Schedule monitoring of engineering projects

An tool for monitoring reporting, and controlling the progress of time-critical projects called progress plotting is presented. It helps distinguish between minor schedule slips and problems that call for serious management intervention. It also serves to evaluate planning accuracy on previous projects. Progress is shown by plotting the actual time used on a project against the completed percentage of the critical path. Control lines in the plotting space indicate probabilities of completing the project on schedule. If the progress line crosses low-probability control line, managers may want to intervene and bring the project back on schedule. Crossing a high-probability control line means an early finish may be anticipated with confidence. The progress plot is comparable to the process-control chart used in manufacturing settings. >