Network Planning for Project

Using the network planning by critical path analysis functionality, you can perform an analysis of activity relationships. The planning also helps you to calculate the project duration. The network planning consists of all the activities required to execute a project. An activity may represent one or more tasks that are interdependent based on the Relationship Type defined in LN. The activity relationships in the network indicate the activities that depend on each other. The critical path analysis is based on the earliest and latest start and finish date and the float time (slack) for the project. LN also considers the activity relationships, constraints of activities and milestones, and progress data for the network planning.

Note

You can view the critical activities using the Project Schedule (tppss2700m100) session.

This data must be maintained for network planning:

  • General project data
  • Activities for the project
  • Milestones
  • Activity relationships

When you set up network planning, the sequence in which the operations and activities are executed, is critical. Activities can be executed consecutively or overlap.

For a project, you can plan Forward (based on the start date) or Backward (based on the finish date), based on the Planning Method specified in the Project (tppdm6600m400) session. If the value of the method is set to Backward, the project Finish Date is required. If the value is set to Forward, the project Start Date is required. You can modify the planning method, only if the Project Status is set to Free or Active.

Based on network planning, the relation between the activities is also used to determine if there is a float time in the plan. The float time:

  • Free Float: The number of days for which an activity can be delayed without affecting the next activity.
  • Total Float: The number of days for which an activity can be delayed without affecting the project's start or finish date.