New Generation of Planning Structures

Abstract

This paper describes the development and use of a new generation of planning structures that provides the basis for a superset of the traditional critical‐path method. These structures provide a means to marry critical‐path planning with linear scheduling. Attributes required of these structures for modeling projects with repetitive elements are discussed. They have been gleaned from the literature; an extended development process; and the planning, scheduling, and updating of many projects. Members of the family of planning structures include the continuous activity, the ordered activity, the shadow activity, and the cyclic activity. These activities permit the treatment of work continuity, the execution of work in an ordered location sequence, execution of work on a first‐come‐first‐served basis, and cyclic relations between predecessor and successor activities at different work locations. Their application is facilitated by the use of a generalized set of precedence relationships. Four examples are given to demonstrate the flexibility these structures offer for modeling a diverse range of project types.