Schedule compression using the direct stiffness method

This paper presents a new method for critical path (CPM) scheduling that optimizes project duration in order to minimize the project total cost. In addition, the method could be used to produce constrained schedules that accommodate contractual completion dates of projects and their milestones. The proposed method is based on the well-known "direct stiffness method" for structural analysis. The method establishes a complete analogy between the structural analysis problem with imposed support settlement and that of project scheduling with imposed target completion date. The project CPM network is replaced by an equivalent structure. The equivalence conditions are established such that when the equivalent structure is compressed by an imposed displacement equal to the schedule compression, the sum of all member forces represents the additional cost required to achieve such compression. To enable a comparison with the currently used methods, an example application from the literature is analyzed using the pr...