Critical Path Method (CPM) with Crashing The film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the last installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, was directed by Peter Jackson and released on December 17 2003 in the U. S. with huge success. Eventually, the film won 11 Oscars for all of its nominations. The film's box office has been more than $1 billion. In the film, there are long sequences in which not all main characters appear at the same time. And there are big scenes where everybody shows up. Thinking about the making of the film, behind the scenes, we can hypothetically break down the entire cinematic project into the following aggregate activities (We assume away all the complexities in shooting the three installments at the same time and other production details):
‐ Plan, screenplay, finance, cast, film crew, location
‐ Construction of movie sets
‐ Shooting sequence 1
‐ Shooting sequence 2
‐ Shooting sequence 3
‐ Big scene sequence
‐ Post‐production & finalization before release
We have the following hypothetical data on time in months and cost in millions of dollars:
ID IP T ES EF LS LF SLK NT NC CT CC CCR
A ‐ 6.0 6.0 13.0 6.0 13.0
B A 4.0 4.0 9.0 3.0 12.0
C B 4.0 4.0 12.0 4.0 12.0
D B 5.0 11.0 5.0 14.0 4.0 16.0
E B 6.0 0.0 6.0 16.0 4.0 19.0
F C, D,E 4.0 4.0 19.0 4.0 19.0
G F 6.0 6.0 11.0 5.0 13.5
Note: IP = Immediate Predecessor; T = NT = Normal Time; ES = Earliest Start; EF = Earliest Finish; LS = Latest Start; LF = Latest Finish; SLK = Slack Time; NT = Normal Time; NC = Normal
Cost; CT = Crash Time; CC = Crash Cost; & CCR = Crash Cost/Time Unit (Crash Cost Rate).
Copy the table to your homework and complete the following parts:
By looking at the chart in part (a), find all possible paths through the network with their corresponding path times. Based on these path times, determine the critical path.
Based on part (a) By using the forward and backward passes together with the four time determination rules, fill your calculations for ES,
EF, LS, LF, and SLK in the appropriate cells.
(b) Try to independently fill in the columns ES, EF, LS, LF, and SLK of the table. If you have difficulties, refer to part (a). Determine the activity with the most slack time.
c) Based on part (a), find the critical path by going through the activities with no slack time.
Compare this result with the critical path found in part (b).
d) Use appropriate data to compute crash costs per time unit and fill in the CCR column. Cross out any CCR cells where the corresponding activities cannot be crashed.
(e) Find the total normal cost of the film. Find the normal cost on the original critical path. Compute the cost proportion of the critical path in the film's budget.