PROJECT CRASHING
Reducing both projects’ cost and time is critical in today’s market-driven economy. This
relationship between construction projects’ time and cost is called time cost trade-off
decisions, which has been investigated extensively in the construction management
literature. Time-cost trade-off decisions are complex and require selection of appropriate
construction methods for each project task. Time-cost trade-off, in fact, is an important
management tool fo overcoming one of the critical method limitations of being unable to
bring the project schedule to a specified duration.
- also known as project acceleration
- Crashing is done very critically by looking into the project quality and cost parameters.
- Crashing is done on the critical path only.
- the optimum level of cost must be achieved while doing project crashing
- reasons for crashing can be
to avoid penalties
to fulfill customer demand
in emergency situations
Time Cost Relationship of a typical Job:
Types of Time cost tradeoffs
- Linear
Convex
- In convex relationship the cost of crashing is low at the start and it may increase after
wards
- E.g deploying more labor
Concave
- Initially the cost of crashing is very high and it may decrease over the period of time
- E.g installation of a software or purchase of heavy machinery
DISCONTINUOUS
- When one activity can be performed with different methods
- Ploughing land ( tractor vs labor vs bull)
DISCRETE
Steps for Crashing:
- Draw the network diagram
- Identify the critical and non-critical paths.
- Compute the cost slope for the activities by using the following formula:
cost slope = crash cost – normal cost / normal duration – crash duration
- construct the crashing matrix
List the paths on the left side
List the activities on the top
List the crashing slope of respective activities on each path
List the crashing limit on the bottom
IDENTIFY THE LONGEST PATH AND IDENTIFY THE CHEAPEST ACTIVITY (
CHEAPESE
CRASH SLOPE)
- Repeat the process
Sample Crashing Example:
Paths in the above project along with duration:
ADG = 16
AF = 14
BG= 14
CEG= 12
CH= 5
Sample Crashing Matrix:
Question # 1:
Question # 2:
Question # 3:
Question # 4:
- With the information given below calculate when should the project be completed with
normal duration?
- Construct the crashing matrix with appropriate information
- Crash the project and identify the impact of cost
Activity Predecessors Normal Normal Crash Crash Crashing Crashing
Duration Cost Duration Cost Slope Limit
A - 3 2000 2 4400
B A 8 9000 6 12000
C B 4 2000 2 7000
D - 2 1000 1 2000
E D 2 2000 1 3000
F E 5 0 5 0
G C,F 6 12000 3 24000
H - 4 3500 2 8000
I H 4 5000 3 8000
J H 3 8000 2 15000
K J 4 50000 3 70000
L I ,K 6 10000 6 10000
M G,L 1 5000 1 5000
Question # 5:
Activity Predecessors Normal Normal Crash Crash Crashing Crashing
Duration Cost Duration Cost Slope limit
A - 4 10000 2 11000
B A 3 6000 2 9000
C A 2 4000 1 6000
D B 5 14000 3 18000
E B, C 1 9000 1 9000
F C 3 7000 2 8000
G E, F 4 13000 2 25000
H D, E 4 11000 1 18000
I H,G 6 20000 5 29000
