Application of Monte Carlo simulation and PERT/CPM techniques in planning of construction projects: A Case study

Mertcan Karabulut

doi:10.21533/pen.v5i3.152

Abstract

Construction project scheduling and monitoring is challenging in today's very dynamic business environment. In this study, a project execution tracking system in a medium‒sized construction company was studied. Two different methods were proposed as problem solution for project scheduling and monitoring. Traditional CPM and PERT methods, and Monte Carlo simulation as risk analysis tool were used in this case study. The results show that 186 working days (which is optimistic estimate) is required to finish a luxury villa is determined by CPM method, while Monte Carlo simulation implies that there is 50% of chance that the luxury villa will be done in 205 days, but still there is a risk of 50% that the villa construction may be delayed.

Highlights

Completing any project on time with the determined project cost is not always easy job for any project manager
Table above shows the times of each activities with their predecessors and Earlies start time (ES), EF, Latest start time (LS), Latest finish time (LF) Slack time along with standard deviations and variances
These results show more realistic values since CPM and PERT did not consider the possible risks which may happen during the construction phases

Summary

Introduction

Completing any project on time with the determined project cost is not always easy job for any project manager. The inability of managing the time, the lack of cost management method, the technical incompetence of the company for sudden alterations and the inevitable hardship of representing processes by diagrams, charts, or any other proper tool puts the company in a hard time for monitoring the status of the project. These two methods are very effective way of illustrating the critical path and complete project duration Thanks to these two approaches, any project can be managed and monitored on determined completion time of a project [6]. Another method used is Monte Carlo simulation to identify the project completion date by every possible combination of uncertain activities. Scope c- Milestone Plan f- Resource Plan d- Network Diagram and CPM e- Gantt Chart

Schedule

2) Schedule

Results and Discussions

16 Fire System Work 3 days

Conclusion