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Why will a short delay in installing appliances or in roofing not hold up construction of the house?
ABecause those activities do not lie on the critical path
BBecause those activities take no time to complete
CBecause those activities are done by outside firms
DBecause those activities come first in the sequence
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. Because those activities do not lie on the critical path
1. Every activity in the network takes time, but not every activity governs the finish date.
2. Only the tasks on the critical path do that, because the critical path is the longest chain.
3. Installing appliances and roofing are noncritical path jobs.
4. They have slack, which means they can be delayed a bit or done early without changing the total.
5. So a short delay in either one is absorbed rather than passed on.
6. Option B is wrong because these jobs certainly take time, and their being noncritical is a matter of position in the network rather than of duration or of who performs them.
_Source: OpenStax Introduction to Business (CC BY 4.0), Ch 10 "Achieving World-Class Operations Management", section The Big Picture: Critical Path Method and PERT_
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