Question

this in - class exercise is meant to be done in collaboration with another student using the material that you learned in class. each student must submit their own excel solution in blackboard. i expect a single pdf file (scan or picture) containing all the answers to the exercises submitted in blackboard. problem 1 - resource smoothing given the network plan that follows, compute the early, late and slack times. what is the project duration? using any approach you wish (e.g. trial and error), develop a loading chart for resource electrical engineers (ee), and resource mechanical engineers (me). assume only one of each resource exists. given your resource schedule, compute the early, late and slack times for your project. which activities are now critical? what is the project duration now? could something like this happen in real projects?

Explanation:

Step1: Calculate early times

Start from the first - activity. The early start (ES) of the first activity is 0. The early finish (EF) of an activity is ES + duration. Calculate ES and EF for all activities forward - pass.

Step2: Calculate late times

Start from the last - activity. The late finish (LF) of the last activity is equal to its EF. The late start (LS) of an activity is LF - duration. Calculate LS and LF for all activities backward - pass.

Step3: Calculate slack times

Slack time (ST) of an activity is LS - ES or LF - EF.

Step4: Determine project duration

The project duration is the EF of the last activity in the network.

Step5: Develop resource loading chart

Allocate resources to activities based on the schedule. For each time period, count the number of each type of resource (EE and ME) required.

Step6: Re - calculate times with resource schedule

Repeat steps 1 - 3 considering the new resource - based schedule.

Step7: Identify critical activities

Critical activities are those with zero slack time.

Answer:

The specific values for early, late, slack times, project duration, and critical activities depend on the details of the given network plan, which are not provided here. But the general approach to solve the problem is as described above.