Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM) are tools widely used in project scheduling. Both are based on network diagrams applicable for both the planning and control aspects of production. Visual display of the network enhances the communication and highlights the interdependency of the various activities required for project completion. Perhaps the greatest contribution of these tools is the identification of sequentially time-critical activities that require the closest monitoring.

BACKGROUND

In the early 1900s the Gantt chart was widely hailed as the reason that ships were built in record time. Developed by an engineer named Henry Gantt, this horizontal bar chart shows the scheduled times for individual jobs to be accomplished by specific resources. However, this tool is static in nature, and requires frequent manual updating, especially when activities are sequentially dependent.