ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the critical path methods. Two fundamentally different critical path methods emerged from the earliest days, with one system using the arrows to represent project tasks or activities. Every circle in the diagram represents some recognizable event in the project, and every linking arrow represents the task or activity needed for the project to progress from a preceding event to the succeeding event. Activity-on-node networks are known as precedence diagrams. These networks are far more readily understood by engineers and technicians than their arrow diagram equivalents because they resemble the process flowcharts used in many projects. The precedence diagram for the garden workshop project really needs very little explanation. The key given on the diagram explains the significance of all the data entered in each activity box. In network diagrams containing a few activities it should be easy to avoid errors. The most risk of errors occurs when the network data are entered into a computer for processing.
