Dynamic integration of methods for the development of a complete conceptual model

The aim of this paper has two final issues: first of all the paper wants to point out how Operations Research support in Project Management can be useful when facing complex and highly articulated projects, and how it can be possible to put together different tools of Operation Research theory in order to develop a method and a model able to represent the project. This paper is based on a real project and it focuses the attention on two particular stages of the interaction between Operations Research and Project Management: the planning and the programming stages. While the theory of graphs and Network Analysis are used to face the planning step, the programming stage starts by introducing the Critical Path Method. Because of the characteristics of the project, this method seems unable to forecast and to anticipate correctly the project's evolution. So, complementary approaches have been developed and introduced in order to complete and to improve that stage: first of all the Critical Path Method has been combined with the Programme Evaluation Review Technique, secondly the planning networks have been reduced in complexity by aggregation, and thirdly we have included the repetitiveness between the project's activities. Following this process, more aspects of the whole project are considered in the model that has been developed, improving its forecasting ability. Finally, the method and the results we obtained are specific to that project, with those characteristics, and they cannot be generalized.