Abstract

In the face of the high variability in the completion of construction projects, the following research is generated. In the literature we can find several proposals to program projects, however, the variability of the activities causes high variability in the completion date of the projects. We hope that the proposed method, by controlling the start of activities, will ensure the completion date of the projects, by fixing the start of every activity with a high level of probabilistic confidence for the planned project duration. The proposed fixed start method (FSM) was tested in two case studies by using discrete event simulation. Project completion duration results were compared with the critical path method (CPM) and the program evaluation and review technique (PERT). Project completion was evaluated in the case studies by the coefficient of variance (COV), mean, and variance. The new method decreased the scheduled duration variability while meeting project completion times.