Link Procurement Tasks to deliver Just-In-Time without using up slack?

Every task in a critical path network has an earliest start, earliest finish, latest start, latest finish.

The early dates are the ones normally displayed in the entry table and in the Gantt chart views. That's because those are of most immediate interests because we want to know first of all how soon can tasks start, and that's also why we need the predecessors as a priority, especially the FS0 one that every task should have.

However, that's just what it does out of the box. You can easily make a custom view to display bars for the latest dates (format, bar styles), and of course they are all there in the schedule table, along with the free float and the total float.

Stick to good ol' reliable CPM. The most important feature of the method is that we schedule forwards, not backwards. If you are toying with ALAP constraints and weird links, like SF and positive and negative lag, to model just- in-time or some other management fad, you can end up doing a lot of gymnastics which are unnecessary and somewhat futile anyway.

Keep it simple. Plan to place an order for parts or materials or something asap. There is a lead time, say 60 days. It has a FS0 successor which is 100 days out. There is 40 days of free float, so you can choose any day between day 1 and day 40 to place the order.

Any help?