PROGRAM EVALUATION REVIEW TECHNIQUE (PERT) CHART

How did the PERT chart came about?

PERT (Project Evaluation and Review Technique) was devised in 1958 for the POLARIS missile program
by the Program Evaluation Branch of the Special Projects office of the U.S.Navy, helped by the Lockheed
Missile Systems division and the Consultant firm of Booz-Allen & Hamilton. The calculations were so
arranged so that they could be carried out on the IBM Naval Ordinance Research Computer (NORC) at
Dahlgren, Virginia. SRI VIDYA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY COURSE
MATERIAL (LECTURE NOTES) CS6704 RMT UNIT -5 Page 2 The methods are essentially
network-oriented techniques using the same principle. PERT and CPM are basically time-oriented
methods in the sense that they both lead to determination of a time schedule for the project. The
significant difference between two approaches is that the time estimates for the different activities in
CPM were assumed to be deterministic(USED IN: Production management - for the jobs of repetitive in
nature where the activity time estimates can be predicted with considerable certainty due to the existence
of past experience) while in PERT these are described probabilistically( USED IN: Project
management - for non-repetitive jobs (research and development work), where the time and cost estimates
tend to be quite uncertain. This technique uses probabilistic time estimates). These techniques are referred
as project scheduling techniques.
PROGRAM EVALUATION REVIEW TECHNIQUE (PERT) CHART

INTRODUCTION TO CPM / PERT TECHNIQUES

PERT chart is an acronym for Program Evaluation Review Technique.
A PERT chart is regarded to be project management toot (PMT) used to schedule, organize
and coordinate tasks within a project. It is basically a method to analyze the tasks involved in
completing a given project, especially the time needed to complete a given project. It is really
reliable that a PERT chart gives more importance to task termination or completion within a
project thereby making this a great evaluation tool mostly applied world wide for great project
planning. When the correct time laps needed to complete each task in a project are clearly and
surely displaced, the pert chart will provide for accurate timing time management taking in to
consideration all the task and their time of completion and launch (that is, the early and the late
starting time, The early and the late finish time for each task and the whole project as a whole).
The main objectives of a PERT are then to facilitate decision making and the to reduce both time
and cost required to complete a project, in other words a PERT is a method of analyzing the tasks
involved in completing a given project especially the time needed to complete each task and
identify the minimum time needed to complete the whole project. A PERT chart is generally
intended for very large scale, onetime non-routine complex projects with a high degree of
inter task dependency projects which requires a series of activities some of which must be
performed sequentially or in series and others that can be performed in parallel with other
activities.
Since it creation in the mid-1900s, the PERT chart has found its way home in many different
industries and stand as an essential program management tool nowadays.
This work is then made to provide a better understanding of this PMT and further outline it
application in exampere common tasks in our society
PROGRAM EVALUATION REVIEW TECHNIQUE (PERT) CHART