An Application of Reliability-analysis Techniques in Project Management
Ali Muhammad Ali Rushdi
King Abdulaziz University, P.O.Box 80204, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
Alaa Mohammad Alturki *
King Abdulaziz University, P.O.Box 80204, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
This paper handles a prominent problem of project management, namely that of project scheduling under uncertainty. The paper models this problem as a vector-weighted voting system and expresses the indicator variable for the successful (on-time) completion of project activities as a vector-threshold Boolean function. The paper presents a solution of the problem in the Boolean domain using solely Boolean tools. The paper also presents another solution of the problem via recursive relations and boundary conditions. This solution is given as an insightful visual representation in terms of a signal-flow graph that resembles the Reduced-Ordered Binary Decision Diagram (ROBDD). The effect of the order of variables used in the recursive method is also explored.
Keywords: Project management, system reliability, uncertain activities, Vector-threshold Boolean model, ROBDD-like signal flow graph.