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| Illustration by Ai |
A study by Futri Ellys and H. Muhammad Humaidi of Politeknik Negeri Banjarmasin found that a delayed road construction project in Gunung Aru, East Laut Island, South Kalimantan, could recover 94 lost calendar days through a combination of Fast Tracking and Crashing methods simulated with Microsoft Project. The project was originally scheduled to take 234 days but was projected to require 328 days after delays caused by late project commencement, heavy rainfall, muddy site conditions, and disruptions to excavation and earthwork. The researchers’ 2026 analysis showed that schedule acceleration could bring the projected completion period back to 234 days, eliminating the 94-day delay without changing the project’s planned scope.
Road Project Faced Major
Delays
The East Laut Island Central
Cross-Island Road, also referred to in the study as the Gunung Aru project, is
an important infrastructure project in Kotabaru Regency, South Kalimantan.
The road is expected to improve
connectivity between communities, support the movement of people and goods, and
reduce travel and logistics costs. Better road infrastructure can also
contribute to local economic activity by making it easier to distribute goods
and services between areas.
However, construction progress
fell significantly behind schedule.
According to the study’s S-curve
evaluation, the delay first became apparent during excavation and backfilling
activities. By the fourth week of October, planned progress was supposed to
reach 55.656 percent, but actual progress had reached only 8.391
percent.
Heavy rainfall was one of the
main causes. Persistent rain disrupted construction activities, while muddy
road conditions prevented heavy equipment from operating optimally. Material
distribution was also affected, creating a chain reaction in subsequent
activities that depended on earlier work.
Researchers Used Microsoft
Project to Find the Critical Path
Futri Ellys and H. Muhammad
Humaidi used a quantitative case-study approach to analyze the delay and
identify ways to accelerate the project.
The researchers relied on
secondary data from the Gunung Aru road project, including planned and actual
S-curves, construction methods, and weekly project reports. They compared
planned progress with actual field progress before identifying the activities
responsible for the delay.
The data were then entered into Microsoft
Project 2016, which was used to create project schedules, analyze
dependencies between activities, identify the critical path, and simulate
acceleration strategies.
The researchers used the Precedence
Diagram Method (PDM) to map the relationships between construction
activities.
In simple terms, PDM helps
project managers determine which activities must happen before others and which
tasks can overlap. It also identifies the critical path—the chain of
activities with no available time buffer. A delay in one of these activities
can directly delay the entire project.
19 of 28 Activities Were on
the Critical Path
The planned Microsoft Project
schedule contained 28 work activities, of which 19 were classified as
critical and nine as non-critical.
The critical activities had zero
Total Slack, meaning they had no spare time available before affecting the
project’s overall completion date. The baseline schedule was designed to run
for 234 days, beginning April 15, 2025, with a planned completion date
of December 4, 2025.
The actual situation was
considerably different.
The project’s actual start was
pushed back from April 15 to May 17, 2025. Combined with the effects of
poor weather, the project duration expanded to 328 days, with the
projected completion date moving to April 9, 2026.
That represented a 94-calendar-day
delay compared with the original schedule.
Fast Tracking Allows
Activities to Overlap
To recover lost time, the
researchers combined two schedule-acceleration techniques: Fast Tracking and
Crashing.
Fast Tracking works by allowing
certain activities that were originally scheduled sequentially to overlap when
technically possible. Instead of waiting for one activity to be completed
entirely before starting the next, the dependency relationship is modified so
that the following activity can begin earlier.
In the simulation, the
researchers adjusted predecessor relationships on critical activities by adding
lead time, effectively creating controlled overlaps between tasks.
For example, the predecessor
relationship for stonework was changed to FS-16 days, while road-marking work
was given an FS-5-day relationship. This allowed subsequent activities to begin
before the preceding activities were completely finished.
The method can save time without
increasing the overall scope of construction, although it requires careful
coordination to ensure that overlapping activities are technically feasible.
Crashing Adds Overtime to
Critical Activities
The second technique, Crashing,
reduces activity duration by adding resources or increasing working hours.
In this study, the researchers
focused on overtime work rather than adding major new resources. A
special work calendar was created in Microsoft Project to accommodate
additional working hours, and overtime was applied to activities on the
critical path.
The combination of the two
techniques produced a significant change in the projected schedule.
Schedule Comparison
- Original plan: April 15, 2025 – December 4,
2025, totaling 234 days
- Actual realization: May 17, 2025 – April 9,
2026, totaling 328 days
- Accelerated schedule: May 17, 2025 – January
5, 2026, totaling 234 days
The simulation therefore reduced
the delayed schedule by 94 days, returning the project duration to the
original 234-day target.
Technology Supports Faster
Project Decisions
The researchers’ findings
highlight how project-management software can support construction
decision-making when projects fall behind schedule.
Microsoft Project allowed the
researchers to model the planned schedule, reproduce actual field conditions,
identify critical activities, and test different acceleration scenarios before
applying them to the project. This provides project managers with a structured
way to evaluate potential solutions rather than relying solely on manual
schedule adjustments.
For large infrastructure
projects, this type of scheduling analysis can be particularly useful because
delays in one activity can create a domino effect across multiple dependent
activities.
The study also demonstrates the
importance of identifying critical activities early. Since activities on the
critical path have no available time buffer, delays affecting these tasks
require immediate attention.
Potential Benefits for
Infrastructure Projects
The findings could be relevant to
contractors, project managers, and government agencies responsible for
infrastructure development.
For contractors, combining Fast
Tracking and Crashing provides an option for recovering lost time when a
project falls behind schedule. For project owners, schedule simulations can
help evaluate whether a recovery strategy can bring a project back to its
original target.
For communities, completing road
infrastructure closer to the planned schedule can accelerate access to
transportation networks and the economic benefits associated with improved
connectivity.
However, the study focuses
specifically on schedule acceleration. It does not establish that the
simulated approach is the most cost-effective option, because the analysis
described in the article does not provide a detailed comparison of the
additional costs associated with overtime or other consequences of overlapping
activities.
The researchers therefore
emphasize the effectiveness of the combined methods in terms of time
recovery, particularly through optimization of activities on the critical
path.
Author Profiles
Futri Ellys — Politeknik
Negeri Banjarmasin. First author of the study on construction-project schedule
acceleration using PDM, Microsoft Project, Fast Tracking, and Crashing.
H. Muhammad Humaidi —
Politeknik Negeri Banjarmasin. Second author and corresponding author of the
study. His contact information is provided in the published article.
The article does not provide
detailed academic degrees or individual fields of expertise for the authors, so
those details have not been added.
Research Source
Title: Acceleration of
Late Work on the Middle Cross Road of the East Sea Island (Mount Aru) Using
Microsoft Project with the Precedence Diagram Method (PDM)
Authors: Futri Ellys, H.
Muhammad Humaidi
Affiliation: Politeknik
Negeri Banjarmasin
Journal: International
Journal of Integrative Research (IJIR)
Volume: 4, No. 7
Year: 2026
Pages: 567–576
Journal website: International
Journal of Integrative Research (IJIR)
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