Program Evaluation and Review Technique Analysis of an Engineering Project

Abstract

Between fifty to eighty percentof the projects known are not completed within the specified number of working days. Either the contractor was assessed liquidated damages or time extensions were authorized, necessitating additional manpower and / or extended working hours.The result in both cases was animmediate financial loss to the contractors; these losses were ultimately passed on to the company in general, contributing to spiraling project costs.Therefore, this paper examines and analysis data related to the project of the reactivation of line 1 for the production of iron ore concentrates of national Iron Ore Mining Company, Itakpe. Data collected involved the optimistic time, most likely and pessimistic times of completion of critical activities making up the project. This data was analyzed using the Program Evaluation and Review Technique(PERT), a MATLAB program was written to determine the critical path and the probability of project completion at a simulated time. It was found out that the project should have been completed in an optimal time of between 110 and 120 days as against the actual completion time of 180 days. The result of the simulated optimal completion time was compared to the actual completion time. Management agreed to adopt the PERT technique in future project works in the organization.