Project‐planning methoden

Project planning methods The purport of the article is to give a general survey of methods of project planning such as Pert, Critical path method, etc. In the first place a definition is given of what is understood by project in this respect. The possibility to represent such a project by a network of certain characteristics is specified more closely and it is examined what restrictions this imposes in practice. With regard to the planning of such projects three possibilities, dependent on the available data for and the objectives of the planning, are to be distinguished, i.e.: a. The activity durations are supposed to be fixed and given numbers and the planning aims at minimal total project duration. b. The activity durations are supposed to be stochastic variables having given distributions and the planning aims at a total project duration which is to be realised with satisfactory probability. c. The activity durations are supposed to be variables that can move within certain given limits and a cost function for each of these variables is given; this time the planning aims at activity durations which are such that the total project cost is minimal. For each of these three possibilities we discussed solution methods. Some flow‐diagrams are added as a demonstration of the fact that the numerical procedures are greatly apt to be executed with the help of an electronic computer.