Simulation Approach to Estimate the Activity's Expected Running time

Abstract

Activity time is the elapsed time required for an activity. Estimating is an inexact art, so we expect that our initial duration estimates have some error in them. What we would really like to know is how much this error is going to affect our estimate of the total project duration. Fortunately, with a few assumptions and very little extra work we can make some judgments about the likely amount of variation in the total project time. Estimating activity times is probably one of the project Evaluation and Review Technique's (PERT) most critical features. The concept of three times estimating are used(Optimistic Time, Most Likely Time, and Pessimistic Time). However, the best estimate of the time period (Most Likely Time) in which the activity can be accomplished was provided by experience. In this paper we attempt to optimize the expected running time estimates and the most accurate estimates of the activity performance time using simulation . New method was proposed for this purpose and some details was explained about this method. The result show that the simulation is necessary to optimize time as well as it's flexibility