Sensitivity Analysis of a Construction Project Total Duration with Precedence Diagramming Method.

Construction project total duration is always a critical element for construction management. Knowing more information about the range of feasible values of the total project duration could be very useful either in the planning phase, to determine financial requirements of the project, either in the construction phase for project control purposes. The object of the paper is to introduce Sensitivity Analysis of project total duration, versus basic parameters like standard production rates of working activities or key resource availability. A model of an example project is realized with Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM). The effects of variations of productivity rates and of variation of the availability of key resources versus total project duration are observed, thus performing a sensitivity analysis with a heuristic method, in a simple way. The basic result is to perform sensitivity analysis of the total duration of a construction project with a simple method, easy to be implemented by practitioners.