Optimizing House Renovation Projects Using Industrial Engineering-Based Approaches

Abstract

The persistent challenge of project delays poses significant issues with the escalating demand for house renovations. The company in Kedah, Malaysia, faces frequent project delays due to ineffective project management, leading to substantial liquidated damages. This study aims to minimise project delays and ensure timely completion within budget constraints, focusing on both the entire house renovation project and the kitchen renovation project. This study employed the Program Evaluation and Review Technique to illustrate the project network and utilised the Critical Path Method to identify the critical path while implementing project crashing with linear programming to optimise activity duration reduction and minimise costs. The PERT method results in an illustrative network diagram that aids subsequent analysis. The completion time for the entire house renovation project is determined to be 58 days using CPM, with a 96.8% probability of completion within 60 days. In contrast, for the kitchen renovation project, the completion time is identified as 38 days, with a 0% probability of meeting the 30-day deadline. Therefore, linear programming was successfully applied, shortening the kitchen project to 30 days at a total cost of RM 18,517.50, further reduced to 20 days with a cost of RM 20,980. Both scenarios remained below the total penalty cost of RM 21,780. The finding enables the company to make informed decisions on resource allocation to accelerate project duration and avoid delays. Future research should delve into realistic models, considering labour allocation and indirect costs, for a more comprehensive evaluation of project crashing strategies and their financial impacts.