Activity scheduling through gantt charts in an ms excel spreadsheet

Abstract

Effective communication of task-resource assignment plans comprises several challenges in important fields such as production scheduling and/or project management. Said difficulties result from the cost and sophistication level of most project planning information tools, and from the pedagogic challenge implied in getting people with different educational levels to communicate through such tools. The present work introduces the implementation grounds of a simple information technology development for the construction of Gantt charts as decision making support tools for people or companies that have limited access to sophisticated information technology tools. The implementation and execution of the Visual Basic code with Excel applications are described in detail, as well as the correct use of the Excel solver add-in from VBA macros to solve the implemented mathematical models.

Keywords

• Gantt’s charts
• project management
• scheduling
• spreadsheet program
• directed graphs