How PERT builds up on CPM

In project management it is necessary to use a tool which states how the project is going. The project manger face the challenge of planning, coordinating and monitoring the project, which can be difficult if no tool is at hand . Therefore, project managers often use the Critical Path Method (CPM) to do those things. The tool gives a good overview of how a project progresses. Over the years, CPM has been used in a white range of projects. For example, in building constructions, maintenance of equipment, design and installation of management systems, organizing transportation projects and so many more.

The critical path method organizes project’s tasks, which need to be done to complete a project, and estimate how much time it will take. Also, the method shows what tasks are sensitive in a project because these tasks may take more time. This method shows visually how the tasks relate to one and another.

In this article will first go through the history of the critical path method and how the method has been improved over the years. Then, some key concepts will be described and defined. Furthermore, the critical path method and PERT will be explained and an example taken and calculated to see how the methods work. Advantages and limitations of these methods will be listed and described. In the end, will be gone through what the differences are of CPM and PERT.

History

The history of project management tools like the critical path method can be traced back to ancient Egypt. For example, when ancient Egyptians build the Great Pyramid of Giza, which stands near Cairo. That project was more than 5.000 years ago. The pyramid was built out of more than two million blocks of stone. The pyramid took over 20 years in building and needed much manpower which was divided into four construction teams.

However, modern project management did not begin until 1900s when the Gantt chart was created. It was Henry Gantt and Fredrick Taylor that designed a graphical method to plan and control a work schedule and recording its progress. Over the years Gantt charts have been used, for example in 1931 when Hoover Dam was in build. It is still in use today because the chart can be easily understood.

Furthermore, in 1956 the critical path method was used to deal with the interrelationships of separate tasks in a project schedule. The Dupont chemical company and Remington Rand Univac, a computer firm, thought up the method because they had a joint venture. However, it was not until 1958 that the method was first tested. It was on a construction project of a new chemical plant. The critical path method was then used again in 1959 to shutdown a plant at Louisville, Kentucky.

Independent of the critical path method, in 1958, the U.S Navy’ Special Projects Office, along with Lockheed Missile System and Booz Allen & Hamilton developed Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) for a missile program called Polaris. The reason why the U.S. government wanted to develop the tool was to ensure that the Polaris program was completed. Also, the U.S. government had concern about the number of nuclear weapons which the Soviet Union was manufacturing. CPM and PERT both were designed to deal with the relationship between tasks in a project. However, PERT aimed to control over 3.000 contractors on the missile program but really the tool showed visually the major tasks and their relationship. As for the difference in function of the methods, PERT just showed the time interval but did not tackle the cost and quality issues faced by commercial firms.

Improvements of the CPM

Since the development of the critical path method there have been made couple of improvements on it. First there was the Theory of Constraints which was formulated in the 1980s by the physicist Eliyahu Goldratt. The theory is a methodology to analyse which factor is most likely to cause delay and then to improve that factor until it is no longer a bottleneck. Then in 1997 the concept of the Critical Chain was introduced by Goldratt, when she published a book with that name. This improved method says to keep a project on schedule it is necessary to emphasize on its resources and the flexibility required in the resources. Also, the method adds uncertainty buffers to the project schedule so it can be ready for unpredicted problems which may arise.

Definitions

Path

Critical path

Critical path method

Earliest start time (EST)

Earliest finish time (EFT)

Latest start time (LST)

Latest finish time (LFT)

The Method

Forward pass

Backward pass

Slack