A new engineering team is put together for the development of a new product. This new product will be built through an assembly line. The production manager designs the assembly line. He has been advised that the assembly line must be ready in four weeks (20 working days) for a test run. The manager decided to use CPM (critical path method) and has broken down the projects into the following activities, determined their precedence relationships, and estimated normal times:
|
Activity
|
Immediate Predecessors
|
Normal Time (days)
|
Crash Time (days)
|
Crashing Cost ($/ day)
|
|
a. organize layout team
|
none
|
5
|
5
|
-
|
|
b. organize modification team
|
none
|
3
|
3
|
-
|
|
c. design personnel jobs
|
a, b
|
2
|
1
|
500
|
|
d. set machinery in place
|
none
|
3
|
1
|
2500
|
|
e. connect utilities
|
d
|
3
|
4
|
1000
|
|
f. modify conveyor system
|
c, e
|
4
|
3
|
1200
|
|
g. train personnel
|
c
|
3
|
3
|
-
|
|
h. finishing touches
|
f, g
|
5
|
3
|
800
|
|
i. run test lot
|
h
|
2
|
2
|
-
|
Based on the information provided above, answer the following questions.
1. What is the project earliest completion time in days? Round your answer to the nearest integer. Your answer is .
2. What is the EST of activity g? Round your answer to the nearest integer. Your answer is .
3. What is the LST of activity c? Round your answer to the nearest integer. Your answer is .
4. What is the LST of activity g? Round your answer to the nearest integer. Your answer is .
5. What is the slack time of activity g? Round your answer to the nearest integer. Your answer is .
6. How many critical tasks are on the critical path (excluding S and T)? Round your answer to the nearest integer. Your answer is .
7. The manager would like to expedite the project by 1 day. According to the crashing data provided in the table, which task should be expedited? Input the task label here. For example, if your answer is a - organizing layout team, input a. Your answer is .