Question

A marketing firm is planning to conduct a survey of a segment of the potential product audience for one of its customers. the planning process for preparing to conduct the survey consists of six activities with procedure relationships and activity time estimates as follows:

activity activity description activity predecessor time estimates (days)
A determine survey objectives ______ 3
B select and hire personnel A 3
C design questionnaire A 5
D train personnel B,C 4
E select target audience C 3
F make personnel assignments D, E 2

a. determine all paths through the network from activity a to activity f and the duration of each, and indicate the critical path.
b. determine the earliest and latest activity start and finish times.
c. determine the slack for each activity.

Answer 1

a. Paths through the network:

Path 1: A → B → D → F (Duration = 3 + 3 + 4 + 2 = 12 days)

Path 2: A → C → D → F (Duration = 3 + 5 + 4 + 2 = 14 days)

Critical Path: Path 1 (Duration = 12 days)

b. Earliest Start (ES), Earliest Finish (EF), Latest Start (LS), Latest Finish (LF):

Activity A: ES = 0, EF = 3, LS = 0, LF = 3

Activity B: ES = 3, EF = 6, LS = 3, LF = 6

Activity C: ES = 3, EF = 8, LS = 5, LF = 10

Activity D: ES = 8, EF = 12, LS = 8, LF = 12

Activity E: ES = 8, EF = 11, LS = 8, LF = 11

Activity F: ES = 12, EF = 14, LS = 12, LF = 14

c. Slack for each activity (LS - ES):

Activity A: Slack = 0

Activity B: Slack = 0

Activity C: Slack = 2

Activity D: Slack = 0

Activity E: Slack = 0

Activity F: Slack = 0