Abstract
Uncertainty is inherent in every project as managers usually do not have full information about the resources and the work and the business environment in many cases. We present the basic models and methods of scheduling in cases of uncertainty. We focus on the variability of activity durations, address how to represent the durations using probability distributions and list the modeling assumptions. In this context, we introduce the characteristics of the Beta distribution, describe how to use the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) to minimize the expected project duration, and discuss the advantages and shortcomings of this method. We then consider the PERT-Costing method, which extends PERT to minimizing the expected project cost. Monte-Carlo simulation is applied to uncertainty both in activity duration and activity cost.
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Appendix 6A: Area Under the Normal Curve
Appendix 6A: Area Under the Normal Curve
Reproduced from Table A.3 pp. 755–756 in R.E. Walpole, R.H. Myers, S.L. Myers, K. Ye, Probability & Statistics for Engineers & Scientists, Pearson Education Limited, Essex, England, 2016
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Ulusoy, G., Hazır, Ö. (2021). Stochastic Project Scheduling with No Resource Constraints. In: An Introduction to Project Modeling and Planning. Springer Texts in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61423-2_6
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