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Project Management

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Project Management

Project management allows the managers to plan for the construction in advance to ensure that all the aspects and the risks of the management are taken into consideration (Mehta, 2007). The project manager works in collaboration with his team of experts in the various fields to ensure that they deliver high quality work for the shareholders. They work in tandem with the existing policies, guidelines and laws. They have to adhere to the deadline and they are allowed to manipulate the timeline of the project to ensure that it works for the best of the company. Any delay in any activity has the potential to delay the subsequent activities. A delay in the critical activities delays the entire project.

The project manager has to perform an analysis of the project to identify the critical path of the project (Patel, 2008). The analysis of the critical path allows the project managers to identify the most suitable activities for crashing to suit the needs of the shareholders. The crashing of the critical activities comes at an additional expense for the company, but it is worth the extra dollars given that it saves time for the project in terms of meeting the deadline. It prevents the losses that the company would have incurred without crashing the project, regarding the delays, the foregone incomes from the delays and the extra money that would have been paid for additional labor and other related costs.

Whole foods Inc. is in the process of constructing a new retails store to allow it to reach out to the existing customers as well as expanding its store network. The company aims at increasing the brick and mortar by improving its infrastructure. The improvement of its infrastructure will allow the company to benefit from low costs of annual rent expenses, thus saving on its costs. The organization offers a wide range of products that focus on the nutritional health of its customers.

The Project

The project will involve several activities to ensure its success. It will begin with the acquisition of several permits such as the building permit, the electrical permit, the plumbing and sanitation permit and so on. There will be several contracts to be signed by the project manager on behalf of the company. The project manager will initiate the project upon being satisfied that he or she has every required permit for the start of the construction (Patel, 2008). The building permit will be acquired first to kick of the project. It will be followed up by an inspection to the construction site by the city engineer. The project will involve several contractors, all working independently, but in conjunction with the company’s team of experts. The electrical permit will be given to allow the electrical company to make the necessary installations. The plumbing works’ company will be allowed to go ahead with its activities, having followed the due processes as required by the city engineer.

It is estimated that the project will take up millions of dollars, given that it is set to become the biggest Whole Foods Inc. retail store in the entire United States. The critical activities will include the construction site excavation, the plumbing works, the site set-up, the building of a firewall, the construction of the pillars and the slab as well as the finishing. The construction will last for eleven months, and the deadline is expected to be in twelve months. The acquisition of the permits will take the first month, after which the construction will begin. All the materials for the project are expected to be on the construction site a day before they are required, to save on the stock-out costs (Collins, 2011) as well as reducing the risk of the potential delays.

The construction will be expected to stand out from the nearby buildings. It will be surrounded by a wide parking lot on each of its four sides and the drainage system will be modern to ensure proper drainage of the rain water. It is expected that the rainfall will only affect the construction progress by a month, and that has been catered for in the addition of a provisional one month to the project’s timeline. The activities of the project will be integrated in such a way that it will be possible to present them on a table, giving cognizance to the fact that some of them will overlap to save on the building costs as well as to save on the required time to complete the project.

The project management team will play a crucial role in the identification of the risks by anticipating them before they become due (Hobbs, 2009). The risks include the delay of the raw materials, the loss of the loose tools, the occurrence of accidents within the construction site, the loss of raw materials as well as the lack of skilled labor. All these risks will be evaluated depending on their frequency and their consequences on the delay of the project. Some of them will have huge financial consequences on the project while others will have minimal or negligible consequences, thus they will be classified as trivial.

References

Collins, R. (2011). Project management. New York: Nova Science.

Hobbs, P. (2009). Project management. London: Dorling Kindersley.

Mehta, R. (2007). Project management. Jaipur: Aavishkar.

Patel, V. (2008). Project management. Jaipur, India: Oxford Book.