Hard Rock Cafe

PERT AND CPM
Name:
Institution:
Introduction
At the Hard Rock Cafe, project management like in many organizations is a key planning tool. With Hard Rock's constant growth in cafes and hotels, remodeling of existing restaurants, scheduling live concerts and event venues, and planning the annual Rockfest, the top managers rely on project management techniques and software to maintain the schedule and budget performance. Microsoft Project helps the company to keep so many people on the same page.
This project plan aims to analyze how feasible it is to carry out the Rockfest event, which is attended by over 100,000 enthusiastic fans. The project shows how Tomasso plans the event within a tight 9-month planning horizon using the MS Project charts. In carrying out this analysis, two issues will be addressed. First, is to identify the critical path and its activities for Rockfest and looking at the duration time the project take. Secondly, is to crash the project activities to keep the project on schedule and achieve the original duration.
PERT AND CPM
Activities on the critical path cannot be started until others are finished. The activities have to be sequentially completed with each new stage not being started until the prior activity is completed. Those activities that are not dependent on completion of other activities are called 'parallel' tasks. This paper uses MS project to find the critical path. The critical path is highlighted Red in the MS project.
The activities in the critical path are;
* Finalize site and building contracts

* Select local printer

* Design promotional Web site

* Set TV deal

* Hire director

* Plan for TV camera placement

* Passes and stage credentials

The project activities that I would crash in order to keep the project on schedule and achieve the original duration would be achieved as follows; first would be to compute the marginal crash costs and the available compression for each project activity as shown below.
Activity

Normal Time (weeks)

Crash Time (weeks)

Normal Cost

Crash Cost

A

7

4

$7,500

$11,500

B

3

2

$500

$800

C

3

2

$1,200

$1,700

D

5

3

$6,000

$9,000

E

6

4

$4,000

$6,500

F

4

3

$1,200

$1,700

G

2

2

$500

$500

H

4

3

$2,000

$3,500

I

4

3

$2,000

$3,500

J

10

7

$9,000

$16,000

K

2

1

$300

$400

L

3

2

$1,400

$1,900

M

8

6

$7,000

$11,000

N

6

5

$9,000

$12,000

O

7

5
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