| Huntsville Plant Project | Erika Moore Project Management 586 |

Erika Moore
9/22/2013
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First, let’s start with a simple question. What is a critical path? According to Gido (2015), “In large network diagrams, there may be many paths of activities from the project start to the project completion. The Critical Path is the longest containing the most time consuming activities” (p. 157). Now that we have an understanding of what the Critical Path is, let’s move on to the next question. That question is what is the Huntsville Plant’s critical path?
The Huntsville Plant’s critical path is as follows. Step one is to prepare the site. This first step would include any ground preparation that may be required to accommodate a building such as the Huntsville Plant. Step two is to construct the building. This would include pouring concrete, putting up drywall, etc. The third step in the Critical Path is to install the equipment. This would include installing all technologies required for the safe operation of the facility. The fourth step in the Plant’s path is to perform a pre-production run. Now every company has their own definition of a pre-production run, so I’ll let you form your own conclusions regarding this aspect of the critical path. The next step is to perform production start up. Production start up usually means setting things in motion to begin distributing your product or service. In the case of the Huntsville Plant the production of plastic containers for the food and dairy industries. And last but not least, the sixth and final step of the critical path – beginning distribution.
Now that we know the critical path of our project, does it make sense? I believe it does. It has six steps which fit more than reasonably with the definition of a critical path. And the tasks within the critical path follow each other logically