Slide 2-

Critical Path Method—a powerful but basically simple technique for analyzing,
planning, and scheduling large, complex projects. In essence, the tool provides a
means of determining which jobs or activities, of the many that comprise a
project, are “critical” in their effect on total project time, and how best to
schedule all jobs in the project in order to meet a target date at minimum cost.

Slide3-
The functions of the critical path method are as follows-
1. The most important function of the critical path method is to identify the
activities that ought to be completed in a timely manner so that the project does
not get delayed
2. The critical path method calculates the minimum time needed to complete
a project
3. It identifies the tasks that can be delayed and for the amount of duration
without having an impact on the whole project
4. Helps to identify the dates the activities can start and finish at the earliest
and latest respectively to maintain the schedule of the project.

Importance-
1. Time Management- One of the most essential aspects of project
management is timeliness. All tasks take time, but some are more time
consuming and labor intensive than others. Mapping out a precise day-to-
day plan of what jobs to prioritize needs something more dependable than
a mere judgment call. This allows you to identify which items are taking
longer than expected, which are ahead and schedule, and which jobs are
right on track.
2. Comparison and Parallel activities- Certain tasks much be completed
before others can begin. An easy way to cause bottlenecks in project
management is to have one person unable to start a particular job because
they’re waiting on a required item to be completed. The critical path
method is invaluable when it comes to mapping out parallel tasks or jobs
in sequence.
 3. Cost Containment- By associating cost and resource allocation with each
subtask, the critical path method quickly tells you what’s causing the
project to go over budget or fall behind schedule.
4. Scheduling Benefits- The critical path method makes it easier to schedule
tasks that are not on the critical path and deploy your resources most
effectively.
5. Visualize dependencies- The critical path method gives information about
the activities and their interdependencies and this chart helps the
management to prioritize tasks and visualize dependencies
6. Maximizing efficiency- When a project manager can determine which
task is more important, he can use the information to allocate resources
efficiently. It also helps to bring back the project on track.
7. Organizes complex projects- The critical path method helps to organize
complex and large projects as it takes a systemic approach for risk
management, project execution, scheduling, and project planning.

Slide 4- Example of CPM- Construction Industry

This is the CPM example of Construction Industry and building a house.
In exhibit 1, the column “immediate predecessors” determines the sequence
relationships of the jobs and enables us to draw the project graph, here with
the list of major jobs (together with the estimated time and the immediate
predecessors for each job) is given with their description

Slide 5-
Exhibit II. Here, in each circle the letter before the comma identifies the job
and the number after the comma indicates the job time.
Following the rule that a “legal” path must always move in the direction of the
arrows, this exhibit has 22 unique paths from Start to Finish, with associate
times ranging from a minimum of 14 days (path a-b-c-r-v-w-x) to a maximum
of 34 days (path a-b-c-d-j-k-l-n-t-s-x). the critical path is shown by darkening
the arrows connecting critical jobs. In this case there is just one critical
path, and all critical jobs lie on it; however, in other cases there may be
more than one critical path.
The latter is the critical path; i.e., 34 days- it determines the over-all project
time and tells us which jobs are critical in their effect on this time. If the
contractor wishes to complete the house in less than 34 days, it would be useless
to shorten jobs not on the critical path. It may seem to him, for example, that the
brickwork which is donated by (e) delays progress, since work on a whole series
of jobs (p-q-v-w) must wait until it is completed. But it would be fruitless to
rush the completion of the brickwork, since it is not on the critical path and so is
irrelevant in determining total project time.

Slide 6- How to shorten the CP

Shortening the critical path requires a consideration of both engineering
problems and economic questions. Is it physically possible to shorten the time
required by critical jobs (by assigning more men to the job, working overtime,
using different equipment, and so on)? If so, would the costs of speedup be less
than the savings resulting from the reduction in overall project time? CPM is a
useful tool because it quickly focuses attention on those jobs that are critical to
the project time, it provides an easy way to determine the effects of shortening
various jobs in the project, and it enables the user to evaluate the costs of a
“crash” program.
One important applications of these features come to mind:
Du Pont, a pioneer in the application of CPM to construction and maintenance
projects, was concerned with the amount of downtime for maintenance at its
Louisville works. Analyzing the maintenance schedule by CPM, Du Pont
engineers were able to cut downtime for maintenance from 125 to 93 hours.
CPM pointed to further refinements that were expected to reduce total time to
78 hours. As a result, performance of the plant improved by about one million
pounds in 1959, and the intermediate was no longer a bottleneck in the neoprene
process.

Slide 7- Critical Path Algorithm

If the start time or date for the project is given (we denote it by S), then there exists
for each job an earliest starting time (ES), which is the earliest possible time that a
job can begin, if all its predecessors are also started at their ES. And if the time to
complete the job is t, we can define, analogously, its earliest finish time (EF) to be ES
+ t.

There is a simple way of computing ES and EF times using the project graph. It
proceeds as follows:

(1) Mark the value of S to the left and to the right of Start.
(2) Consider any new unmarked job all of whose predecessors have been
marked, and mark to the left of the new job the largest number marked to the right
of any of its immediate predecessors. This number is its early start time.

(3) Add to this number the job time and mark the result (EF time) to the right of the
job.

(4) Continue until Finish has been reached, then stop.

Thus, at the conclusion of this calculation the ES time for each job will appear to the
left of the circle which identifies it, and the EF time will appear to the right of the
circle. The number which appears to the right of the last job, Finish, is the early
finish time (F) for the entire project.

To illustrate these calculations let us consider the following simple production

process:

An assembly is to be made from two parts, A and B. Both parts must be turned on the
lathe, and B must be polished while A need not be. The list of jobs to be performed,
together with the predecessors of each job and the time in minutes to perform each
job, is given in Exhibit III.

Exhibit IV is the Calculation of Early Start and Early Finish Times for Each
Job

Slide 8- Concept of slack- Read from PPT