A New Networking Technique—The Beeline Diagramming Method

Abstract

The Critical Path Method (CPM) has gradually increased in importance in the construction industry since the Arrow Diagramming Method (ADM) and the Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) were introduced in 1956 and 1961, respectively. In an improvement over the ADM, the PDM is able to represent overlapping relationships between consecutive activities. It is limited to representing overlapping relationships only as four combinations that connect the starting and finishing points of two consecutive activities, however; it cannot express the relationships at the exact point of interrelation if that point is in the middle of the activity’s duration. Further, when two consecutive activities have respective multiple milestones that should be connected independently, the PDM cannot represent the multiple overlapping relationships precisely. This research proposes the Beeline Diagramming Method (BDM) as a new networking technique that can represent all kinds of overlapping relationships between activities. The basic concept, principle, interpretation methods, and schedule computation methods of the BDM are defined in this paper.