Comprehensive appearance

The PNA presents a better appearance than CPM. In PNA, activities are generally arranged in rows of symmetrically placed horizontal boxes connected with dependency lines, whereas CPM contains arrows, dummy arrows and events drawn in forward direction at various angles.

PNA is simpler. It does not contain dummies, events or unnecessary low order activities. This reduces chances of error, size of network and the data processing effort.
Colour code, if used for activity boxes in PNA enables easy identification of critical and non-critical activities. Different colour codes on these boxes can also represent responsibilities and resources.

In PNA each activity box includes relevant data for time and, possibly, resources needed for analysis, but in CPM it is distributed on arrows and connecting events.


Ease of drawing

The logic-arrow diagram of CPM is easy to draw whereas PNA takes more time to develop its logic sketch. After finalization of logic diagram, PNA is quicker to draw than CPM.


Realistic logic representation

PNA takes into consideration overlapping of activities. These overlapped activities present a realistic sequence of engineering tasks as they occur in actual execution. PNA can represent four types of logic, namely, finish-to-start, start-to-start, start-to-finish and finish-to-finish. These cover real life situations better than the CPM's single finish-to-start relationship approach.


Ease of logic alteration

PNA enables easy alteration as it involves connecting dependency lines instead of shifting of arrows and events as in the CPM network.


Ease of understanding and communication

The CPM network with its distinct events and simple logic relationship can be easily understood by those not familiar with network analysis. This is difficult in the case of PNA with its multiple logic relationship.


Computerization of network

CPM having single logic relationship of finish-to-start generally, needs less input data than PNA with its multi-logic approach. However, for a network of the same project, PNA has less activity input as there are no dummies.

PNA networks can be zoomed in various sizes and levels on computer screen according to the information needs of various levels of management. The detailed activity networks can be easily transformed to the summarized versions.


Manual analysis of network

CPM is comparatively easier to analyze than PNA. In case of PNA, all the time data has to be transferred from one activity to its adjoining activity before the adjoining activity can be analyzed.


Activity label

In PNA, each activity is given a unique label number. This label can also be used to indicate the activity resources, whereas in CPM, the label of activity changes with alteration of logic or addition of new activities.


Time scale network schedule

The schedule derived from CPM can be drawn both in bar charts as well as the 'time scale network' format in which each activity is drawn to time scale. The 'time scale network' schedule is difficult (but possible) in PNA as distortion of activity boxes can result in confusion.