Incorporation of activity sensitivity measures into buffer management to manage project schedule risk

Abstract

Critical Chain Scheduling and Buffer Management (CC/BM) has shown to provide an effective approach for building robust project schedules and to offer a valuable control tool for coping with schedule variability. Yet, the current buffer monitoring mechanism faces a problem of neglecting the dynamic feature of the project execution and related activity information when taking corrective actions. The schedule risk analysis (SRA) method in a traditional PERT framework, on the other hand, provides important information about the relative activity criticality in relation to the project duration which can highlight management focus. It is implied, however, that control actions are independent from the current project schedule performance. This paper attempts to research these defects of both tracking methods and proposes a new project schedule monitoring framework by introducing the activity cruciality index as a trigger for effective expediting to be integrated into the buffer monitoring process. Furthermore, dynamic action threshold settings that depend on the project progress as well as the buffer penetration are presented and examined in order to exhibit a more accurate control system. Our computational experiment demonstrates the relative dominance of the integrated schedule monitoring methods compared to the predominant buffer management approach in generating better control actions with less effort and an increased tracking efficiency, especially when the increasing buffer trigger point is combined with decreasing sensitivity action threshold values.

An Algorithmic Framework for Improving the Performance of the Critical Chain Buffer Sizing Method

“…To develop robustness measures for activities, the researchers of this paper propose to investigate their corresponding Coe cients of Variation (CV j ) being de ned as the ratio of the standard deviation to the expected value of the activity duration ( j j ). Statistically, the coe cient of variation is a measure of reliability, being indicative of the degree of uncertainty [34]. Consequently, the small value of CV j is desired as it indicates a slight amount of variability, so it re ects low uncertainty.…”

“…C&P, RSEM, APRT, and APD. Hu et al [34] proposed an enhanced bu er control model that uses resource allocation procedures in order to minimize the total resource costs. A schedule repair approach was suggested for project re-planning when corrective actions were triggered.…”

The Application of Critical Chain Concept in Elena Project Guidance

“…In [8], author put forward a new CC/BM-based schedule monitoring procedure that evaluates the probability of successful project completion relative to the cost of crashing and that determines when to expedite which activity in a cost-effective manner. An in [9] author incorporated the activity sensitivity measure into the buffer monitoring process, enabling the management team to estimate the risk of project delays on the whole and to identify high-risk activities in particular when taking expediting actions.…”

A New Buffer Monitoring Approach Based on Earned Value Management Concepts

“…The mechanism of proposing control system is based on monitoring the buffers, and so warning signals would be generated when the project deadline is expected to be exceeded by monitoring buffers. Therefore the size of buffers and how they are monitored, are critical factors in successful application of CCPM [10] and [8]. The main aim of this paperis based on the section of control system and improving the buffer monitoring system.…”