Probabilistic Project Duration Estimation Based on Uncertainty of Linkage between Activities

Generally,one of the most difficult works at scheduling is to estimate the duration of activities and linkages between them because the possibility that the duration and linkages could be exposed to the uncertainties is very high. When estimating project duration, therefore, the probabilistic estimation of the duration as well as the probabilistic estimation of the linkages between activities should be considered concurrently. The Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) that is considered to be one of the most popular techniques applied for the probabilistic estimation of a project duration cannot consider the uncertainties of the linkages because it only estimates the probabilistic duration limited to “FS0” relationship. The purpose of this study is to propose the new method, the Probabilistic Linkage Evaluation Technique (PLET), for probabilistically estimating the project duration based on the probabilistic estimation of the BDM’s relationships, and also provide more wide and various probabilistic information about the project duration.