On electrical analogy of critical path method

Critical path method of project planning, scheduling, and control has gained considerable importance because of its theoretical novelty ad practical value. Essentially, this technique is based on the theory of flow through network. Although the structure of a project network is analogous to the electrical net, the branch characteristics fail to show the analogy. Battersby has solved this problem by introducing two kinds of floats, namely, duration and resource floats, in the network. In this paper, a complete electrical analogy is established following a somewhat different approach. With this approach, current is injected or released at the appropriate nodes. The resulting θ, paramount, and dominant matrices present elegance. Further, based on the analogy, a procedure for representing the complete spectrum of costs and schedules is indicated. Also, a useful approach for sensitivity evaluation is presented.