Question

Question 2: The activities needed to develop a new software application are listed in the following table with the activity times and their order in which the activities need to be performed:

Activity	Duration (weeks)	Immediate Predecessor(s)
A	3	-
B	8	A
C	7	A
D	9	A
E	6	A
F	10	B, C
G	11	D, E
H	5	F, G
-	-	-

What is the duration of the project (in weeks)?

What is the earliest week you could start activity H?

What is the latest week you could start activity B?

What is the slack time for activity F?

What is the latest week you could finish activity D?

What would be the overall duration of the project if activity E were increased by 2 weeks (from 6 to 8 weeks)?

What would be the overall duration of the project if activity B were increased by 4 weeks (from 8 to 12 weeks)?

(Please list all the steps taken to solve this. Thanks in advance!)

Answer 1

The alternate paths in the network and their respective durations are listed below:

A-B-F-H, duration = 3+8+10+5 = 26

A-C-F-H, duration = 3+7+10+5 = 25

A-D-G-H, duration = 3+9+11+5 = 28

A-E-G-H, duration = 3+6+11+5 = 25

The longest path is A-D-G-H. Therefore, it is the critical path.

Duration of the project = 28 weeks

Activity H is critical. Therefore, its slack time is 0. The earliest it can start is 28-5 = week 23

Activity B is on a path whose duration is 26 weeks, which is 2 weeks less than the project duration. Therefore, its slack time is 2 weeks. The latest it can start is 3+2 = week 5