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Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique

(GERT): The Panorama in the Computation and
Visualization of Network-Based Project
Management
CHAPTER JANUARY 2014
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4940-8.ch009

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1 AUTHOR:
Ramesh Kannan
VIT University
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165

Chapter 9

Graphical Evaluation and

Review Technique (GERT):
The Panorama in the Computation
and Visualization of NetworkBased Project Management
Ramesh Kannan
VIT Chennai, India

ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses primarily on Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique (GERT), one of the
intriguing techniques used for network-based management. It is a stochastic network technique and
has many advantages over the conventional Critical Path Method (CPM) and Programme Evaluation
and Review Techniques used for project management. The formulation of the GERT network for linear
situation can be development by analytical techniques (such as signal flow graph theory); thus for a
non-linear and other complex conditions, the Q-GERT (included Queueing Concepts) is used. To reinforce the importance of GERT and Q-GERT, a firm study is carried out on the limitations of the CPM
and PERT. Thus, a solid comparison of GERT network with the CPM and PERT network is done not
only to emphasize the applicability of the network but also to validate of the network. The scheduling of
concrete formwork systems are considered for the comparison.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4940-8.ch009

Copyright 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique (GERT)

INTRODUCTION

PROJECT NETWORK TECHNIQUES

The representation of activities in a project in

the form of network is one of the most important
and simplest techniques adapted in the project
management. The reasons for the adaptation of
network-based project management are

Critical Path Method (CPM)

it can be used to model complex project by

fragmenting into simpler network of interrelated activities of the entire systems,
the computation of the project attributes
requires minimum time and are highly
reliable,
it serves as a better communication aid
among different project associates involved
in the project,
above all it is the best method of data visualisation and specifying data requirement
for the modelling, analysis and design of
multifarious projects.

The network-based project management has

wide range of applications includes Industrial Engineering, production and manufacturing, contract
management, construction project management,
operation research, software project management
and so on (Pristker, 1977). The most popular and
commonly used techniques in the network-based
project management are Critical Path Method
(CPM) and Programme Evaluation and Review
Technique (PERT). However these techniques
have inherent drawbacks that the results obtained
are not highly reliable and thus an intriguing
technique which incorporates the human-factor
(Pristker, 1977) into consideration is needed.
One such network technique is the Graphical
Evaluation and Review Technique (GERT). This
chapter illustrates the advantages of GERT over
CPM and PERT. The GERT technique is applied
to the scheduling of concrete formwork systems
to reinforce the importance of GERT over other
project network techniques.

166

The Critical Path Method (CPM) was first developed by Morgan R. Walker of the Engineering Services Division of DuPont and James E.
Kelly Jr. of Remington Rand in 1957 (Baboulene,
1970). Later was developed considering not only
the logical dependencies between the activities
but also the inclusion of resource related to each
activity. CPM is generally regarded as the activity
oriented networks.
The CPM includes categorization of all activities in the project known as work breakdown
structure by a technique called arrow diagramming
(Martino, 1970), determination of duration of
the activities, determination of critical activities
(activities having maximum duration) and the
formulation of Critical Path (path associated
with the critical activities) in otherwords the path
associated with the longer duration as shown in
Figure 1. Ultimately the network is modeled as a
linear relationship between cost and time.
The most important thing to be considered in
the CPM is that it is can be applied only to the
activities associated with the deterministic durations (Baboulene, 1970). The CPM can be used
to obtain feasible solution for the Least-cost
scheduling. However, CPM accounts only for the
determination of the earliest completion time but
not probable completion time of the project.
Activity-on-arrow technique used to compute
CPM was still in use however the Activity-on-node
is mostly preferred as shown in Figure 2.
The CPM is very effective but suffers seriously on the fact that it requires deterministic
time, however the project durations cannot be
altered or incase of any delay in the project, it is
highly difficult to resolve or retrieve the activities
and sometimes it would even lead to the collapse
of entire network.

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