Horticultural management - Critical Path Method

Abstract

The CPM family of planning techniques are a potent tool in the organisation and control of work programmes. Techniques such as these are no panacea: problems in t.he collection of data, the setting of subobjectives and in the implementation of the work plan are recurring decisions to be taken by management otherwise the benefits of the formalised expression of the work plan will be negated. The use of CPM in horticulture has, to date, been limited to a few construction, crop scheduling and planting programmes. However, as the maintenance and development operations of local authority parks departments in particular, become constrained by the availability of finance, greater emphasis will be placed on the optimum utilisation of resources and associated financial control. For determining project resource requirements, for constructing the resource use plan and for assessing the project cost with regard to quantifiable contingencies, the critical path methods have, at present, no equal.