From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcritical pathˌcritical ˈpath noun [countable] BBa way of planning and organizing a large piece of work so that there will be few delays and the cost will be as low as possible Costs can be calculated once the critical path has been established.
Examples from the Corpus
critical path• They can also be utilised in programming work including network analysis and critical path.• Not dissimilar from the system known as critical path analysis, the approach envisaged should show a time-scale allocation against each task.• The optimum linking of the various stages is called the critical path.• The planning, however, is done on the Gantt chart with the critical path clearly shown by colour or shading.• The critical path through the network is the longest sequence of activities from the beginning of the network through to the end.• Sophisticated software already exists at moderate cost to effectively undertake critical path analyses. 