Microsoft Project 2010 & Microsoft Word

example PM/Assignment PM - word file solution - EXAMPLE.docx

· The resources and employees have not any absences along the duration of this project

· There is no extension and lateness of work during this project.

· All work are done perfectly, there are not any re-done or re-fixed the work that will increase the working duration of that activities

· The start date of this project is Monday, 19th August 2013

· Some information that course coordinator provided around week 10 and 11 are not applied. This has been done based on the first given information.

Part A

1. The critical paths in my schedule are listed below:

1.4 P1 electronics verification

1.5 P2 circuit design

2.8 Review of designs and test plans

3.1 Industrial design

3.2 PWB outline modifications

3.3 P1 mechanical CAD design

3.4 Tolerance stack analysis

3.5 P1 mechanical part analysis

3.6 P2 mechanical part

4.2 Component tests

4.5 Product validation tests

4.6 Technical Construction File compilations

4.7 Type approval and regulatory approval tests

5.1 P1 component lead-time

5.2 P1 PWB manufacture and delivery

5.5 P1 prototype build

6.1 P2 component lead-time

6.2 P2 PWB manufacture and delivery

6.4 P2 assembly and production test preparation

6.5 P2 prototype build

8.1 assembly and production preparation

8.2 Production of devices

2. According to your schedule when is the latest date that you need to contact:

· The production manager to book the facilities for the first prototype build?

Mon 14/10/13

· The production manager to book the facilities for the second prototype build?

Wed 27/11/13

· The type approval house to book the facilities for the type approval?

Fri 13/12/13

3. A memo to the director of product development, Ms. Horsell:

Assume that the project schedule would be send as an attachment to the memo.

Memo

To: Ms. Horsell, the director of product development

From: Ms. Andersen, the project manager

Date: 10th September 2013

Subject: The Xyzzy Company outline.

Xyzzy is a medium sized company that develops and manufactures mobile data collection devices. This project commences at M1, which is the concept review. The start date of this project is Monday, 19th August 2013. The expected completion date of this project is going to be on Thursday, 27th March 2014. Therefore, the total duration of this project is 148 days. The project requires this length of time because of many factors. Firstly, some activities have to be done respectively before starting the other new activities. Secondly, there are the limited resources and fixed duration, so the project consumes this duration as these constrains. This duration was estimated without risks and accident that might be occurred such as delaying of resource delivery. For the estimated labour costs, the estimation of cost for each activity is shown in following table

4. Who does what report of Xyzzy project is shown in Figure 1 and 2.

Figure 1 Who does what report of Xyzzy project page 1

Figure 2 Who does what report of Xyzzy project page 2

5. Is there any way that the overall duration of the project can be shortened without removing any tasks? (Justify your answer. Be specific and describe any tasks that you would target and what you might do that could reduce the length of the project.)

Yes, there are some ways to shorten the overall duration of this project without removing any tasks. The activities that are critical path draw the estimated duration of the project. As a result, changing or reducing activities in critical path is obviously reduced overall duration of the project such as outsourcing the project works (resources not constrain) and fast tracking (resources constrained). For the outsourcing, the outsourcing partners, who are more specialized and familiar with the specific activities, therefore it is going to consume less time. For example, removing a critical path “3.3 P1 mechanical CAD design” to a CAD design company is going to reduce the duration of this task, as well as the overall duration. For the fast tracking, the orders of each activity could be changed. Some activity can be start earlier instead of the same sequences such as changing Finish-to-Start sequence to Start-to Start-sequence. For example, if the Xyzzy does outsource the industrial design, the outsourcer probably reduces usage time from 10 days to 5 days. As well as overall duration are decreased to 143 days. Another example, the type approval and regulatory approval tests (4.7) have to start after the technical construction file compilation (4.8). If both activities are changed the sequence to be Start-to-Start, this will mean that the type approval and regulatory approval tests have to start in the same date as the technical construction file compilation. As a result, the overall duration is reduced for 5 days.

6. Describe what the project manager needs to do to ensure that the project runs smoothly and completes on time. Give a detailed answer describing procedures, processes and anything else that you believe is important both in general terms and specifically for this project

As the project manager, evaluation and control are important in order to ensure that the project runs smoothly and complete on time. For the small project, the involvement and wandering around are enough to control the project. Anyway, it is needed the formal control in the larger project such as the project monitoring information system, the project progress report format and the project control process. Those methods help to determine what is going on the project. The project monitoring system is contained what data to collect, collecting the data, how to analyze the data and how to report current progress to management. For the project progress report format, it is shown last report progress, current status, trends, problems and also corrective action plan. For the last method, the project control process is involved “comparing actual performance against plan to identify deviations, evaluate courses of action, and take appropriate corrective action” (Larson, 2011). This method mainly uses the tracking and baseline Gantt chart, which uses in this project, and control charts as the tools. Those methods and tools are suitable to project manager to evaluate that project run ahead or behind the schedule. The manager then can control the direction of the project to be always in the scope or plan. For example, the project manager can see the actual work in tracking grant chart. If there is the lacking behind task or the over-estimated cost, the manager have to take closely control and resolve the problem immediately.

7. Is there any way that the cost of this project could be reduced? (Justify your answer. Be specific and describe any implications (apart from the reduction in cost) that could result from you suggestion(s). You are only required to discuss one suggestion to answer this question.)

Yes, there are some ways that the cost of this project could be reduced. In project management, Larson and Gray (2011) stated that there are three typical kinds of costs, which are direct cost, direct project overhead costs and general and administrative overhead cost. The direct costs are clearly chargeable to a specific work package (Larson, 2011) such as cost of materials and equipments. Secondly, direct project overhead costs are tied to project deliverable or work (Larson, 2011) packages such as rents, supplies and specialized machinery. The last cost is the general and administrative overhead cost, which is not directly linked to a specific project such as advertising and accounting. Obviously, the reduction in general and administrative overhead cost is the easiest way to decrease overall cost of this project because it is not related to project progresses and used resources as the indirect cost directly. The indirect cost is directly depended on increasing time, so reducing project time directly reduces indirect costs (Larson, 2011). Furthermore, outsourcing of some activity can be reduced the cost as well as saving the time. The salary, supplies and specialized machinery costs are removed to outsourcer, which are more familiar and specialized with specific activities. For example, if the Xyzzy does outsource the industrial design, the outsourcer probably reduces usage time from 10 days to 5 days as the previous answer about shorten the duration. The Xyzzy is going to save the cost of $6400 and then is going to pay for outsourcing, which is probably less than $6400, instead.

8. Are there any project related supporting activities, plans, events or tasks that you might have overlooked? If they were overlooked describe how this could impact on the project.

Yes, there are project related supporting activities, plans, events or tasks that you might have overlooked. All kinds of activities have the opportunities to confront with risks, which is defined as the uncertain or chance events that planning cannot overcome or control (Larson, 2011). This would be resulted in over-budget, over-expected duration, or breaking down the project. Therefore, the risk management directly is a tool to recognize and manage internal events and external threats to be a successful project. It is obviously going to improves project performances within budget and on time. Furthermore, conserving of quality as the quality management on each task and whole project are one of the key to decrease the risk or to meet the expected requirements.

Part B

1. Amend the project schedule incorporating the request from Mr. Production, the change to the delivery time for the display and the new estimated times for the regulatory approval task.

The overall duration is reduced to be 145 days and the total cost is increase to be $294,680.00

2. The impact of each of the changes:

a. The requirement for the additional resources on the prototype builds on both the duration and the cost of the project?

Both the prototype builds are required to include the participation of one engineer from electronics and one from mechanics instead of one production engineer. The cost in each prototype build is initially equal to $1600.00. After changing the resources to be an electronic engineer and a mechanics engineer, the cost of each prototype is increased to $4,400.00. This is resulted by the increase number of participating resources. Moreover, the standard rate that has to pay to a production engineer, $100.00/hr, is less than the standard rate that has to pay to an electronic engineer and a mechanics engineer together. The standard rate is reached $185.00/hr. The duration following this change is the same.

b. The change in delivery time for the display component on both the duration and the cost of the project?

At activity P1, component lead-time, the duration is requested to increase from 4 weeks to 5 weeks. As a result, the overall duration is increase for a week or 5 days following this change because this activity is critical. For this activity, there is not any required internal resource. It means that this change does not affect the cost of this project, thus the overall cost of this project following this change is the same.

c. The change in the time for the regulatory approval tests on both the duration and the cost of the project.

The type approval and regulatory approval tests are decreased the duration from 20 days to 10 days. As a result, the overall duration is decreased for two weeks or 10 days following this change because this activity is critical. Moreover, the cost is not changed as previous discussion of the change in delivery time for the display component. It is because this activity is not related to internal resources.

3. The options that would consider instead of making any of these changes:

The changes of duration that have made in this part are in the critical path, therefore it affects the overall duration of this project. In order to avoid the effect on the duration of the whole projects, the project must not adapt on critical path. On the other hand, it means that the overall duration can be reduced by decreasing duration on critical paths. Anyway, there is constrain that affects the duration and costs of project. It is the limitation of resource. In some task, the duration can be shortened by increase the number of worker, but amount of workers within organization possibly is limited. For example, Xyzzy has only one production engineer, one test engineer and one technical writer. Outsourcing, fast-tracking (changing schedule or orders of tasks, reducing project scope, compromise quality are alternative ways to save time and budget of the project.

4. What is the new duration for the project? What is the new expected completion date for the project?

The new duration is 145 days and the new expected completion date of the project is Monday, 24th March 2014.

Part C

2. a. Does this result in a resource over-allocation issue in your schedule?

Yes, this result in a resource over-allocation issue in the schedule

b. If so, resolve the resource over-allocation issue. If you had to resolve a resource over-allocation issue explain how you resolved the problem(s). If you did not have to resolve a resource over-allocation issue, explain how you would have resolved the resource over-allocation issue. a resource over-allocation issue using Microsoft Project.

A resource over-allocation issue occurs in the resource-constrain project. The resources in the project are limited in quantity and availability. Larson and Gray (2011) stated the trick is “to prioritize and allocate resources to minimize project delay without exceeding the resource limit or altering the technical network relationships”. This plays the role mainly on the minimizing slack and managing the respects or orders of each activity.

Using Microsoft Project, a resource over-allocation can be automatically resolved by selecting “Resource” and then selecting “Level all”. This function resolve resource conflicts or over-allocations the entire project by delaying or splitting tasks. This tool changes the some orders or schedules as shown in the Figure 3 and 4. It shows that the orders of some activities are managed.

Figure 1 The grant chart of Activity 2, which is contained the resources mainly from software engineer in Part B

Figure 2 The grant chart of Activity 2, which is contained the resources mainly from software engineer in Part C (The over-allocation have been resolved by levelling)

3. Has this change impacted on the duration of your project? Explain why/why not.

No, this change has not impacted on the duration of project. The resolving has been done in slack of activity such as adjusting order based on the range of slack. Therefore, the adjusting has not been done in critical path, which is no slack or slack is zero.

4. Has this change impacted on the sensitivity of the network? Explain why/why not.

Yes, this change impacted on the sensitivity of the network. “A sensitive network would be one or more than critical paths and/or noncritical activities with very little slack” (Larson, 2011). It means that the schedule in not adjustable or levelling easily. If there is any change on critical path or change that do not respect to the slack, the whole project will be affected. In Xyzzy, there are many critical paths within Activity 2; therefore, it is hard to avoid the adjusting on critical path.

Reference

Larson, EW & Gray, CF 2011, Project management: the managerial process, 5th edition, McGraw-Hill

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