Management device, management method and recording medium

A management method for managing a network including a master device and slave devices connected to the master device, the management method comprising:

• a transmission delay time prediction step of calculating a theoretical transmission delay time from when the master device starts transmitting data to when the data returns to the master device via all of the slave devices, on the basis of configuration information of the network and node information indicating specific parameters of the master device and the slave devices;
• a cycle setting step for setting a task cycle;
• a transmission delay time measurement step of measuring a transmission delay time in the network;
• and
• a transmission delay time setting step of presenting a calculated value from the theoretical transmission delay time calculated in the transmission delay time prediction step and a measured value from the transmission delay time obtained in the transmission delay time measurement step to a user to set a new transmission delay time for setting the task cycle at which the master device transmits a signal to the slave device in response to the user's selection operation, wherein in response to the transmission delay time measured by the transmission delay time measurement step being longer than the theoretical transmission delay time calculated by the theoretical transmission delay time step, another cycle setting step is performed to correct the task cycle in a way that after an output instruction is transmitted from the master device, a response of the output instruction from all the slave devices is transmitted during the task cycle and is received by the management device in another task cycle which is right after the task cycle.