COMPUTER-AIDED PROJECT MANAGEMENT:THE HISTORY OF COMPUTER-AIDED PROJECT MANAGEMENT

By -
THE HISTORY OF COMPUTER-AIDED PROJECT MANAGEMENT

While it may be difficult for some to believe (particularly for those to whom the slide rule is merely a curious artifact from an ancient civilization), modern project management techniques were at one time employed by those who did not have the advantage of using computers. In fact, some companies still don’t use computers for project management in any organized fashion. And, as laborious as the work is, it is perfectly possible to put together a good project plan without the use of computers. However, having spent some time doing just that, the author can attest to the enormous amount of time and resources such an undertaking consumes. And, once changes are introduced to the initial project plan, the incremental use of time and resources expands exponentially.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a few companies began to develop their own internal software tools for managing projects, some of which are still in use today. With the apparent increasing need for such tools, commercial applications began to appear in the marketplace. Most of these tools were initially used by U.S. government contractors (who were required by the Department of the Energy or the Department of Defense to adhere to rules for managing government contracts) and were implemented on mainframe computers—the only computers commercially available at that time. These applications were the predecessors to tools that are still available today (although in a much different form), such as Artemis and Primavera. At the time, these tools were both difficult to learn and cumbersome to use. Since graphical user interfaces did not yet exist, command language was used to interface with the application. Nonetheless, since they enabled some automation of scheduling, tracking, and reporting activities, they were a welcome change for most project managers, who were used to performing these same tasks by hand.

The advent of commercially available PCs brought about the development of project management tools specifically aimed at the PC market. These tools (which we will refer to as low-end tools, as distinguished from the high-end tools that run on mainframes and minicomputers) were much less expensive than their high-end counterparts and were much easier to learn and to use, but also had far fewer capabilities. These tools also allowed the user to interface with the application through a rudimentary graphical user interface (GUI). These tools included software applications such as Har- vard Project Manager, SuperProject, Project Manager’s Workbench, and Microsoft Project. These tools were primarily aimed at the IBM-compatible marketplace. There were fewer tools available for Apple Macintosh computers, such as MacProject.

Over the past few years, the manufacturers of the high-end tools have incorporated GUIs and other devices to make their tools user friendly. At the same time, the makers of the low-end tools began building more capabilities into their applications that had previously been available only in the high-end tools. Some formerly low-end tools, such as Project Workbench, have migrated into the realm of high-end tools. And a number of high-end tool manufacturers have produced low-end tools for managing individual projects whose files can then be integrated into the high-end tools (such as Sure Trak for Primavera). As confusing as this all sounds, all of these software manufacturers have been trying to achieve the same end: to develop a tool that balances ease of learning and use with ever-increasing capabilities.

As the profession of project management began to gain acceptance in the workplace, additional applications became commercially available. These range from tools that automate other project management processes (such as risk-management tools like @Risk) to tools that help manage areas that are ancillary to, but have a direct impact upon, project management (such as multiproject resource management tools like ResSolution). With the availability of all of these different types of tools, it is often a difficult proposition deciding which tools, if any, are appropriate for a specific organization. In the next sections, we will discuss the processes that are involved in, or have an impact upon, project management and see how the use of computer tools can facilitate these processes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MATERIAL-HANDLING SYSTEMS:STORAGE SYSTEMS

By -
Image
STORAGE SYSTEMS Various types of racks have been developed to store loads of different sizes and shapes. One of the simplest storage systems is block stacking, where loads (which may or may not be palletized) are simply stacked on top each other with no separate support structure. While block stacking is inex pensive and provides dense storage (i.e., little or no space is lost due to air between the loads), its use is limited in practice because only certain types of loads (such as appliances or furniture packed properly in cartons) can be stacked without crushing / damaging the loads at the bottom and access to individual loads (i.e., load selectivity) is very limited. In fact, loads must be removed from a stack, starting with the load at the top. This leads to last-in-first-out (LIFO) stock rotation, which is not desirable for many storage systems. A fundamental trade-off that exists in storage systems design is that between storage density (how well the cubic volume is utilized) ...
Read more

NETWORK OPTIMIZATION MODELS:THE MINIMUM SPANNING TREE PROBLEM

By -
Image
THE MINIMUM SPANNING TREE PROBLEM The minimum spanning tree problem bears some similarities to the main version of the shortest-path problem presented in the preceding section. In both cases, an undi r ecte d and connected network is being considered, where the given information includes some mea- sure of the positive length (distance, cost, time, etc.) associated with each link. Both problems also involve choosing a set of links that have the shortest total length among all sets of links that satisfy a certain property. For the shortest-path problem, this property is that the chosen links must provide a path between the origin and the destination. For the minimum spanning tree problem, the required property is that the chosen links must provide a path between ea c h pair of nodes. The minimum spanning tree problem can be summarized as follows: 1. You are given the nodes of a network but not the links. Instead, you are given the po- tential links and the positive length for each ...
Read more

DUALITY THEORY:THE ESSENCE OF DUALITY THEORY

By -
Image
THE ESSENCE OF DUALITY THEORY Given our standard form for the primal problem at the left (perhaps after conversion from another form), its dual problem has the form shown to the right. Thus, with the primal problem in maximizatio n form, the dual problem is in minimization form instead. Furthermore, the dual problem uses exactly the same pa r amete r s as the primal problem, but in different locations, as summarized below. 1. The coefficients in the objective function of the primal problem are the right-hand sides of the functional constraints in the dual problem. 2. The right-hand sides of the functional constraints in the primal problem are the coef- ficients in the objective function of the dual problem. 3. The coefficients of a variable in the functional constraints of the primal problem are the coefficients in a functional constraint of the dual problem. To highlight the comparison, now look at these same two problems in matrix notation (as introduced at the beginn...
Read more