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Concurrent Engineering: Research

and Applications
A new buffer sizing approach based on 2015, Vol. 23(1) 312
The Author(s) 2014
the uncertainty of project activities Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/1063293X14561871
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Junguang Zhang1, Saike Jia1 and Estrella Diaz2

Abstract
A new buffer sizing method based on the uncertainty of the project is proposed in order to improve the accuracy of buf-
fer management. Assuming that the project activities follow lognormal distribution, the model proposed first analyzes the
influence of uncertainty, which is characterized as the main factor to affect the activitys duration. Fuzzy theory is then
introduced to calculate the uncertainty and is adjusted using resource tightness and network complexity. Finally, a new
buffer sizing model based on the uncertainty and the project attributes is introduced. The effectiveness of the method is
verified by employing the Monte Carlo simulation, and the actual duration and cost are obtained on the basis of the mean
and variance of the project. The experimental results show that the buffer obtained using this method is smaller than the
cut and paste method but larger than the root square error method. These findings indicate that the new model is able
to avoid the excessive protection issues of the cut and paste method and overcome the root square error methods prob-
lem as regards an insufficient consideration of project attributes. The method proposed fully considers the factors that
affect buffer sizing, signifying that it can provide the project with effective protection and an appropriate buffer size.

Keywords
critical chain, buffer, trapezoidal fuzzy number, uncertainty, attribute dependent

Introduction
The concept of the critical chain was originally defined
as a set of interdependent project activities that deter-
mine the shortest duration of the project, in which the
resource and the activity dependencies are equally
important in determining the critical chain (Goldratt,
1997). Goldratt (1997) states that the projects planned
duration often contains a great amount of safety time
because the project plan is developed according to the
most painful experience and also because of senior dele-
tion prevention. The main consequence of the safety
time will be the relaxation of the project path. The
safety time is usually located at various stages of the
project, but this decentralized safety time will increase
the projects completion time. Moreover, in most cases
the safety time of the plan will be wasted because of the
student syndrome, unreported early completion, and
impact of multi-tasking on the lead tasks, among oth-
ers. Goldratt accordingly adopts the concept of the buf-
fer in order to absorb the uncertainty in the project
rather than using the safety time term.
The most classical buffer sizing methods are the cut
and paste method (C&PM) proposed by Goldratt
(1997) and the root square error method (RSEM) pro-
posed by Newbold (1998). The deficiency of the C&PM
is that it may provide the project with excessive protec-
tion, while the disadvantage of RSEM is that it may
make the buffer size calculated smaller than necessary
(Bie et al., 2012). Other improved methods based on
project attributes have accordingly been proposed to
adjust the buffer. However, these methods calculate the
safety time by means of project variance and seldom
provide a detailed discussion on the determination of
uncertainty. In fact, the uncertainty of a project is a
fuzzy concept, and it is therefore difficult to calculate it
with any other methods except fuzzy theory.
1
Dongling School of Economics and Management, University of Science &
Technology Beijing, Beijing, P.R. China
2
Law and Social Sciences School, University of Castilla-La Mancha,
Ciudad Real, Spain
Corresponding author:
Junguang Zhang, Dongling School of Economics and Management,
University of Science & Technology Beijing, No. 30 Xueyuan Road,
Haidian District, Beijing 100083, P.R. China.
Email: zhangjg@ustb.edu.cn

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4 Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications 23(1)
The project schedule plan is full of uncertainties
because of the unpredictability of the project itself,
external environmental factors, and customer require-
ment changes, among others. In view of the limitations
of traditional methods, the intention of this study is
therefore to make headway in this research area and to
propose a new model with which to determine the proj-
ect buffer. This study proposes a buffer sizing method
based on uncertainty and integrates both resource tight-
ness and network complexity. More specifically, this
research also presents a new activity uncertainty based
on the buffer determination model by integrating the
advantages of previous research and circumventing
their shortcomings.
Given this backdrop of fragmented insights, this arti-
cle makes three key contributions. First, fuzzy theory is
first introduced to calculate the uncertainty of the proj-
ect so as to determine the project buffer. Although pre-
vious authors (Kuo and Lu, 2013) have employed fuzzy
models to enhance risk assessment, the proposed
method presents a new buffer sizing approach with
which to calculate uncertainty. Second, based on the
interaction between project activities, the resource tight-
ness and the network complexity are jointly used to
adjust the project buffer, which is more accurate than
those methods that do not consider the project attribute
or the factors separately. Finally, uncertainty is proved
to be the main factor affecting the project duration,
which helps to study the project buffer in terms of
uncertainty. The relationship between the proposed
method and the attributes of the project itself is closer
than in traditional methods.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows.
The second part contains a review of previous studies
dealing with the main features of buffer sizing methods.
Section Uncertainty assessments of the activities
describes how to use fuzzy theory to assess the activity
uncertainty. The fourth section formulates the calcula-
tion of the project attributes and proposes a new buffer
determination model. In section Experimental lay-
outs, the model is demonstrated with an example from
an industrial process using the optimization and simu-
lation methods. The final section includes the conclu-
sions of this study.
Literature review
Buffer management has an important significance in
terms of overcoming student syndrome and providing
the project with adequate protection. Buffer manage-
ment has already become one of the core contents of
the critical chain theory. The first buffer sizing method,
denominated as the C&PM, was proposed by Goldratt
(1997). However, this simple method does not consider
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the actual conditions and features of the project, which
may lead to some quality problems (Herroelen and
Leus, 2001). Ashtiani et al. (2007) use the mathematical
statistics method to study the buffer size and reach the
conclusion that Goldratts 50% buffer size method will
lead to serious waste. Another alternative to Goldratts
(1997) approach is the RSEM, which is based on the
central limit theorem and performs much better, partic-
ularly in the case of larger projects (Newbold, 1998). In
this method, it is supposed that the activities are
mutually independent for central limit theorem to
work. In fact, the activities in a network have a correla-
tion. They might be affected by the same factors, such
as resource tightness or network complexity, which
makes the buffer size calculated by the RSEM smaller
than necessary and decreases the projects protection.
In terms of project attribute buffer sizing methods,
Tukel et al. (2006) propose an adaptive procedure with
resource tightness (APRT) method and an adaptive
procedure with density (APD) method. These methods
use the RSEM as a basis to consider the effect of the
project attributes on buffer size. Chu (2008) take into
account the effect of managers risk preferences while
considering resource tightness and network complexity
and obtain a new buffer sizing method that can ensure
the appropriate buffer size regardless of how many pro-
cesses exist in the chain. Shan et al. (2009) have
designed a method with which to determine buffer size
based on the analysis of the risk event caused by acci-
dental factors during project implementation.Yang
et al. (2008) set three correction factors of project prop-
erty based on the RSEM and determine the effect of
these three factors on the project schedule by means of
data simulation, which improves the buffer sizing
method. In order to improve the efficiency of buffer
management and optimize the estimation accuracy of a
project buffer, Zhang et al. (2014) propose an innova-
tive buffer sizing method based on attribute optimiza-
tion which considers the comprehensive effect of
resource tightness and network complexity. Yang and
Fu (2014) propose a multi-project schedule method on
the basis of task priority and critical chain, thus solving
the multi-project resource schedule problem in the
automobile research and development (R&D) process.
Fuzzy theory is increasingly being used to evaluate
the status of projects owing to the unpredictability of
the project implementation status (Miyuan et al., 2009;
Naeni et al., 2013). In this respect, Long and Ohsato
(2008) simulate the project uncertainty with fuzzy num-
bers and calculate the size of the project buffer using
genetic algorithms and trapezoidal fuzzy theory as a
basis. The innovation of this approach lies in the fact
that, in the case of a lack of historical data, the use of
expert judgment to estimate the specific circumstances
of the project is conducive to dealing with specific
Zhang et al.
Table 1. Classification of uncertainty.
Classification Uncertainty The possible error range
Floor (associated with the
most optimistic time)
A Very low 25%
B Low 210%
C High 215%
D Very high 220%
project issues, which is worthy of further study
(Gonzalez et al., 2013). In other studies, Shi and Gong
(2009) and Shi et al. (2012) adopt a fuzzy method in
order to calculate resource tightness and suggest a buf-
fer sizing method combined with network complexity
and risk preference. The main innovation of this is that
these three factors that affect the size of the project
uncertainty are considered in a synthetic manner, and
fuzzy assessment methods are used to assess the
resource constraints. Zhao et al. (2010) subsequently
use a genetic algorithm to determine the critical chain.
These authors use trapezoidal fuzzy numbers to deter-
mine the projects uncertainty and propose a buffer cal-
culation method. Combined with design structure
matrix, the information flow between activities was
taken into consideration (Yang et al., 2012). Khoo et
al. (2003) propose a dynamic fuzzy decision support
scheme that is able to provide a reasonable plan for an
inherent iterative, complex product design. To facilitate
the design of computer network simultaneously for all
x-abilities in an integrated way, Kiran and Agrawal
(2008) propose a concurrent design methodology using
a multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) approach.
Moreover, Smith and Eppinger (1998) suggest an
approach for minimizing duration and cost by adjusting
the schedule.Holtta-Otto and Weck (2007) propose the
concept of resource utilization and Hu et al. (2003) ana-
lyze the characteristics of the network structure, thus
improving the project attributes and providing a good
direction for further study.
Uncertainty has a great influence on project imple-
mentation, and this uncertainty is the main factor to
affect the buffer size. However, the prediction of the
future status of a project is full of uncertainties (Peng
and Huang, 2013). Under these circumstances, it is dif-
ficult to judge the condition of many affairs clearly.
Based on the assumption that the activity duration
obeys the lognormal distribution, the proposed
method adopts fuzzy mathematics to deal with the
uncertainties of the project, and the buffer size is fur-
ther determined according to resource tightness and
network complexity.
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5
Upper limit (associated with
the most pessimistic time)
20%
30%
40%
50%
Security of
completion
A B C D
90%
The activity
period
50%
Ti50% TA90% TB90% TC90% TD90%
Figure 1. Duration distribution with different uncertainty.
Uncertainty assessments of the activities
There are many uncertain factors in a project, which
may have some impacts on the project and greatly
affect the implementation of the project schedule. Risk
refers to the uncertainty that may have a negative or
positive impact on the project objectives (Schwalbe,
2006). In general, the risks that affect the project sched-
ule refer to the factors that adversely affect the project.
Risks may delay the activity duration, or even cancel
an activity, thereby affecting the implementation of the
project.
Uncertainty assessments based on fuzzy theory
Newbold (1998) proposes that the project activity time
obeys lognormal distribution and that this distribution
is skewed to the right. Lognormal distribution can
change the shape of the distribution by simply adjust-
ing its variance, which is not dependent on the mean
value, and can be used to depict different degrees of
uncertainty of the activity duration under the same
expectation. The simplicity is increased by dividing the
variance of the activities into four categories, from low
to high uncertainty. Table 1 shows four activities with
different degrees of uncertainty. However, these activi-
ties have common duration estimation t (i). The corre-
sponding cumulative distribution function is shown in
Figure 1. According to Goldratts (1997) study, the
estimations are usually conservative.
6 Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications 23(1)

As shown in Figure 1, the uncertainty of activity A

is lower, and its duration with a completion guarantee
rate of 90% is T 90% (A). T 90% (A) is much larger than 1
T 50% (A) whose completion guarantee rate is 50%. =1
However, activity D has a higher level of uncertainty,
and T 90% (D) is much larger than T 90% (A). The values of
activity B and activity C are between those of activity The left spread The right spread

A and activity D. The project duration is therefore

jointly determined by using the average activity time
and the level of uncertainty. The uncertainty level can
be regarded as the project buffer.
Uncertainty leads to fuzzy descriptions of many
project factors, such as approximately,possible,re-
levantly good, and relevantly bad, among others.
The introduction of fuzzy sets theory into a project
schedule could therefore better analyze and deal with
the multiple fuzzy uncertainties of the project.
Every object in a fuzzy set theory has a membership
value range from 0 to 1, where 0 signifies that the object
is not a member of the fuzzy set and 1 indicates that the
object completely belongs to the fuzzy set. The value
between 0 and 1 indicates the degree to which the object
belongs to the fuzzy set (Hua C et al., 2005). The uncer-
tainty of project activity duration generally uses an L-R
type fuzzy number (Ashtiani et al., 2007; Chanas and
Zielinski, 2001).
Definition of an L-R fuzzy number. If A ~ is a normal
fuzzy number set of real number field R, and the cut
~ of A
set Au ~ is a closed interval for any 0  u  1, then
~
A is a fuzzy number (Wu et al., 2003). These objects are
not clearly defined, and their fuzzy values depend on
experts judgment of the uncertainty of the events. In
general, an L-R fuzzy number that is used to describe
the project duration has two forms: a triangular fuzzy
number and a trapezoidal fuzzy number. The main dif-
ference between the two forms of L-R fuzzy numbers is
that the triangular fuzzy number uses a single value to
express the most possible value, whereas the most pos-
sible value of a trapezoidal fuzzy number is an interval.
The uncertainty estimation is related to the experts
experience, and an interval form is therefore more suit-
able for the disposal of uncertainty problems. Kandel
(1992) uses a trapezoid to describe fuzzy intervals and
states that the interval is better at determining a specific
value.
Figure 2. Trapezoid fuzzy numbers.
fuzzy set (McCabom, 1993). The membership function
m is often determined by means of expert judgment.
According to this estimation, any uncertainty that is
smaller than a or larger than d may not occur, whereas
the values between b and c have the highest possibility
of occurrence. The membership function is shown in
equation (1)
8
>
> s  a=b  a, for s 2 a, b
<
1, for s 2 b, c
m(s) = 1
>
> d  s=d  c, for s 2 c, d
:
0, for s 62 a, d
After the four fuzzy sets have been determined, the
degree to which the fuzzy numbers agree should be cal-
culated. In this research, we adopt the agreement index
(AI) to measure the degree of agreement. The AI is an
index that is used to measure the consistency of two
fuzzy events. In the actual application aspect, AI is a
very good index because it thoroughly considers the
shape of the fuzzy events. The consistency index is
essentially a probability index, which shows how many
proportion of an event is inside the boundaries of
another event. The AI is between 0 and 1, and the two
events are fully compatible when AI = 1. With graphic
method, this article measures AI by the ratio of two
areas, which is highly intuitive. That is to say, the
degree of agreement is often equal to the left cut graph
area divided by the original trapezoid area. According
to Figure 2, (A) stands for the black trapezoid area and
(B) stands for the red rectangle area; the yellow area
means the overlapping of (A) and (B). Then, AI can be
determined by equation (2), which adopts the calcula-
tion method of area rate

S(A \ B)
AI(A, B) = 2
Estimating the uncertainty with trapezoidal fuzzy S(A)
numbers where
The proposed method uses trapezoidal fuzzy sets
A(i) = a(i), b(i), c(i), d(i) to estimate the uncertainty of c(i)  b(i) + d(i)  a(i) d(i)  s(i)2
the project, as shown in Figure 2. The membership S(A \ B) = 
2 2 3 d(i)  c(i)
function m has values in [0, 1], and it is used to express 3
the degree of an uncertainty factor si belonging to a

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Zhang et al. 7

c(i)  b(i) + d(i)  a(i)

S(A) = 4
2 X5
Y4
In general, in order to make the estimation results
X3
close to reality, the AI will take a high value, which dif- Y2
fers according to the conditions of each separate proj- Y1 Y5
X6
X1 X2
ect. For example, the planner will sometimes set the AI
as 90% according to the actual condition of the project. Y3
X4
If the average duration of certain activities is
10 days, the fuzzy sets of the activity uncertainty pro-
vided by the expert are A(i) = (1, 3, 4, 6), the required Figure 3. Project network diagram.
AI is 90%, and the uncertainty size of this activity can
therefore be estimated using the trapezoidal fuzzy num- P
bers as follows r(i, q) 3 ti
i
RF(q) = 7
T 3 Rav(q)
4  3 + 6  1=2  6  s(i)2 =2 3 (6  4)
AI = = 0:9
(4  3 + 6  1)=2 where RF represents the resource utilization, r(i, q) indi-
5 cates the resource usage for activity i for resource q,
and ti is the duration of activity i. Rav(q) represents the
s(i) = 4:9 6 availability of resource q, and T is the length of the crit-
This means that when the average duration of the ical chain. The resource tightness is therefore
project is 10 days, the fuzzy value of the uncertainties
is 4.9 days. The error range of the estimated activity a(i) = maxfRF(q)g 8
q
duration is close to 50% of the average duration, which
means that the uncertainty of exceeding the average
duration is very large. Network complexity. Network complexity is another
Fuzzy theory is more suitable for those conditions important factor that affects the project buffer size. In
under which the project lacks historical data or is dif- order to calculate the network complexity of the proj-
ferent from previous projects. In these circumstances, ect, this article simplifies the project schedule into a
the determination of the probability distribution of the network diagram which consists of arrows and nodes
project activity is unrealistic and inaccurate, and it is according to the logical relationship between the activi-
thus more dependent on subjective judgment. Fuzzy ties. Let us suppose that there is a network collection
theory can quantify the uncertainties, and it is therefore G = \X, Y . , where X = \Xi . (i = 0, 1, 2,...) is
more reasonable and applicable to estimate the uncer- a set of nodes and Y = \Yi . (i = 0, 1, 2,...) is a set
tainty of activities. of arrows. The network diagram is shown in Figure 3.
In order to simplify the calculations, this study is car-
ried out under the following conditions:
Determining the project buffer
According to the fuzzy values of the uncertainty deter- Assumption 1. There is only one arrow between two
mined above, the final project buffer can be determined nodes, and the direction of every arrow is from the
by taking into account the impact of the projects own front to the back.
properties such as its resource constraints and network Assumption 2. In this path, the nodes and arrows are
complexity. arranged alternately; the number series is
T = x0 y1 x1 y2 . . . yn xn .
The attribute factors affecting the buffer Network complexity is a non-dimensional parameter
Resource tightness. In modern project planning, the between the range [0, 1]. The input and output of the
resource is introduced as a constraint in network plan- nodes can reflect the limit of the number of the nodes
ning problems. The closer the resources required are to in the network. Here, the total number of network con-
the resources available, the greater the likelihood of straints and network paths are set as valid factors in
project delay and the larger the buffer needed to absorb order to measure the network complexity. Practice
the delays. In this article, the resource utilization rate is shows that the greater the number of network paths
used to reflect the situation of resource scarcity (Tukel and the number of constraints, the higher the complex-
et al., 2006). The resource utilization rate of the project ity (Lin and Gang, 2010). The network complexity of
activities is shown in equation (7) activity i is accordingly defined as equation (9)

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8 Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications 23(1)

Table 2. Activities and logical relationships of project A.

B FB I L FB

No. Activity name Duration Cost

(day) (KUSD/day) A C E F G H J M N FB

A Acquire project team 15 3.5 D FB K FB

B Customer analysis 13 3
C Market investigation 11 3
D Preparation of feasibility 9 2.5 Figure 4. Network diagram of project A.
report
E Requirements analysis 19 3.5
F High-level design 17 3.5 The basic hypothesis of the experiment
G Detailed design 21 4
H Detailed design 7 2.5 Project A involves all the processes in a project devel-
improvement opment, including 14 steps. The activities in the project
I Coding 8 2.5 and the logical relationships between the activities are
J Preparation of test plans 18 3.5
K Internal test 11 3 shown in Table 2 (Shi et al., 2012).
L External platform 6 2 According to Newbolds (1998) view, the proposed
establishment method assumes that the duration of the project activi-
M External test 14 2 ties follows a lognormal distribution and that the ideal
N Debugging and improving 20 4 duration is set by the duration of a 50% completion
probability. After the safety time has been removed,
NY the activities are ordered according to the logical rela-
b(i) = 1 + 9 tionship to form a logical relationship network plan.
NX
This plan is then adjusted according to the resource
where NY represents the total number of precedent rela- constraints and the principle of minimum total dura-
tionships defined in the sub-network feeding into activ- tion in order to obtain the projects critical chain, as
ity i of the critical chain, and NX is the total number of shown in Figure 4. The critical chain principles are con-
nodes in the sub-networks. sidered in order to add the feeding buffer to the end of
a non-critical chain, thus avoiding the impact of the
non-critical chain on the critical chain, and the project
Extended optimization buffer model buffer is added at the end of a critical chain to protect
The proposed method is first used to estimate the fuzzy the projects timely completion.
uncertainty of the critical chain activities and is then used In order to ensure the progress of the experiment
to adjust the uncertainties of the activities according to and to be able to indicate the effectiveness of the
resource tightness and network complexity. Finally, the improved method, the following hypotheses were pro-
buffer time of all the activities is concentrated at the end posed during the experiment:
of the project by using the tail-centralized method. When
the safety time of all the activities is concentrated to the 1. Availability of resources. The availability of the lim-
end of the project, the buffer produced is less than the ited resources remains unchanged during the imple-
buffer sum of all the activities, but it is able to provide mentation of the project.
the same guarantee rate of completion. This means that 2. The activities cannot be interrupted. Once a project
the concentration of the project buffer to the end of the activity has started, the next activity cannot start
project reduces the duration of the project without until it has finished, and it should not be inter-
increasing project risks. The calculation of the PB is rupted by other activities.
shown in equation (10) 3. Overlapping relationship. The bridging relationships
between activities are finishstart. That is, an activ-
s
X n ity can only start once the precedent activity has
PB = (1 + a(i)) 3 b(i) 3 s2 10 finished, and it must start at once.
i=1

The experimental simulation model and results

Experimental layouts
This article proposes a determination model for a proj-
ect buffer according to the impact of the project uncer-
tainty on project duration. In this section, an actual
project is used to simulate and validate this model.
MATLAB software was adopted for the simulation
and the results of the simulation, which were run 500
times. In order to obtain an objective and authentic
conclusion, the mean value and variance of the project
are adopted to simulate index such as the duration,

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Zhang et al. 9

Table 3. The comparison result.

Project Actual duration Actual cost Buffer consumption Probability of

buffer (day) (day) (KUSD) (100%) delay (100%)

The proposed method 27.30 72.70 238.30 40.15% 2.6%

RSEM 24.52 81.09 265.78 41.12% 4.2%
C&PM 35.50
APRT 46% 4%
APD 66% 6%

RSEM: root square error method; C&PM: cut and paste method; APRT: adaptive procedure with resource tightness; APD: adaptive procedure with
density.

Figure 5. Buffer comparison (left) and buffer consumption comparison (right).

Figure 6. Probability distribution of duration (left) and frequency distribution of duration and cost (right).

cost, buffer consumption, and probability of delay. RSEM, APRT, and APD. All the comparison results
Moreover, the results are compared with the C&PM, are shown in Table 3 and Figures 5 and 6.

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10
The results of this actual case allow us to draw the
following conclusions. First, as can be observed from
the results in Table 3, the buffer size determined by the
proposed method is less than that of the C&PM but
larger than that of the RSEM. The duration and cost
determined by the proposed method are, meanwhile,
smaller than those of the C&PM and RSEM. There are
three reasons for these findings. First, the C&PM cuts
half of the project duration as a project buffer without
considering the number of activities. This will make the
buffer size increase linearly with the number of activi-
ties, thus resulting in excessive protection when the
number of activities is large. Second, the RSEM
assumes that the activity time durations are indepen-
dent of each other based on the central limit theorem.
In fact, the activities are not independent. The RSEM
will therefore inevitably lead the buffer determined to
be smaller than the actual requirement. Third, the pro-
posed fuzzy theory introduced to measure the safety
time and uncertainty is therefore determined by the
actual situation of a project, thus avoiding the insuffi-
ciency of cutting the estimated duration by half.
Moreover, the project buffer is then adjusted by project
attributes, thus making the buffer more reasonable.
Second, according to Figure 5, the buffer consump-
tion of the proposed method is smaller than that of
RSEM, and both the two methods have some buffer
left. The proposed method not only has smaller dura-
tion and cost but also has a lower delay probability.
Based on the critical chain theory, the proposed
method extracts a proper buffer and shortens the proj-
ect duration. The shortening of the project duration
will therefore lead to a reduction in costs and a double
optimization of project duration and cost.
Third, the results of buffer consumption and delay
probability are also compared with APRT and APD
(Tukel et al., 2006). As shown in Table 3, both the buf-
fer consumption and the probability are lower than
that of APRT and APD. APRT and APD did not con-
sider the comprehensive effect of resource tightness and
network complexity, so the delay will inevitably occur
because of insufficient buffer. The proposed method
determines an appropriate buffer size, thus reducing
the delay probability and providing a better protection.
Fourth, the cumulative probability and frequency
distributions are shown in Figure 6. The frequency dis-
tribution diagram refers to the 500 experimental results
distributed situation. As can be obtained from the fre-
quency distributions, the simulation result tends to be
concentrated, the fluctuation is small, and the project
risk is greatly reduced. For example, the duration with
a 90% completion guarantee rate is 76 days for the
proposed method, which is smaller than the duration
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Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications 23(1)
required by the RSEM. The proposed method has a
higher completion rate than the RSEM.
Conclusion
Project schedule planning is a predictive work, which is
developed according to planners experience and sub-
jective judgment. Considering that the actual imple-
mentation of the future status is unknown, this article
proposes a new model with which to determine a proj-
ect buffer. Based on the assumption that the project
activities follow lognormal distribution, the analysis of
the impact factors of the project duration is used to
determine that the main factors affecting the buffer are
uncertainties. A fuzzy theory and trapezoidal fuzzy
numbers are then introduced to calculate the uncer-
tainty of the project, which is the initial project buffer.
Finally, the initial project buffer is adjusted by using
resource tightness and network complexity, thus allow-
ing it to avoid the deficiency of the central limit theo-
rem. The experimental results show that this method
can consider different project attributes effectively, set
a more accurate project buffer, and provide the project
with more effective protection.
The study of human behavior and psychological fac-
tors has great theoretical and practical significance
regarding how to measure and estimate the project buf-
fer more accurately. The project manager can reduce
the project schedule and improve the timely completion
rate effectively by adopting the proposed method.
Despite the strengths of this research, the main limita-
tion of this study is that the determination of the fuzzy
number set lacks actual statistical data, which are
mostly decided according to the experts experience
and subjective behavior factors. How to determine the
practical fuzzy set in a numerical manner is, therefore,
still a problem for further study.
As a new project planning idea, there has been much
progress in buffer research and the buffer application
area. However, there are still several limitations that
have to be taken into consideration. Herroelen and
Leus (2001) conducted a detailed analysis and summary
regarding the advantages and disadvantages of buffer
management. Future research could improve buffer
monitoring and early warning mechanisms based on
the present studies, which combine the buffer with the
specific conditions of the project activities. In addition,
the core concept of the critical chain is that the project
plan contains a large number of safety times owing to
human factors: most of the safety times are wasted
because of the student syndrome (Goldratt, 1997).
Further studies will also focus on an analysis of the
influence of human nature, such as the influence of the
Zhang et al.
motivation factor and the penalty factor, which would
allow us to control both effective and humanized safety
time.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Author biographies
Junguang Zhang received the B.E.and M.E. degree from Wuhan University of Technology
(WHUT), and received the PhD from Beijing University of Post and Telecommunication (BUPT),
Beijing, China. He is an associate professor in Dongling School of Economics & Management in
University of Science & Technology Beijing (USTB). He previously worked as a senior project
manager in a famous company, managing complex development projects. He also served as a visit-
ing scholar in Robins Business School at University of Richmond. His research involves managing
the development process of complex engineering project, the critical chain project management,
software project planning, software project monitoring and control, optimization and simulation.
He has published numerous articles.

Saike Jia received the Bachelors degree in Henan University of Economics and Law. She is cur-
rently working towards the Master degree in project management in the Dongling School of
Economics & Management at University of Science & Technology Beijing (USTB). Her current
research interest is critical chain project buffer management, software project management.

Estrella Diaz is an Associate Professor in the Law and Social Sciences School of University of
Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). She holds a PhD in Business Strategy and Marketing from the
University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). Her research emphasizes transportation and supply
channels, customer relationship, services and tourism issues. She has articles published in refereed
 journals such as International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Global Academy of
Marketing Science, and Qualitative Market Research among others. She is also the co-author of
several books on Marketing. She has won several awards for her research.

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