IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v262y2017i1p274-286.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A buffer control method for top-down project control

Author

Listed:
  • Martens, Annelies
  • Vanhoucke, Mario

Abstract

Timely completion of projects is an important factor for project success. However, projects often exceed their predefined deadline, which results in a late project delivery and an increase in the total project cost. In order to increase the probability of timely completion, a project buffer can be planned at the end of a project. During project execution, an assessment of the total buffer consumption at the project completion date can be made in order to periodically monitor the project progress. When the expected buffer consumption is higher than 100%, the project deadline is expected to be exceeded and the project manager should take corrective actions to get the project back on track.

Suggested Citation

  • Martens, Annelies & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2017. "A buffer control method for top-down project control," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(1), pages 274-286.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:262:y:2017:i:1:p:274-286
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2017.03.034
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221717302382
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2017.03.034?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bowman, R. Alan, 2006. "Developing activity duration specification limits for effective project control," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 174(2), pages 1191-1204, October.
    2. Kolisch, R. & Padman, R., 2001. "An integrated survey of deterministic project scheduling," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 249-272, June.
    3. Trietsch, Dan & Mazmanyan, Lilit & Gevorgyan, Lilit & Baker, Kenneth R., 2012. "Modeling activity times by the Parkinson distribution with a lognormal core: Theory and validation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 386-396.
    4. Colin, Jeroen & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2014. "Setting tolerance limits for statistical project control using earned value management," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 107-122.
    5. Vanhoucke, Mario, 2010. "Using activity sensitivity and network topology information to monitor project time performance," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 359-370, October.
    6. Elmaghraby, Salah E., 2000. "On criticality and sensitivity in activity networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(2), pages 220-238, December.
    7. Hartmann, Sönke & Briskorn, Dirk, 2010. "A survey of variants and extensions of the resource-constrained project scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(1), pages 1-14, November.
    8. Vanhoucke, Mario & Colin, Jeroen, 2016. "On the use of multivariate regression methods for longest path calculations from earned value management observations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 127-140.
    9. Vanhoucke, Mario & Coelho, Jose & Debels, Dieter & Maenhout, Broos & Tavares, Luis V., 2008. "An evaluation of the adequacy of project network generators with systematically sampled networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(2), pages 511-524, June.
    10. Raz, Tzvi & Erel, Erdal, 2000. "Optimal timing of project control points," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(2), pages 252-261, December.
    11. Vanhoucke, Mario, 2011. "On the dynamic use of project performance and schedule risk information during projecttracking," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 416-426, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martens, Annelies & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2019. "The impact of applying effort to reduce activity variability on the project time and cost performance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(2), pages 442-453.
    2. Song, Jie & Martens, Annelies & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2022. "Using Earned Value Management and Schedule Risk Analysis with resource constraints for project control," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 297(2), pages 451-466.
    3. Song, Jie & Martens, Annelies & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2020. "The impact of a limited budget on the corrective action taking process," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(3), pages 1070-1086.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martens, Annelies & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2019. "The impact of applying effort to reduce activity variability on the project time and cost performance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 277(2), pages 442-453.
    2. Song, Jie & Martens, Annelies & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2022. "Using Earned Value Management and Schedule Risk Analysis with resource constraints for project control," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 297(2), pages 451-466.
    3. Wauters, Mathieu & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2017. "A Nearest Neighbour extension to project duration forecasting with Artificial Intelligence," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 259(3), pages 1097-1111.
    4. Song, Jie & Martens, Annelies & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2021. "Using Schedule Risk Analysis with resource constraints for project control," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 288(3), pages 736-752.
    5. Colin, Jeroen & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2014. "Setting tolerance limits for statistical project control using earned value management," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 107-122.
    6. Song, Jie & Martens, Annelies & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2020. "The impact of a limited budget on the corrective action taking process," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(3), pages 1070-1086.
    7. Plaza, Malgorzata, 2016. "Balancing the costs of human resources on an ERP project," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 59(PB), pages 171-183.
    8. She, Bingling & Chen, Bo & Hall, Nicholas G., 2021. "Buffer sizing in critical chain project management by network decomposition," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    9. Cui, Nanfang & Demeulemeester, Erik & Bie, Li, 2016. "Incorporation of activity sensitivity measures into buffer management to manage project schedule riskAuthor-Name: Hu, Xuejun," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 249(2), pages 717-727.
    10. Xiong, Jian & Leus, Roel & Yang, Zhenyu & Abbass, Hussein A., 2016. "Evolutionary multi-objective resource allocation and scheduling in the Chinese navigation satellite system project," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 251(2), pages 662-675.
    11. Cohen, Izack & Iluz, Michal, 2015. "When cost–effective design strategies are not enough: Evidence from an experimental study on the role of redundant goals," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 99-111.
    12. Vanhoucke, Mario & Colin, Jeroen, 2016. "On the use of multivariate regression methods for longest path calculations from earned value management observations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 127-140.
    13. Vanhoucke, Mario, 2011. "On the dynamic use of project performance and schedule risk information during projecttracking," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 416-426, August.
    14. Fernando Acebes & Javier Pajares & José M. González-Varona & Adolfo López-Paredes, 2021. "Project risk management from the bottom-up: Activity Risk Index," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 29(4), pages 1375-1396, December.
    15. Richard E. Wendell & Timothy J. Lowe & Mike M. Gordon, 2023. "Dangers in using earned duration and other earned value metrics to measure a project’s schedule performance," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 31(2), pages 665-680, June.
    16. Vega-Velázquez, Miguel Ángel & García-Nájera, Abel & Cervantes, Humberto, 2018. "A survey on the Software Project Scheduling Problem," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 145-161.
    17. Mick Van Den Eeckhout & Broos Maenhout & Mario Vanhoucke, 2020. "Mode generation rules to define activity flexibility for the integrated project staffing problem with discrete time/resource trade-offs," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 292(1), pages 133-160, September.
    18. Narjes Sabeghi & Hamed Reza Tareghian, 2020. "Using the generalized maximum covering location model to control a project’s progress," Computational Management Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-21, January.
    19. Snauwaert, Jakob & Vanhoucke, Mario, 2023. "A classification and new benchmark instances for the multi-skilled resource-constrained project scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(1), pages 1-19.
    20. Guo, Weikang & Vanhoucke, Mario & Coelho, José, 2023. "A prediction model for ranking branch-and-bound procedures for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 306(2), pages 579-595.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:262:y:2017:i:1:p:274-286. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.