Operational Research (O.R.) case studies

What’s the problem?

You are a property developer… You are renovating a house There are various tasks that this involves Which will each take a different time to complete

Some tasks have to be finished before others can begin You want to complete the renovation as quickly as possible

Is it possible to complete the project before your deadline? In what order should you do the activities to complete the project as early as possible? And how many workers will you need and how will you assign them activities?

What do we need to know? What needs to be done? And how long do those activities take to do?

Something like this… ActivityTime needed to complete Substantial repairs to the roof8 days Internal structural work4 days Electrical work7 days Plumbing6 days Installing a new kitchen3 days Installing a new bathroom4 days Garden5 days Plastering4 days Internal decoration5 days Fitting carpets1 day Outside paintwork5 days

We also need to know which activities depend on each other Then we are ready to consider how to manage the project

Let’s summarise the problem We need to plan a project involving several activities of different lengths Some of these activities depend on the completion of others

We want to plan the order of activities that will finish the project in the shortest possible time

This is an example of Critical Path Analysis

Other examples where this might be used Businesses, hospitals, schools (in fact anywhere where complex projects take place)

Over the next few lessons, we will look at ways of approaching problems of this type… What next?