Question

For national and regional security, the Government of Uganda has signed a contract with a Chinese arms manufacturer to produce weapons that will supplement the current space based defense system. The contract stipulates that the weaponry be ready within a year (50 working weeks). There is a penalty of $100,000 per week for late delivery; there is also a bonus of $50,000 per week for early delivery.

Several tasks are necessary to complete the project. First, the implications of the contract have to be detailed by personnel, materials and systems departments. A joint team will carry out this task, which is expected to take two weeks. Once this is complete the next three tasks can be undertaken concurrently: ordering raw materials (three weeks), allocating and hiring personnel (14 weeks), planning the modification and adaptation of equipment (12 weeks).

After the raw materials have been ordered it will take a further 20 weeks for them to be delivered. Once the modifications have been planned it will take a further 18 weeks for them to be carried out. When materials, equipment and personnel are available it will take two weeks to train the quality control personnel and three weeks to train the production personnel. These activities can take place simultaneously. When completed the production phase can start and this will last for 18 weeks, followed by a further five weeks of testing. The final preparations stage then takes three weeks. A few of the activities can be crashed, as shown in the following table:

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