OCR D2 2012 June — Question 6

Exam BoardOCR
ModuleD2 (Decision Mathematics 2)
Year2012
SessionJune
TopicCritical Path Analysis

6 Tariq wants to advertise his gardening services. The activities involved, their durations (in hours) and immediate predecessors are listed in the table.
ActivityDuration (hours)Immediate predecessors
AChoose a name for the gardening service2-
BThink about what the text needs to say3-
CArrange a photo shoot2B
DVisit a leaflet designer3A, \(C\)
EDesign website5A, \(C\)
\(F\)Get business cards printed3D
GIdentify places to publicise services2A, \(C\)
HArrange to go on local radio3B
IDistribute leaflets4D, G
JGet name put on van1E
  1. Draw an activity network, using activity on arc, to represent the project.
  2. Carry out a forward pass and a backward pass through the activity network, showing the early event time and the late event time at each vertex of your network. State the minimum project completion time and list the critical activities. Tariq does not have time to complete all the activities on his own, so he gets some help from his friend Sally.
    Sally can help Tariq with any of the activities apart from \(C , H\) and \(J\). If Tariq and Sally share an activity, the time it takes is reduced by 1 hour. Sally can also do any of \(F , G\) and \(I\) on her own.
  3. Describe how Tariq and Sally should share the work so that activity \(D\) can start 5 hours after the start of the project.
  4. Show that, if Sally does as much of the work as she can, she will be busy for 18 hours. In this case, for how many hours will Tariq be busy?
  5. Explain why, if Sally is busy for 18 hours, she will not be able to finish until more than 18 hours from the start. How soon after the start can Sally finish when she is busy for 18 hours?
  6. Describe how Tariq and Sally can complete the project together in 18 hours or less.