Task planning and project management using Petri nets

The demand for effective project management increases as the complexity and cost of a project grown. This paper introduces an interactive project management approach based on the Petri net to overcome the limitations of network diagrams. In the Petri net based approach, the project manager does fine tuning of the planning and scheduling with the resource constraints embedded in the plan representation. The Petri net controller maintains three plan representations. The reference, monitor and predictor Petri nets. These three nets are configured with the resource database to form a feedback loop such that the controller can monitor and control the project online. This structure is applicable to the control of more general discrete event dynamic systems as well as the project management problem. In case no admissible control action can be found, the manager turns to the rescheduling/replanning mode to generate a new plan and schedule.