A heuristic method for the estimation of the project duration in a stochastic network scheduling

In engineering and construction projects, the estimation of the completion date is often a complex task. When the uncertainty concerning project activity durations and the complexity of the project are not negligible, stochastic network techniques are more suitable to gain a reliable appraisal of the completion date. Since in these cases the conventional PERT computation can be inaccurate and the simulation can be too onerous, a heuristic method aimed to obtain fast and reliable results is proposed. An example of application of the heuristics to a real case of project scheduling is provided to show the heuristic implementation and effectiveness.