EXAMPLE 1

Rl, the vice president of JPIA Is tasked in organizing the General Assembly of the College of Accountancy
batch 2018 and finishing the preparation at the earliest possible time. She has determined the sequence of
activity and the days needed summarized at the table below. When is she going to finish the task? What is
the critical path?

ACTIVITIES PREDECESSOR TIME(IN DAYS)

A 3
B A 4
C B 2
D A 5
E C 1
F C 2
G D,F 4
H E,G 3

Step 1. Draw the network diagram

B E

C F H
A

D G

Step 2. Draw a table for each activity and fill it with the necessary information

Earliest Start Activity Earliest Finish

Late Start Duration Late Finish

Wherein
Earliest start : Needed time for the activity to begin.
The first activity is assumed to be 0; Thus Activity A earliest start is zero.

Earliest finish: Earliest time which the activity can end.

To get the earliest finish, add the earliest start with the duration.
Thus, Earliest finish = Earliest start + duration.
Activity A EF = 0+ 3
= 3

To get the earliest start of the next activity, consider the earliest finish of the predecessor and the activity
with the higher no of time is its earliest start of the next activity.
For example, Before activity G, is D and F. F has a higher earliest finish(11) compared to D(8), thus, the
earliest start of G is 11

Decision: The earliest time to finish the task is 18 days.

Step 3: To know the Critical Path, Do the Backward pass

From the last activity, fill the remaining information
Wherein:
Late finish is the same with the earliest finish of the last activity which is 18.
Late start= Late finish- duration, Thus,

Activity H Late Start = 18-3

= 15

*The late finish of the predecessor of the last activity, which is E and G is the late start of H, which is 15.

Continue to work backward and when there is one predecessor, the lower between the two activities late
start will be used. For example, the activity C late finish is 9 because F has the lower late start which is 9
compared to E’s 14

To get the critical path, the activity with the same earliest and late start; and the same earliest and late finish
will be the critical path.

A+ B+ C +F +G + H = EARLIEST TIME TO FINISH THE TASK

3+ 4 + 2+ 2+ 4 + 3 = 18 Days

EXAMPLE 2
Aly wants to finish her project for management as early as possible. She has determined the sequence of the
task she needed to do as shown at the table below. How many hours is needed to finish the task? What is the
crirtical path?

Activity Duration( Hours) Predecessor

A 4
B 8 A
C 3 A
D 2 B
E 3 C
F 10 D, E
To determine the Slack, Get the difference of the Late start and the Earliest start
The Activity with a 0 slack is the critical path

As you can see, activity C has a slack of 4 which means it can be delayed by 4 hours, the same with E that’s
why the two are not part of the critical path
EXAMPLE 3
Kim jones was given a project last week which will be reported to the management. She need to finish the
project due to a sudden decline in the stocks of the company. She has determined the needed information on
the table below. How many days does she need to finish the report?

Activity Predecessor Time

A 3
B A 2
C A 3
D B 4
E D, C 5

Develop a critical path table

Activity Early Start Early Finish Slack
( Early start+duration) Activities Late start- Late Finish
A 0 0+3=3 0
B Max= 3 3+2=5 0
C Max= 3 3+3=6 3
D Max= 5 5+4=9 0
E Max (9, 6) = 9 9+5=14 0

Activity is not critical since its slack is 3

The summation of the duration of the critical path is
A+B+D+E
3+2+4+5= 14 days is the earliest time to finish the project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-AZz_FuOKM