Communications to the Editor—A Note on “Decomposition of Project Networks”

In their paper Management Science, Vol. 11, No. 3, January 1965, pp. 444–459), S. C. Parikh and W. S. Jewell discuss the decomposition of cost-time project networks into subnetworks to aid in finding a cost function for the entire project. They suggest that each subproject be replaced by a set of fictitious activities (in series or in parallel) and that a subsequent analysis be performed using network flow theory. However, when the network configuration is such that series and parallel subprojects can be successively joined to give one project, a simpler method is available, which we wish to present here.