A Comprehensive and Practical Framework for Reliable Scheduling in Project Management

Abstract

Schedule reliability is essential to successfully achieve EPC (engineering, procurement and constriction) project objectives. Several studies in the past were based on traditional risk management technique which has its own limitations that lack one to obtain a reliable project schedule. To overcome these limitations a comprehensive framework is developed based on the integration of risk management and Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) that can give a much reliable project scheduling. In the proposed framework, risk analysis is first determined through fuzzy FMEA technique to provide identification of critical risk events (CRE). The effect of CRE on project schedule is then defined and total project time which considers risk factors is calculated. To support risk mitigation, fault tree and event tree analysis are combined which allows the root causes of the risk event be defined and also mitigation strategies determined to control each identified CRE. Eventually, CCPM is distributed which enable implementation of the project based on initial plan and to obtain reasonable Feeding Buffer time on risky tasks. This paper presents the proposed framework using a real case study on construction phases of EPC projects in an electrical power industry.