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Construction engineering networks
Book Reviews
D.G. CARMICHAEL Construction Engineering Networks Ellis Horwood Ltd, Chichester, 1989, 198 pages, £36.00 Nowadays the Activity Network represents one of the Operations Research sectors which is used more often: the original techniques, namely PERT, CPM, MPM, have greatly improved and have now become valuable instruments in the more advanced disciplines like Project Management, Cost Engineering, Engineering and Economics in general. The publishing of a book like the one here presented is therefore welcomed, particularly since its content is applications orientated and, therefore, extremely useful to the practitioners. Carmichael's book is divided into eleven chapters and is a guide to the applications of Activity Networks (Network techniques) in the field of large scale engineering projects. The chapters examine the 'A on A' techniques, namely 'Activity-on-Arrows' and the 'A on N' techniques, namely 'Activity on Node' (Precedence diagrams for the author) for the representations of 'Network Programming'; the algorithms of CPM and PERT are then introduced with reference to times first and resources and then costs.
The content of the various chapters is very simple and clear with intuitive and interesting examples. Nevertheless this book has, we believe, some drawbacks which make its contents not fully acceptable, as far as the approach is concerned. We refer to the problem of the 'Overlapping Relationship' in particular, which is extremely important for a realistic use of the Activity Networks; the author relegates the matter to the last chapter, maintaining that 'more conventional (non-overlapping type) network still seems to be preferred by many practitioners': we could not disagree more, mostly because the Metra Potential Method (MPM) which the book does not even mention is the most frequently applied model of the Activity Networks since its creation at the beginning of the 1970s, just because it can deal with the very common situations of overlapping relationship. We also do not quite agree with the way PERT is presented, that is without emphasizing its most
129
distinctive characteristics deriving from its sophisticated probablistic model and for this reason chosen for the situations of particular uncertainty. Finally, with reference to the first chapters, we believe that more emphasis should have been put on the two fundamental aspects of planning and programming, each one having its own well defined characteristics. A precise and reliable programming can only be obtained from good planning! If it is true that the book is dedicated to the practitioners, it is also true that the practitioners themselves ought to be able to operate with safety and with the lowest planning and programming costs; otherwise Operations Research could loose important customers! The way the exercise with the relative solutions are presented is excellent, the exercises being very diversified.
L. POIAGA Institute of Quantitative Methods Universita L. Bocconi of Milan Via Sarfatti 25 Milan, Italy
P. VINCKE L'Aide multicrit~re h la Decision Editions de l'Universite, Bruxelles, 1988, 179 pages, FB708.00 Multiple criteria decision making has become one of the most active fields of Operational Research in the last fifteen years, and the author of this book is one of the persons whose personal contribution to the field is the most significant, even far beyond the French-speaking area. Although the book has only 180 pages, it describes the 'state of the art' as systematically as possible. The seven chapters are devoted to: I. Actions. II. Modelling of preferences. III. Basic concepts. IV. Multi-attribute utility theory. V. Outclassing methods. VI. Interactive methods. VII. Miscellaneous. While the first six chapters are reasonably technical, the last one, divided into 14 subchapters,
D.G. CARMICHAEL Construction Engineering Networks Ellis Horwood Ltd, Chichester, 1989, 198 pages, £36.00 Nowadays the Activity Network represents one of the Operations Research sectors which is used more often: the original techniques, namely PERT, CPM, MPM, have greatly improved and have now become valuable instruments in the more advanced disciplines like Project Management, Cost Engineering, Engineering and Economics in general. The publishing of a book like the one here presented is therefore welcomed, particularly since its content is applications orientated and, therefore, extremely useful to the practitioners. Carmichael's book is divided into eleven chapters and is a guide to the applications of Activity Networks (Network techniques) in the field of large scale engineering projects. The chapters examine the 'A on A' techniques, namely 'Activity-on-Arrows' and the 'A on N' techniques, namely 'Activity on Node' (Precedence diagrams for the author) for the representations of 'Network Programming'; the algorithms of CPM and PERT are then introduced with reference to times first and resources and then costs.
The content of the various chapters is very simple and clear with intuitive and interesting examples. Nevertheless this book has, we believe, some drawbacks which make its contents not fully acceptable, as far as the approach is concerned. We refer to the problem of the 'Overlapping Relationship' in particular, which is extremely important for a realistic use of the Activity Networks; the author relegates the matter to the last chapter, maintaining that 'more conventional (non-overlapping type) network still seems to be preferred by many practitioners': we could not disagree more, mostly because the Metra Potential Method (MPM) which the book does not even mention is the most frequently applied model of the Activity Networks since its creation at the beginning of the 1970s, just because it can deal with the very common situations of overlapping relationship. We also do not quite agree with the way PERT is presented, that is without emphasizing its most
129
distinctive characteristics deriving from its sophisticated probablistic model and for this reason chosen for the situations of particular uncertainty. Finally, with reference to the first chapters, we believe that more emphasis should have been put on the two fundamental aspects of planning and programming, each one having its own well defined characteristics. A precise and reliable programming can only be obtained from good planning! If it is true that the book is dedicated to the practitioners, it is also true that the practitioners themselves ought to be able to operate with safety and with the lowest planning and programming costs; otherwise Operations Research could loose important customers! The way the exercise with the relative solutions are presented is excellent, the exercises being very diversified.
L. POIAGA Institute of Quantitative Methods Universita L. Bocconi of Milan Via Sarfatti 25 Milan, Italy
P. VINCKE L'Aide multicrit~re h la Decision Editions de l'Universite, Bruxelles, 1988, 179 pages, FB708.00 Multiple criteria decision making has become one of the most active fields of Operational Research in the last fifteen years, and the author of this book is one of the persons whose personal contribution to the field is the most significant, even far beyond the French-speaking area. Although the book has only 180 pages, it describes the 'state of the art' as systematically as possible. The seven chapters are devoted to: I. Actions. II. Modelling of preferences. III. Basic concepts. IV. Multi-attribute utility theory. V. Outclassing methods. VI. Interactive methods. VII. Miscellaneous. While the first six chapters are reasonably technical, the last one, divided into 14 subchapters,