Network planning

You can use the network planning by critical path analysis functionality, to perform an analysis of activity relationships and constraints. 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 can represent one or more tasks that are interdependent based on the Relationship Type defined in the Activity Relationships (tppss2510m000) session. The activity relationships in the network indicate the activities that depend on each other. The critical path analysis is based on the earliest start date, latest finish date and the float time (slack) for the project. Infor LN considers the activity relationships, constraints of activities and milestones, and progress data for the network planning.

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 with an overlap.

For a project, you can plan:

  • Forward (based on the start date). The project Start Date must be specified.
  • Backward (based on the finish date). The project Finish Date must be specified.
  • This is based on the Planning Method specified in the Project (tppdm6600m400) session

You can modify the Planning Method only if the Project Status is set to Free or Active.

Based on the network planning, the relation between the activities is also used to determine if float time is applicable for the plan.