Which chart is the earliest planning and control tool that shows the relationship between planned performance and actual performance over time, used for machine loading or progress monitoring?

• A. Gantt chart
• B. PERT chart
• C. Control chart
• D. Ishikawa diagram

Answer: (A)

A Gantt chart shows planned versus actual progress over time, making it the earliest tool used for planning, scheduling, and monitoring work on the shop floor. It represents tasks as horizontal bars along a time axis, with planned start and finish dates. By overlaying or color-coding actual start and finish dates on those bars, you can quickly see which tasks are slipping, which are ahead, and how the workload lines up with machine capacity. This visual timing and progress tracking is exactly what early planning and control needs for coordinating machine loading and tracking progress against the plan.

The other options don’t fit as the primary planning and progress-tracking tool. A PERT chart focuses on task sequencing and estimating project duration through a network of dependencies, not on a straightforward, at-a-glance, time-based progress comparison. A control chart monitors process variation over time to ensure quality, not to plan and track project progress. An Ishikawa diagram (fishbone) is used for root-cause analysis of problems, not for scheduling or monitoring progress against a plan.