Precedence Diagramming

Abstract

As it has become evident from the preceding chapters, the CPM technique has several shortcomings. One of these imperfections causes a lot of unnecessary work, as we could see it in the time consuming network drawing process. The most serious problem with CPM is that we cannot describe activity interdependencies in an adequate way. According to the CPM definitions (see Def. 2-1 and 2-2) an activity can start only when all the preceding activities have finished. If we want to describe activity overlapping in CPM, we will face several difficulties which cannot be solved perfectly. In this chapter we introduce a new approach to scheduling. This method is called the Precedence Diagramming Method. In the non-English-speaking world, e.g., Germany, France, Spain, Hungary, etc., this method is called the Metra Potential Method (MPM) or Method of Potential. The reader can find more about the history of PDM at the end of this chapter. This technique is much more flexible, it is more appropriate to model different activity interdependencies.