he, in these books he addressed several issues and project situations which are not
addressed by CPM. You know his main focus is on resources like on CPM we focus on
activities, here he focuses on resources, how to manage resources and how to create
different buffers around resources, so that the project, the critical elements of the projects
get delivered. Again to implement CCPM you need software tools and they are also
available in the market today.
Finally, I want to touch on this topic of lean project delivery. So, this is something again
a group at IIT Madras is working on in terms of advanced techniques and this was
something which… If you ask a manufacturing engineer about lean, they will say yes it
has a lot to do the Toyota production system and the manufacturing industries embrace
lean concepts really well. I mean they have really taken it into many of, to optimise
many of their production systems.The challenge has been how do we take a process like
a tool and implement it on a project site. So, that's been the challenge we are facing and
if you recall in our discussion on project and process management in the early lecture,
we said that projects also have processes in that. So, one of the challenges of lean is
actually to structure your project more like a process and then start to be able to be more
effective in the process and the key element of lean in, once you make it a processes, is
to eliminate waste and there are several types of waste, so which need to be eliminated
and once you make it more like a process, you are able to identify and eliminate waste.
So, this is the core of lean and as we have kind of given you, shown you here, lean is not
just in construction, but you have lean in the project definition phase, in the design
phase, the supply phase, the assembly or construction phase and the final operation, use
and maintenance phase. So, lean is a holistic concept, it tends to be more of a
management philosophy kind of an approach than a technical tool kind of approach, but
again very interesting very comprehensive in it is approach and those of you are
interested and exploring more management type concepts, you can look at LCI here as a
lot of information on lean construction.
Lecture – 56
Lesson – 08
Industry Perspective Prof. N. Raghavan
Okay, now, we move on to this very interesting talk by Professor N. Raghavan. I would
like to introduce Professor N. Raghavan briefly. He is a colleague of us, he is an adjunct
Professor here at IIT Madras, works closely with us and he brings in tremendous industry
experience. As you can see, he in addition to being a director of several companies, he is
the retired head of Hydel and nuclear sector in Larsen & Toubro.
So, Professor Raghavan was heading this before he retired and joined IIT Madras as an
adjunct faculty. He was a chief executive at L&T Ramboll, he established L&T Ramboll
in this, in its initial year, he headed it. He was also a principal consultant in STUP and he
has been both in the structural design side, the Geotechnical design side, the project
execution and delivery side. He has been in several, several projects, got a lot of
experience, he was awarded the Joshi Memorial Award for Excellence in Bridges and
Structures.
His B.Tech was from IIT Madras in 1970 and M.Tech from IIT Bombay, he has several
technical articles and presentation and like I said, he has been associated with several
projects over his career span and he is still associated with several projects. So, I
welcome Professor Raghavan to join us and give us his perspectives on planning in the
industry.
Greetings Dr. Koshy Varghese, it is very interesting to note that you know we are
recording a course on Project Planning and Control and thank you for inviting me to
share my views on the planning and planning concepts. Planning, of course, is very
interesting and very useful tool for project management and like all other tools and
techniques, it depends on the people who are applying it.
So, the planning department has a considerable significance and importance in the
management of any project. I would like to share my views on some of the issues raised
by you. I will take up the issues one by one and try to give whatever I feel on, on these
issues.
The first one you mentioned about the, you mention the role of a planning engineer or
the planning team in the construction project. It is a vast role actually.
In any site, if you see, the triangulate of the project manager, the planning manager and
the accounts/administration manager, this team actually controls the project execution
quite closely and they actually shape the outcome of the project and influence it quite a
lot. So, the planning manager is a very important person in the project management team.
((Refer Time: 03:21))
If you look at the amount of kind of work what you know he does, right from assessing
the quantum of work to be done, understanding the contract document regarding the
scope and the various terms and condition, planning the construction methods, then the
actual scheduling part, covering the bill of quantities, work breakdown structure, the
productivities, sequencing, milestones and the final timelines.
Planning all the resources, staff, labour, materials, planning and plant and equipment,
specialist agencies and so on and then, the billing, clients billing as well as the
subcontractors billing and very importantly the project financials, the invoicing, the
costs, cash flow or return on capital employed and so on. Then, the risk planning part,
very useful tool in the modern context, covering the risk matrix and the risk mitigation
and management as well as the HSE, the safety aspects and the quality assurance and
control. So, there is a wide gamut of work which the planning manager has to cover with
the help of his team.
And if you look at what kind of skills a planning engineer or the planning people have to
have, it's again quite comprehensive. Apart from the basic technical skills, he has to, of
course, know the scheduling aspects and the managerial site, the financial management,
the human relation management covering the communication skills and interpersonal
relationships, risk management, the contracts management.
And to some extent, the administrative aspects and the organisational aspects also have
to be covered. All in all, the planning manager has to have a wide range of skills which
have to be applied to the project in varying degrees at various stages.
Specifically, he has to have a good knowledge of construction projects, how they are
managed, preferably those similar to the one on hand, what kind of specific project we
are talking about, how the project is managed. He also needs to have a reasonably good
appreciation of the basic design aspects, the construction methods, scheduling concepts
and the software like Primavera or MS projects, the construction management aspects,
financials and so on.
Some of these aspects, he has to have in depth knowledge of the scheduling and some of
them, you know, he may need to have at least the basic concepts. But, all in all, what
works well is to have an integrated management aspect covering right from the
engineering, the construction aspects, the methods and the managerial aspects. So, he has
to cover a wide spectrum and the broader the knowledge he has, the better it is for
managing and planning projects.
I like to show these slides, this shows the many dimensions of project management and
planning. The management and planning team at the site has to actually cover a wide
range of skills, right from developing the project, preparing the project, contract
management, engineering, planning, methods, equipment, materials and supply chain
management, the personnel, financials, quality, safety and finally, of course, the client
management.
I always like to say that the managing a project is much more complex than managing a
typical business in the commercial management area.

The next one you are asking me about, a project which was managed quite well and
which ran well on account of the good planning. I can think of a gas based power project
we had done some time back as an associate with an international contractor. That went
on quite well, I think basically because we had a good project manager and a good
planning team also. They had a good idea of the engineering and procurement inputs,
which have to come from the outside agencies like supplying the main equipment and
the other materials and so on.
So, with this, they were able to tie up the agencies for the erection and the civil works
well in advance and then also brief them properly on the actual work to be done. The
sequencing of the receipt of materials and deploying them on the project, you know, the
erection and commissioning and so on, that was planned quite well and well
synchronised with the various stakeholders.
So, the planning the good planning which was done in the beginning, regarded to the
supply chain management, the various agencies involved in doing a complex projects
like that, that thing that was what carried the project at the end of the day and with good
liaising with, the companies own headquarters, they were also able to get the major
equipment well in time along with good teams.
And the project manager and planning manager were having good interpersonal
relationships. So, the entire site team was welded quite well and synchronised properly
for doing the project effectively and also the mobilisation and demobilisation were done
quite well in time. So, the deployment of resources at the site proper was managed quite
well through, with minimal cost and that led to the overall good control on the costs and
good profitability.
So, all in all, we completed the project on time; in fact, with some amount of saving in
time, even though we had some delays in some other supplies due to reasons beyond our
control and the final profit actually was more than what we had envisaged originally. The
safety record was so good that the international client, you know, we were very happy
with that and the quality also was top class and overall, even all the stakeholders you
know, the staff, the labor, the subcontractors and agencies they were all very happy with
the way the project was done.
And all in all, you know, people go back go home with a good feeling having done a
project like that. So, planning was actually a very key cornerstone for this project and
was executed quite well with the, by the planning department.
And on the other hand, what did not go well, we had a small hydropower project in one
of the states, that did not go well on account of a number of reasons. The contract
management was not good, then the initial investigations over a team had done was not
appropriate, so that the, resulting in the construction methods chosen were not fitting
well with the project. So, we had to make major changes and then again, the planning
department had not done that thorough investigation about the specialist agencies
required.
So, we had to change some of the agencies midstream and all these delays ended with,
you know a crucial amount of work having to be done with the water river in spate and
that leads to higher costs, more time and a general loss of morale and so on. And the
client management also was not done that well by the project manager and the planning
department and not good attention being paid to the final details.
So, with all these we ended up with about 20 to 25 percent delays in time and 40 percent,
think, appropriately less profits than what we had envisaged originally. So, this kind of
projects you like to forget afterwards, but we need to learn the lessons from them, so that
you know, in future we are able to improve and do the projects in a much better manner.
Another underground project we had done went on very well. We had an excellent
project manager and a planning manager. The initial team was not that well equipped, so
we have to make some changes in the people and also the choice of our associates. But,
having done that the final team actually delivered quite well, here I think I would cite the
team working as the main reason for the project having succeeded.
The planning manager and the project manager were able to get all the work
synchronised quite well with the remaining site people. A very high morale was
maintained all the time at the site, you know, they had a number of get-togethers at the
end of the day and other, you know team building exercises and so on. With all this, the
team worked very well, they choose the right methods and got the good equipment and
associated agencies and also have got a good support from the headquarters.
The clients having seen that this team was putting in the best of efforts, the client also
came forward to help as much as possible and there was a very high commitment
towards quality and safety. The client again was an international company and you know,
they place a lot of importance on the safety of the site. So, they are also very happy with
the way the safety work was being done and at the end of 3 years, we never had a single
accident in this very difficult project.
We had to actually go much deeper in the underground and carry out a lot of work by
drilling and blasting, but with all that there was not a single accident and the client was
extremely happy with all these. And all these staff and labour and the associates we had
on the project, they were all very happy at the end of the day and the planning team
actually had played a very crucial central role in all these.
And looking at the modern concepts such as the lean construction management concepts
this kind of management concepts, which plays good emphasis on adapting the
manufacturing concepts on to the construction projects. That I think has got a very good
role in India in the future, near future and you can use systems for the various aspects of
construction and that is again you know, is done better with a good planning department.
And orientation towards the production concept at the project management site, good
collaboration between the various teams and collective and inclusive working of all the
people at the site and continuous improvement, repeated brainstorming and supportive
working between all the teams at the site, developing innovative mindset, that is again a
very important aspect of the lean construction management which can help tremendously
for completing the work on time and within the cost.
Bringing the right culture of working, that is a very key concept for lean construction
management and the planning department can play a major role in this. Apart from the
various technical training, the planning department can also introduce HR kind of
training, so that the mindset of people can be improved towards having a productive way
of working and also the production orientation. Some other useful tools we had seen in
the recent past is, are the collaborative planning system, work sampling, value stream
improvement and so on, which have worked quite well to reduce the project time
duration as well as the costs.
So, with all this I would say the planning team has a very vital role to play at the site and
they can build, you know they can help in building the site team together to and properly
hone their skills and managerial inputs so that the overall project goes on quite well very
smoothly toward successful completion. That is what think, I can add towards the
planning and controls at your lecture, program.
Thank you.
Thank you, Professor Raghavan, for your talk.
I would now like to kind of summarise what, what it means to be a professional in terms
scheduling. So, there are things you can learn in the course, we teach to you the concepts
or you know, you are able to practice some concepts, might be you are able to translate
some other concepts you have learned into software and use the software tools. But,
when you actually become a scheduling professional or a planning professional, you
need to be able to get things from a professional perspective and there are organisations
for example, the Association for Advancement of Cost Engineering AACE International.
It is a leading organisation, which kind of takes concepts we have covered in this course
into practice and makes it from a practitioner perspective. So then they have a
certification, they have several certifications. So, if you are certified as a professional in
AACE, it means not only do you know your concepts properly, but you know the
application aspects of the concepts also well and your certifications are at several levels.
So, you go from a novice, a certified person to an expert certified person and you have to
certainly meet their requirements to be certified and they are one of the good agents,
professional groups to be a part of, if you want to be a professional in this area of
planning and scheduling. Another one, you might have heard of PMI, the Project
Management Institute, they have a scheduling professional; that is the PSP or the Project
Management Scheduling professional is a special certification addition to the PMP
certification, which they give which is helpful for scheduling professionals.
Now, what is the advantage of being a part of such professional bodies? Certainly, you
can you know, you have like minded professionals, you have people who are working on
the same problems, same issues and there is a lot of learning you get from experienced
people in the area. So, this is very important, these experienced people are not just doing
practice, but they have also got their concepts, they have tested the concepts, they have
adapted the concepts and there is a lot of learning that takes place and also as we know,
the software is important for this.
Several of you have asked for software, we will touch upon this little later, but the
software does keep changing. You know, whether it is Microsoft project or primavera,
the version every 2-year changes, features change and you have to be effective, you have
to be trained on the software, the latest features of the software. These agencies or these
institutions offer such kind of training and you know not only that, the network keeps
you abreast of what is happening in these fast paced areas too.
And they have certainly got journals and conferences which you attend, not only to gain
knowledge but also to contribute knowledge. If you have done something novel, you can
visit, you can go these conferences, present what you have done and you will get
feedback from other professionals in this area and similarly, networks to share, discuss if
I mean there are several online forums these groups have. That if we have issues in a
particular practical situation, others will actually discuss to help you out and see what
the, what, how would to solve a particular problem or issue.
So, these professional certifications are important and you know, in addition to being a
civil engineer if you actually look up on some of these, you will get an idea if this is an
attractive profession for you.
Lecture - 57
Final Exam Pattern, Acknowledgments
Now, we come to this issue; the final exam pattern, which I think most of you will be
certainly interested in. I think we have covered a lot of topics, and we have a, am kind of
going to go through the pattern here. So, we've actually allotted about 8 marks, so the
final exam about 8 marks of questions in the general category of general project
management, about 10 marks in the basics of critical path method, 10 marks in the cost
time trade-off, and we have given you the breakup of these further below. Further below
the breakup of the marks are there.
So, it gives you some idea of how to prepare for this final exam, and we certainly want
you to do well in the final, I think many of you have been doing extremely well on the
assignments. I think if you have worked through the assignments carefully by yourself,
understood the concepts, raise questions and discussion, I think the final exam should be
reasonably doable for everyone. We have resource allocation and levelling again 7 marks
for that, the precedence diagramming method, we have given about 5 marks for the
problems for that, monitoring and earned value again about 5 marks. I would say it tilted
more towards earned value concepts in 5 marks, because that is from a computation point
of view; that is very structured to do, in PERT again we have got about 5 marks of what,
of you know the basic concepts as well as a calculations which we went to in PERT. So
overall, this is the final exam pattern. I do not, I mean if you have, like I said if you have
prepared well for the assignments, and through the course you should not have a
problem, I would probably give you a hint in terms of saying that time cost trade off, you
remember, it is quite and involved process, you have to be very meticulous to make sure
you do not do, make any mistakes.
So, please do practice time cost trade off meticulously, because there will be, the
questions on that can take time. So, that is a clue for you to able to extremely well in the
exam because the time-cost trade-off can be challenging if you do not practice how to do
it properly.
Now, with this, I would like to get into the acknowledgement part of this course. The
people you see on the screen are the teaching assistants without whom this course would
not have been possible. And here we have Marimuthu who is a doctoral research scholar,
so he has been the anchor for this course, he has helped with all the editing, all the
detailed checking and several of questions on the forum as well as quizzes were done by
Marimuthu. And Marimuthu was ably supported by Madhumitha. Madhumitha took care
of some modules of the course as well as several issues, that is discussion forum was
answered by Madhumitha. And here we have Purushothaman Srinath. Srinath actually
took care of several of the CPM based module as well as some of the discussions. And
Thirumalai here, who took care of the initial part of the course, he took care of all the
discussion as well as the quizzes and the notes for the initial part of the course. So, I
again I would like to acknowledge this team, they were really instrumental in being able
to float this course and being able to manage a lot of things in this 8 weeks of the class.
I would also like to acknowledge the course participants, it has been really heartening for
us to see the level of interaction in the discussion, you know many of you have pointed
out, you know typographic or other calculation mistake which have crept into some of
our assignments which you know we really thank you for making us. It shows how
meticulously some of you worked on these problems, it's heartening to see that. So, we
feel rewarded when you actually able to point out these things, which means what we are
covering has actually made sense to you, and you are actually participating well in it.
We have also got several requests for software to be covered. So, I mean I think I have
responded some of this thing, go to the internet and look at it, but many if you have got
back and said no, no, no; the internet is not giving us what we want to learn, we would
like it to to come from NPTEL, we would like to supplement this course with more
software. I would, we will try to put that up, but please realize software changes very
frequently, and like I said some other professional forums are better place. Once you
become a professional, to adapt the software and keep which keeps changing, but we will
certainly try our best along with NPTEL to offer some sessions of the software; might be
in the next semester, we might offer a 10 lecture series on Microsoft project might be in a
few months.
We will have to put that together and allot time for it, but we will not making too many
promises now, but we see that there is a demand for it, we will see how we can address it
best. Again thanks to the course participant, your feedback and participation have been
really amazing. I would also like to thank NPTEL team without whom this course would
not have, we know made it out of our power point and our notes, because without the
kind of platforms they setup, without the kind of a coordination they have done we
would never have got it into this format. Every time we come to the studio they are
people to record and people to edit, and all of these have made this course possible. They
have had challenging schedules to work with us, and this has really again made this
possible in this period of time. So, again acknowledgements to all the people of
supported us, and made this course possible.
And thank you and all the best for the final exam.

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Project Planning & Control

Prof. Koshy Varghese

(Refer Slide Time: 00:41)

Student: People scheduling

Student: ((Refer Time: 01:56))

Student: Should be an optimized allocation of resources and…

Student: undertaking a task.

Student: depending upon the.., it should be unique.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:02)

If you go to PMI’s definition of a project it is a little broader, what it shows in project

Student: Assembly lines.

Student: Conducting an exam.

Conducting an exam is it now, so that is an interesting one. Is it repetitive or is it a project or

Student: There is a protocol.

Student: JEE is more of a project.

Student: Events, genome.

Yes, genome, why do we call that a project?

Student: All research and scientific things.

Yes all research and scientific things, so it is actually research.

Student: Even development is a project, I mean…

Student: ((Refer Time: 09:17)) policies

(Refer Slide Time: 11:31)

Student: It fast the evolved.

Student: Process as the manufacture.

A process as the repetitive manufacture.

Student: ((Refer Time: 16:08)) enter the size.

Student: a bit of both

Student: As engineers, we having it is more of science.

As engineering, you would be wanted to be more of science that.

(Refer Slide Time: 19:12)

(Refer Slide Time: 00:16)

Student: completion (refer time: 01:07)

Student: Within what time? Stipulated (refer time: 01:10)

So, time, cost, quality.

Student: completion, safety.

What do you mean by safety?

Student: So, the structure should be able to (refer time: 01:27)

Student: Completion is also important.

Is it cost? You know, is this the priority or is this the priority?

Student: Depend on the importance of constructed facility.

Yes, anything else?

Student: (refer time: 06:16).

Student: (refer time: 06:59).

Is that why it so popular? Is that the only reason why it is popular?

Student: Sir, it actually energy efficient, basically.

One is it is energy efficient.

Student: Materiel efficient.

Student: Code (refer time: 08:20).

Student: (refer time: 13:16) control.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:15)

(Refer Slide Time: 01:55)

Check is monitoring. Okay if I take it back here

Student: mobile phones, Google maps....

Student: distance, time, cost...

Student: time of departure

Student: forty minutes

Student: certain stretch...come to known destination ...landmark...

Student: Yes, If we are going by bike

Student: We will have stop and ask other..