Title
New concepts for activity float in resource-constrained project management
Abstract
The concepts of float and critical path are central to analyzing activity networks in project management. In resource-constrained projects, schedule multiplicity makes it difficult to calculate float and identify critical activities accurately. In this work, new concepts of float and critical activity are developed to ascertain critical activities more precisely without reference to activity start and end times in specific schedules. The notions of float, group float, float set, negative float and zero critical activity are introduced, which the project manager can use to deal more effectively with critical activities, duration uncertainty, activity buffering, and resource allocation than the currently available tools in literature. For practical implementation, algorithms are provided and tested to calculate the new measures on the PSPLIB benchmark instances, specifically the J30, J60 and J120 test sets, for the resource constrained project management, illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed concepts in helping to identify flexibility in scheduling activities.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1016/j.cor.2010.10.004
Computers & OR
Keywords
Field
DocType
project management,critical activity,activity float,project manager,resource-constrained project management,activity network,activity buffering,zero critical activity,critical path,negative float,group float,activity start,new concept
Mathematical optimization,Operations research,Heuristics,Critical path method,Mathematics,Project management
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
38
6
Computers and Operations Research
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
3
0.61
13
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Andrew Lim115013.57
Hong Ma2654.21
Brian Rodrigues3788.07
Sun Teck Tan430.61
Fei Xiao5737.11