Final answer:
To respond to the student's request, one would develop a project network and an activity schedule, identifying critical activities on the critical path. The expected project completion time is determined by the sum of critical activity durations. If shortening is needed, 'crashing' is used, focusing on critical activities with the lowest cost to reduce the schedule to meet the desired 26 weeks.
Step-by-step explanation:
Developing a Project Network and Activity Schedule
To develop a project network, you need to list all the activities involved in the project, their durations, and dependencies.
This network will represent the workflow of the project and show the sequence of tasks.
Once all activities are mapped out, you would use tools such as Critical Path Method (CPM) to identify the longest path of planned activities to the end of the project, which determines the critical activities and the earliest completion time.
To develop an activity schedule, you will assign start and finish dates to all activities based on their duration and dependencies.
This schedule aligns with the project network to ensure all tasks are completed within their set timeframe.
The critical activities are the ones that cannot be delayed without affecting the project completion time.
These are found on the project's critical path.
For the expected project completion time, you sum the durations of all activities on the critical path. If the current completion time is greater than 26 weeks and the company wants to complete the project within 26 weeks, you will need to perform 'crashing.'
Crashing is a schedule compression technique used to shorten the schedule duration without changing the project scope, which may incur additional costs.
To minimize costs while crashing, identify critical activities with the lowest cost slope and shorten their durations first.
The amount of crash time needed for each activity will equal the difference between the project's current duration and the desired 26 weeks.
Regularly update the project network to reflect the time changes.