Aleatory uncertainty quantification of project resources and its application to project scheduling

Zarghami, Seyed Ashkan; Dumrak, Jantanee

doi:10.1016/j.ress.2021.107637

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…Faced with the uncertainty and statistical variations in disruptive events, project activities are also subject to considerable uncertainty. A recent review by Preiser (2019) reveals that the term ‘uncertainty’—often defined as ‘the inherent variability of the phenomenon under study’ (Zarghami & Dumrak, 2021a, p. 2)—is one of the most frequent terms to appear in the literature on complex systems. Insofar as buffer sizing is concerned, time buffers are meant to protect projects against the negative impact of uncertainty.…”

Section: An Open Systems Theory View Of Projects In the Face Of Disru...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Project schedule contingency planning: Building on von Bertalanffy's open systems theory and critical systems practice

Zarghami

2023

Syst Res Behav Sci

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The research on project schedule contingency suffers from three major shortcomings: (1) it only partly reflects the complexity arising from the high interdependencies among project activities; (2) it is predicated on the idea of closed systems and thus does not address the interaction between a project and its environment; and (3) it does not sufficiently inform industry practices. This paper addresses these gaps by conceptually and analytically linking von Bertalanffy's open systems theory and critical systems practice (CSP) to schedule contingency planning. It focuses on buffer management as a common approach to schedule contingency planning and accordingly develops a method to determine the size of time buffers based on the three foundational dimensions of open systems theory. Further, this research provides guidelines to explain how the simultaneous pursuit of the four stages of CSP can assist project managers and decision‐makers in responding to disruptive events.

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Section: An Open Systems Theory View Of Projects In the Face Of Disru...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Project schedule contingency planning: Building on von Bertalanffy's open systems theory and critical systems practice

Zarghami

2023

Syst Res Behav Sci

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“…The model performed accurately from their findings. In addition, researchers [8] studied on aleatory uncertainty quantification of project resources and its application to project scheduling. Owing to the scanty literature on the uncertainty analysis of resource acquisition in project management, they employed the reliability theory to fill the literature gap through a take on a success-oriented view of acquiring the required resources for completing a project.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Scheduling Model in Capturing Methane Gas from Methane Clathrates Deposits

Anyanwu,

Okafor,

Nkwor

2023

JES

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The execution of any project type, especially engineering-based projects, is usually time-based, efficiency-driven, and cost-effective. These factors are the deterministic parameters that engineer successful project completion. The application of scheduling models remains the best technique for achieving these three factors to their best degrees. Therefore, this study was centered on the impact study of applying the scheduling model in harvesting methane gas from methane clathrates deposits. Various data on gas hydrate reserves in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria were collected from relevant literature, studied, and analyzed. Such data includes the pictorial representation and description of the gas hydrate site in the Niger Delta region of Africa and various shapes and sizes of gas hydrate perimeters in the studied region positions of the gas reserves. The normal faults are projected on a bathymetric map of the study area and the bathymetric map of the Pockmark (with the stippled black line indicating the sea floor projection of a prominent N-S trending fracture in 3-D seismic data). As a type of scheduling model, the critical path method (CPM) was applied to develop the project’s work sequence using the activity on node (AON) architectural technique and Primavera P6 software after carefully identifying the primary operations involved in the project and their respective sub-operations or work breakdown structure (WBS). The risks associated with each operation were meticulously identified, with their consequent impact and exposure matrix determined using probabilistic measures of 1-5 according to the degree of the risk. Mitigation strategies were recommended for all the identified risks. The cost benefits of the project were X-rayed using parameters such as net present value (NPV), project payback time, internal rate of return (IRR), and net cumulative cash flow. From the results obtained, the CPM schedule showed that the project execution would last approximately ten months. All the operations involved in the project execution plan were all critical, proving that each activity should be completed within the scheduled run period. Else, the entire project would be affected. Also, risks with a high exposure matrix of 25, 12, and 4 were mitigated to 5, 3, and 0 using the recommended strategies. In addition, the project yielded an NPV of $20,736,951.04for the run period of 22 years after the execution of the project, IRR of 14%, and a payback time of 8 years (adding 2023 – the year of project execution) provided the daily production rate is maintained within 60,000-65,000MSCF/day. If the daily production rate increases, the cash flow and payback time will decrease. Therefore, the application of CPM in extracting methane gas from gas hydrates positively affected the operation through the vivid insights provided in workflow pattern/methodology risks effects and cost benefits.

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“…This has resulted in the wide employment of multidisciplinary tools to manage project complexity. Network theory (Zarghami & Dumrak, 2021a), system dynamics (De Marco et al, 2016), system engineering (Sheffield et al, 2012) and Actor Network Theory (Pollack et al, 2012) are examples of fields outside of project management domain that has attracted the attention of project management scholars.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first case study is the construction of a foundation system for a single‐story residential building taken from Zarghami and Dumrak (2021a). The project includes 8 main activities and the planned duration of the project is 26 days.…”

Section: Numerical Illustrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deviation from a state of perfect uniformity: An indicator of structural complexity in projects

Zarghami

2022

Syst Res Behav Sci

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The complexity of projects arising from interconnectedness between activities is believed to be one of the most significant challenges for managing projects. Although the literature has long appreciated the significance of measuring complexity, research on this topic is weakened by the lack of a method that accounts for a diverse set of structural characteristics of project networks. To evade this pitfall, this paper introduces the concept of perfect uniformity and develops a comprehensive measure of structural complexity in projects. The proposed method is validated by applying it in two real‐life projects. The validation results confirm that project complexity is positively associated with a higher level of deviation from a state of perfect uniformity. This research is among few studies that draw on the concept of emergence and point out the importance of a system‐level approach in project management to analyse the interdependency between multiple interconnected activities.

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Aleatory uncertainty quantification of project resources and its application to project scheduling

Cited by 14 publications

References 50 publications

Project schedule contingency planning: Building on von Bertalanffy's open systems theory and critical systems practice

Project schedule contingency planning: Building on von Bertalanffy's open systems theory and critical systems practice

A Scheduling Model in Capturing Methane Gas from Methane Clathrates Deposits

Deviation from a state of perfect uniformity: An indicator of structural complexity in projects

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