Question

The software developing firm, Flow Associates, is rolling out the new software. They are calling a meeting of the potential customers to demonstrate the new software. To setup the meeting requires several tasks to be performed in a designated time period. Based on the management briefing, the system analyst came up with the following paragraph. First reserve the meeting room. Then order the marketing material and brief the managers. After the briefing send put the customer emails and burn sample DVDs. When the emails are sent and the DVDs are ready, load the new software. When the marketing materials have arrived and the software is ready, do a class rehearsal.

Let us revisit the problem description once again to identify the tasks and mark the tasks in red color font.First reserve the meeting room. Then order the marketing material and brief the managers. After the briefing send out the customer emails and burn sample DVDs. When the emails are sent and the DVDs are ready, load the new software. When the marketing materials have arrived and the software is ready, do a class rehearsal. Now that the tasks are identified, we need to identify the tasks precedence needed to draw the Gantt chart (and to determine the critical path). I am going to breakdown the problem description into sentences associated with each task.First reserve the meeting room. Then order the marketing material and brief the managers. After the briefing send out the customer emails and burn sample DVDs. When the emails are sent and the DVDs are ready, load the new software.When the marketing materials have arrived and the software is ready, do a class rehearsal. You can see that these sentences tell which tasks to perform when. To draw the Gantt chart, we need now is the duration (time it takes to complete) of each task. In the following table. I am listing each task, the precedence, and duration time for each task.

Task Description                       Task No.        Must Follow                        Expected

                                                                                                                        Time(days)

Reserve the meeting room                  A                 None                                      1

Order the marketing material              B                     A                                        9

Brief the managers                              C                     A                                        2

Send put the customer emails             D                     C                                        3

Burn sample DVDs                            E                      C                                        3

Load the new software                       F                      D, E                                    2

Do a class rehearsal.                           G                     B, F                                    1

Now you do:(A) Using the data from the table above, draw a Gantt chart to help Flow Associates organize the meeting. Chart should be neat and labeled.     (B) Using the data from the table above, draw a PERT diagram. Then identify the critical path. The diagram should be neat and labeled.

Note: you can create these charts using MS Project, MS Excel to create Gantt chart and yEd Graph Editor, MS Word to create PERT Diagram.

- Please attache the file too.

Answer 1

Duration Task 1 A 9 B Gantt Chart Task Description Reserve the meeting room Order the marketing material Brief the Manager Send put the Customer Email Burn sample DVDs Load the new Software Do a class reheasal 2 C 3 D 3 E F 2 1 G 0 1 2 3 7 8 9 10 11 4 Days

PERT Diagram 2 А B G 3 2 c | E 3 Critical Path A-B-G = 11 Days A-C-D-F-G = 9 Days A-C-E-F-G = 9 Days Critical path = A-B-G = 11 Days.