Economic development of country cannot be achieved without the help of engineers. The knowledge of engineering helps in better utilization of limited resources with optimum economic use. In India, a series of Five Year Plans is being implemented for the socioeconomic development of the country. The major expenditure on the plan schemes is made on engineering project in general, and construction projects in particular. It means major percentage of capital outlay goes to civil engineering projects. Hence, proper planning and management in Civil Engineering Projects is a need of the day.

Right from the beginning to the completion of any civil engineering project, there is a need for an effective management and administration. Civil engineers must, therefore, possess sufficient knowledge of management aspects in the various fields such as planning, engineering, directing, co-ordinating controlling and manpower utilization. Engineers are expected to take proper and effective decisions on technical as well as management problems. Sound engineering management is an art which requires help of modern technical tools such as Linear Programming useful for resource allocation. It is a mathematical technique which immensely helps in finding the best use of limited resources under conditions of certainty in an optimum manner to complete a project at the minimum of cost within the specified construction time. The Critical Path Method (CPM) and Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) have also proved their usefulness in the various fields of civil engineering works. The CPM has already replaced the old bar chart method.

In any project, a number of activities are involved. Some of them are interdependent, while the others are independent. It is important that project management should effectively plan, schedule, co-ordinate and optimize the activities of the various participants in the project. There are some activities critical activities are not completed within the prescribed time limit, the completion of the whole project is hampared.

If a project is quite large it is difficult to have an effective control over all the activities. However, to control such projects network techniques have been developed. They are as follows:

·        Critical Path Method (CPM)

·        Programme Evolution and Review Technique (PERT)

·        Resource Allocation and Multi Project Scheduling (RAMPS)


CPM and PERT techniques are particularly suitable for engineering project.