Application Research Of Critical Chain Project Method In Project Schedule Management

Reasonable schedule plan and effective schedule control are the most important link of project schedule management. According to the traditional schedule plan existing problems, this article introduces a new method of project schedule management -critical chain project management, after analyzing the project schedule management, theory of constraint, traditional schedule management methods, and then elaborating the basic idea and application methods.First, it introduces Critical chain management method through expounding the theory of project schedule management, theory of constraint and theory of management by constraints. Critical chain management considers risk polymerization principle in formulating project schedule plan, emphasizes to use system theory to consider problem in project management, pays attention to resource constraints and those factors of human behavior, maintains using whole time mechanism in order to shorten project time, sets buffers to reduce risk.Second, traditional schedule management methods only consider the logical relationship between working procedures, ignore resource constraints and human behavior factors, join much safety time when estimating working procedure time, cause resource conflicts between parallel working procedures and project delay. Critical chain management advocates eliminating safety time of working procedure, adopting as late as possible time, controlling critical chain, setting buffers and so on, to remedy the defects of traditional schedule methods. It has made big improvements in estimating working procedure time, making schedule plan and controlling schedule.Third, the main idea of critical chain is that manage project with critical chain, control schedule by buffers. It constructed the model of project schedule from identifying critical chain, eliminating safety time, setting buffer quantities, buffers management and so on. It uses heuristic algorithm to balance resources confliction and determine critical chain; it has introduced project complexity, the important coefficient of working procedure, risk elastic coefficient in setting buffer quantities, to make the buffer closer to the actual project. It has also introduced buffer breakthrough and action decision matrix figure in buffer management, according to buffer consumption and project completion status to control project schedule. Forth, with the specific examples, through making schedule plan by critical chain management and traditional schedule methods, making Monte Carlo simulation, and by contrast analysis, show the advantage of critical chain management.