In: Operations Management
It costs $75 per day for each day that a construction crew is on site. The project manager determines that most activities can be crashed and has listed the crashing costs next to the minimum time for each activity. Use this information to determine the lowest cost for this project. All times given are in days.
Activity | Normal Time | Minimum Time | Crash Cost ($/day) | Predecessor |
A | 10 | 6 | $70 | -- |
B | 6 | 3 | $40 | -- |
C | 2 | 2 | -- | B |
D | 4 | 2 | $60 | C |
E | 6 | 4 | $80 | A |
F | 8 | 5 | $90 |
D, E |
1750
1780
1720
1810
Asnwer
activity | T (Normal) (days) | Minimum possible activity time | Cost (Normal) | Cost (Crash) per day | Total crashable days = (Normal duration )-(Minimum possible activity time) |
A | 10 | 6 | $70 | 4 | |
B | 6 | 3 | $40 | 3 | |
C | 2 | 2 | - | ||
D | 4 | 2 | $60 | 2 | |
E | 6 | 4 | $80 | 2 | |
F | 8 | 5 | $90 | 3 | |
normal duration | crash period 1 | |
PATH | crash A by 4 | |
AEF | 24 | 20 |
BCDF | 20 | 20 |
Cost of crashing per period | 70*4 | |
Total Crashing cost for the period | $280 | |
Project Normal Cost | 20*75 | 1500 |
Project Total cost (=Normal cost + Crashing cost) | $1,780 |
The project cannot be crashed any further - because if we crash any
more activities then the total daily crashing cost will exceed the
$75 per day limit.