Project Management for Business Engineering and Technology - Assignment Example

For Pathfinder, a landing vehicle was required to be developed in three years' time and budget $150 million (Nicholas and Steyn, 2008).

There are two fundamental scheduling network techniques known as Critical Path Method (CPM) and Program evaluation and review technique (PERT). However, the use of the CPM technique has greatly increased in the last many years. This technique is advantageous as it covers both the scheduling and costing of projects (Meredith and Mantel, 2009). Under the CPM, a project is divided into nodes, and the initial event is taken as 0 and the final as n event. Time taken for completion of tasks in a project is denoted as x1, x2,………xn. For example, a good network diagram is developed that also requires a list of all activities on the work breakdown structure (WBS). The duration of each activity is determined that results in a critical path, which is the least time for completion of a project. For a project, the critical path is determined by adding the duration of activities of different paths starting from start to finish of a project as shown in the following.

Path 1: A-D-H-J = 1+4+6+3 = 14 days

Path 2: B-F-J = 2+4+3 = 9 days

Therefore, the longest path is the critical path, and path 1 takes 16 days, which is the critical path of a project. A quality project always completes within planned schedules.