PJM 7210 Module 3 Resources and Crashing Exercises Example

Fourteen Weeks on Paper, Seventeen With Three Crews: Leveling, Crashing and Leading One Neighborhood Phase of a Lead Line Program

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Master of Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University

PJM-7210: Project Management

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Fourteen Weeks on Paper, Seventeen With Three Crews: Leveling, Crashing and Leading One Neighborhood Phase of a Lead Line Program

These exercises apply Module 3 of Larson and Gray (2018) to the first neighborhood phase of the lead service line program at Ramapo Valley Water Authority, the same composite Bergen County utility used in the earlier assignments. The phase covers 150 service lines and six activities. The authority has three replacement crews available for the phase, and each line must be replaced from main to meter, public and private portions alike, since research shows that only full replacement reliably lowers lead levels (Trueman et al., 2016).

Exercise 1: The Unconstrained Schedule

The activities, durations and crew requirements are shown below. Ignoring resource limits, the forward pass gives two paths: mobilization, private-side replacement, lawn and driveway restoration, and testing take 2, 8, 2 and 2 weeks, or 14 weeks; mobilization, public-side replacement, street restoration and testing take 2, 6, 3 and 2 weeks, or 13. The critical path is the private-side path, with one week of slack on the public-side path.

Exercise 2: Leveling to Three Crews

Activities B and C both start after week 2 and together need four crews, but only three exist. Larson and Gray (2018) explain that when resources are constrained, the schedule must be adjusted, usually by giving priority to activities with the least slack. Activity C is critical, so it keeps two crews from week 2 to week 10. Activity B can proceed with the third crew alone from week 2 to week 10, completing 8 of its 12 crew-weeks of work, and then with two crews in weeks 10 to 12, finishing at week 12. Street restoration then runs from week 12 to 15, lawn restoration from week 10 to 12, and testing from week 15 to 17.

The resource-constrained schedule therefore takes 17 weeks instead of 14, and the critical path has shifted to the public-side chain. This illustrates the textbook's point that a network schedule is not a real schedule until resources have been assigned, and that leveling can change which activities are critical.

Exercise 3: Should the Phase Be Crashed?

The phase's indirect costs, for the inspector, traffic control and the project office, run about $15,000 a week. A contractor can supply a fourth crew at $13,500 a week. Adding that crew for the six weeks B needs restores the 14-week schedule at a cost of $81,000 and saves three weeks of indirect costs, $45,000. On cost alone, crashing does not pay, since it adds $36,000.

Larson and Gray (2018) note, however, that reasons to shorten projects include more than direct savings, such as imposed deadlines and penalties. In northern New Jersey, asphalt plants generally close for the winter, and street restoration that cannot be completed must be patched temporarily and redone in spring. If the phase begins on August 1, the 17-week schedule ends in late November, before the shutdown, and crashing is unnecessary. If it begins on September 15, the 17-week schedule pushes paving into January, while the 14-week schedule finishes in late December. In that case, the cost of temporary patches and repaving on 150 excavations, likely more than $36,000, plus residents' complaints about open trenches, justifies hiring the fourth crew. The decision therefore depends on the start date, and the project manager should plan the phase calendar to avoid paying for speed.

Exercise 4: A Time-Phased Budget

Larson and Gray (2018) recommend time-phased budgets so that spending can be compared with progress. With a budget of $1.8 million for the phase, about $12,000 per line, the leveled schedule spends little in the first two weeks of mobilization, rises steeply in weeks 2 to 12 while three crews replace lines, peaks when the paving contractor joins in weeks 12 to 15, and falls during testing. Publishing this curve lets the authority's finance office plan its draws on the state revolving fund loan and gives the project manager a baseline for earned value reporting in Module 4.

Exercise 5: Leading Without Authority

The textbook stresses that project managers rarely control all the people they need and must lead through influence, building a social network of stakeholders and exchanging what Larson and Gray call currencies of influence, such as help, information, recognition and personal support. For this phase, the project manager needs cooperation from the town engineer who issues street opening permits, the paving contractor who schedules many clients, and homeowners whose consent is required for private-side work. Offering the town engineer advance schedules and joint inspections, giving the paving contractor firm dates and steady volume, and providing homeowners with a named contact and clear notice of work days are all forms of influence that do not depend on authority. Turner and Müller (2005), reviewing research on project leadership, concluded that the project manager's leadership style affects project success and that different projects call for different styles; this phase, heavy on external stakeholders, calls for a collaborative, relationship-centered style.

Conclusion

Assigning three real crews turns a 14-week network into a 17-week schedule and moves the critical path. Whether to buy back those weeks depends less on direct costs than on the calendar, because a winter paving shutdown changes the economics. A time-phased budget prepares the phase for cost control, and success with permits, contractors and homeowners depends on influence rather than formal authority.

References

Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2018). Project management: The managerial process (7th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Trueman, B. F., Camara, E., & Gagnon, G. A. (2016). Evaluating the effects of full and partial lead service line replacement on lead levels in drinking water. Environmental Science & Technology, 50(14), 7389-7396. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b01912

Turner, J. R., & Müller, R. (2005). The project manager's leadership style as a success factor on projects: A literature review. Project Management Journal, 36(2), 49-61. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697280503600206