Gantt Chart

Gantt Chart During the era of scientific management, Henry Gantt developed a tool for displaying the progression of a project in the form of a specialized chart. An early application was the tracking of the progress of ship building projects. Today, Gantt's scheduling tool takes the form of a horizontal bar graph and is known as a Gantt chart, a basic sample of which is shown below:Gantt Chart Format Task Duration Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 1 2...

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PERT Chart

PERT Chart Complex projects require a series of activities, some of which must be performed sequentially and others that can be performed in parallel with other activities. This collection of series and parallel tasks can be modeled as a network. In 1957 the Critical Path Method (CPM) was developed as a network model for project management. CPM is a deterministic method that uses a fixed time estimate for each activity. While CPM is easy to understand and use, it does...

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Time-Cost Trade-offs

Time-Cost Trade-offs  There is a relationship between a project's time to completion and its cost. For some types of costs, the relationship is in direct proportion; for other types, there is a direct trade-off. Because of these two types of costs, there is an optimal project pace for minimal cost. By understanding the time-cost relationship, one is better able to predict the impact of a schedule change on project cost. Types of Costs The costs associated with a project can be classified as direct...

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Process Flow Structures

Process Flow Structures The flow structure of the process used to make or deliver a product or service impacts facility layout, resources, technology decisions, and work methods. The process architecture may be an important component in the firm's strategy for building a competitive advantage.When characterized by its flow structure, a process broadly can be classified either as a job shop or a flow shop....

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