LESSON OBJECTIVES

1. Define CPM, CPA2. What does CPM figure out?3. Why is CPM needed and

important?4. How do we do it to help

management decide?5. Will there be needed action

for the management to make when CPA is

done?

If you want to do a speedup cost analysis, you also have to know these things about each activity:• when a cost to complete• if there is shorter time to complete on a crash basis• the higher cost of completing it on a crash basis• the availability of labour and other resources• lead times for delivery of materials and other servicesSeasonal factors – such as dry weather required in a building project

Once the CPA is drawn up, it is possible to see the CRITICAL PATH itself – this is a route through the CPA, which has no spare time called ‘FLOAT’ or ‘slack’ in any of the activities. When there is any delay to any of the activities on the critical path, the whole project will be delayed unless the firm makes other changes to bring the project back on track.

Example

Identify the PredecessorsACTIVITIE

SPREDECESSORS

TIME

A - 2B - 3C A 4D A 2E A 6F C 9G D 12H B,E 4I H 15J G,F,I 10

320

In finding the Critical Path, you need to find the earliest finish time for any activity by using the

formula: Earliest Finish (ES) + time (t)

LET US COMPUTE OUR OWN CP

• Using the example, make your own computation of the critical paths in your steps of production processes

• Do this in paper and submit the output at the end of our class

• Do some experiments of crashing your own activities and present them later in our class discussion

ASSIGNMENT

• Create your own CPM, CPA• Identify your predecessors• Compute your earliest time to finish, latest

time to finish• Analyze your critical paths• What should you do as management to solve

the issue?• Upload your work to atiram40@yahoo.com