Title: 0.2 Time Management Lesson
Course: ATEP - MMT: Module A: > Section: WELCOME TO MODULE A - DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURING

0.2.1 Time Management

Most projects have a limited amount of time required to accomplis h the final goal. Typically, most projects have a start date and a completion date with a number of milestones set in between. A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart, developed by Henry Gantt, that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts show the start and finish dates for each step in a project. The chart is usually created at the beginning of the project and will show the due dates for each step to give everyone involved in a project a reference of what has been done and what still needs to be accomplished. Gantt charts also show the relationships between activities and who is responsible for each activity. Gantt charts can be used to show the current schedule status and a vertical "TODAY" line.

MicroSoft "Project," Apache Open Office (Open Source) and "Project Libre" (Open Source) are three different applications that can be used for the project management portion of this course.

Another frequently used technique is referred to as the Critical Path Method or "CPM"  which is to construct a model of the project that includes the following:

    1. A list of all activities required to complete the project
    2. The time (duration) that each activity will take to completion
    3. The dependencies between the activities

Using these values, CPM calculates the longest path of planned activities to the end of the project, and the earliest and latest that each activity can start and finish without making the project longer. This process determines which activities are "critical" (i.e., on the longest path) and which have "total float" (i.e., can be delayed without making the project longer). In project management, a critical path is the sequence of project network activities which add up to the longest overall duration. This determines the shortest time possible to complete the project. Any delay of an activity on the critical path directly impacts the planned project completion date (i.e. there is no float on the critical path). A project can have several, parallel, near critical paths. An additional parallel path through the network with the total duration shorter than the critical path is called a sub-critical or non-critical path. A "Program Evaluation and Review Technique" (PERT) diagram is often used for visualization.