Scenario Analysis and PERT/CPM Applied to Strategic Investment at an Automated Container Port
Publication: ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering
Volume 4, Issue 3
Abstract
Particular scenarios of emergent and future conditions are more disruptive than others in terms of project schedules and the evolving priorities of project managers. It is essential to associate the scenarios with cost and schedule impacts to guide corrective or precautionary actions. The innovation of this paper is to use scenarios to investigate two modes of project disruption: (1) scenario-based preferences that change the relative emphasis placed on project management success criteria, and (2) scenarios that may change the structure of the project network and parameters of the constituent activities. These disruptions are used to reprioritize the activities of projects across scenarios subject to precedence constraints. The developed methodology is demonstrated with applications to strategic planning, capacity expansion, and operations of a shipping container port with billions of dollars of planned investment and millions of container transactions per year. The results characterize the scenarios that are most and least disruptive.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant 1541165 “CRISP Type 2: Collaborative Research: Resilience Analytics: A Data-Driven Approach for Enhanced Interdependent Network Resilience.” Additional support for this effort was provided by the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Logistics Systems (CCALS), The Port of Virginia, and the Volkswagen Group of North America Fellowship. This project was done in part with funding from Virginia International Terminals, LLC (VIT), a single-member limited liability company wholly owned by the Virginia Port Authority (VPA). In addition, Hampton Roads Chassis Pool (HRCP II), on behalf of and wholly owned by VIT, operates and manages the intermodal chassis and empty container yards. Collectively the three entities are marketed as The Port of Virginia, and referred to as such in this paper.
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ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering
Volume 4 • Issue 3 • September 2018
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©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Oct 6, 2017
Accepted: Mar 5, 2018
Published online: Jun 14, 2018
Published in print: Sep 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Nov 14, 2018
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