Project Planning And Control With Pert Cpm

Critical Path Method (CPM) and Performance Evaluation and ReviewTechnique (PERT) are widely recognized as the most effectivemethods of keeping large, complex construction projects onschedule, under budget, and up to professional standards. But thesemethods remain underused because they are poorly understood and,due to a host of unfamiliar terms and applications, may seem morecomplicated than they really are. This encyclopedia brings together, in one comprehensive volume, allterms, definitions, and applications related to the time and costmanagement of construction projects. While many of these termsrefer to ancient and venerable building practices, others haveevolved quite recently and refer specifically to modernconstruction and management techniques. Sources include hundreds ofprofessional books, trade journals, and research publications, aswell as planning and scheduling software vendor literature. The detailed glossary of all applicable terms includes across-referenced listing of examples that describe real-worldapplications for each term supplied. An extensive bibliographycovers all applicable books, articles, and periodicals available onproject planning, scheduling, and control using CPM and relatedsubjects. This book is an important quick reference and desktop informationresource for construction planners, schedulers, and controllers, aswell as civil engineers and project managers. It is also theultimate research tool for educators, students, or anyone who seeksto improve their understanding of the management of modernconstruction projects.

This is the only book that makes all planning methods and tools available to project managers at all levels easy to understand ... and use. Instead of applying techniques piecemeal, you'll take a cohesive, step-by-step approach to improve strategic and operational planning and scheduling throughout the organization. You'll master advanced scheduling techniques and tools such as strategic planning models and critical chain and enterprise project management. Includes time-and-error-saving checklists.

Describes the latest project management systems that use critical path methods. A detailed examination of one widely used system illustrates the general characteristics of modern project planning software. Descriptions of Microsoft Project and the Hornet Project Management System are also featured, as well as a discussion of the importance of integrating Network Analysis with Earned Value Analysis (EVA), giving real life examples.

The topic of this book is known as dynamic scheduling, and is used to refer to three dimensions of project management and scheduling: the construction of a baseline schedule and the analysis of a project schedule’s risk as preparation of the project control phase during project progress. This dynamic scheduling point of view implicitly assumes that the usability of a project’s baseline schedule is rather limited and only acts as a point of reference in the project life cycle. Consequently, a project schedule should especially be considered as nothing more than a predictive model that can be used for resource efficiency calculations, time and cost risk analyses, project tracking and performance measurement, and so on. In this book, the three dimensions of dynamic scheduling are highlighted in detail and are based on and inspired by a combination of academic research studies at Ghent University (www.ugent.be), in-company trainings at Vlerick Business School (www.vlerick.com) and consultancy projects at OR-AS (www.or-as.be). First, the construction of a project baseline schedule is a central theme throughout the various chapters of the book, and is discussed from a complexity point of view with and without the presence of project resources. Second, the creation of an awareness of the weak parts in a baseline schedule is discussed at the end of the two baseline scheduling parts as schedule risk analysis techniques that can be applied on top of the baseline schedule. Third, the baseline schedule and its risk analyses can be used as guidelines during the project control step where actual deviations can be corrected within the margins of the project’s time and cost reserves. The second edition of this book has seen corrections, additions and amendments in detail throughout the book. Moreover Chapter 15 on "Dynamic Scheduling with ProTrack" has been completely rewritten and extended with a section on "ProTrack as a research tool".