Project management has become a key component for improving organizational performance and is applied in many business areas and industries. Resource-constrained stochastic project networks are quite common. Managing such projects to maximize resource utilization and reduce project duration simultaneously is difficult. Resource loading, assignment rules, and priorities significantly affect project performance, especially in shared-resource, multi-project environments. This thesis provides an approach for using discrete-event simulation to analyze the behavior and performance of project networks that use resource pools. A method to translate project networks into simulation models is developed. The translator is used to convert and evaluate a benchmark test set of resource constrained stochastic project networks. The effect of factors like project network complexity, resource availability and allocation strategies on project performance is analyzed using a completely randomized design with factorial arrangement of the aforementioned factors. The conversion process and results from the analysis are discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, May, 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

The thesis deals with possibilities of an application of system dynamics methodics for an understanding and teaching the project management. A dynamic simulation model has been created for this purpose by using Vensim. A web simulator for the project management, which is based on the simulation model, has been created in the next part of the thesis. The benefit of the simulator over the model is its user- friendliness and its self-explanatory graphic interface, which makes it possible to use the simulation model for purposes of teaching and further reaserch in the field of project management. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)