Two organizations were the spawning grounds for the new technology. In 1956, E.I. du Pont de Nemours Co., Wilmington, Del., started studying the application of new techniques to run its mammoth engineering and construction projects. The companys mathematicians decided that a UNIVAC 1 computer could generate a work schedule if it was fed information for sequence of work and the time needed to perform each task. Working at du Ponts Newark, Del., complex, the company team was assisted by UNIVAC scientists. Working under James E. Kelley Jr. of Remington Rand Co., which made the UNIVAC computer, and du Ponts Morgan Walker, they set up the basics of critical path method scheduling for construction projects.
Aware of the work at du Pont and that weapons development programs typically ran far past their deadlines, the U.S. Navy decided to see if this kind of project management and scheduling techniques could be applied to its Polaris submarine program. By the latter half of 1958, the Navy had developed a network system called performance evaluation and review technique, or PERT. It eventually was applied to other weapons programs. Although it was not identical, it shared many char-acteristics with the du Pont system.