Forecasting the project duration average and standard deviation from deterministic schedule information
Ballesteros-Pérez, Pablo Cerezo-Narváez, Alberto Otero-Mateo, Manuel Pastor-Fernández, Andrés Zhang, Jingxiao Vanhoucke, Mario
Ballesteros-Pérez, Pablo
Cerezo-Narváez, Alberto
Otero-Mateo, Manuel
Pastor-Fernández, Andrés
Zhang, Jingxiao
Vanhoucke, Mario
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Publication Type
Journal article with impact factor
Editor
Supervisor
Publication Year
2020
Journal
Applied Sciences
Book
Publication Volume
10
Publication Issue
2
Publication Begin page
654
Publication End page
676
Publication Number of pages
Collections
Abstract
Most construction managers use deterministic scheduling techniques to plan construction projects and estimate their duration. However, deterministic techniques are known to underestimate the project duration. Alternative methods, such as Stochastic Network Analysis, have rarely been adopted in practical contexts as they are commonly computer-intensive, require extensive historical information, have limited contextual/local validity and/or require skills most practitioners have not been trained for. In this paper, we propose some mathematical expressions to approximate the average and the standard deviation of a project duration from basic deterministic schedule information. The expressions’ performance is successfully tested in a 4100-network dataset with varied activity durations and activity durations variability. Calculations are quite straightforward and can be implemented manually. Furthermore, unlike the Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), they allow drawing inferences about the probability of project duration in the presence of several critical and subcritical paths with minimal additional calculation.
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Keywords
Project Duration, Scheduling, Merge Event Bias, Construction, PERT