Critical path analysis and resource constrained project scheduling — Theory and practice

Critical path techniques have been in documented use since the mid 1950's and are now widely used in most aspects of project planning and control. Interest in this area in recent years has been mainly concerned with making the best use of scarce resources throughout the duration of a project and a considerable amount of work has been undertaken in this area by both theorists and practitioners in project management. There is still however an apparent gap between the published theoretical work and the requirements of project schedulers and managers in the field and this paper briefly describes the different approaches taken, how they differ and suggests where future effort may be directed.